A second appearance by Ramsay
Ramsay is a new name for me: I’ve searched the archive and can’t see any comment from me on the previous puzzle and I have no recollection of solving it, which is rather odd. It was certainly well received and this one seems a worthy follow-up.
I found this a very interesting puzzle, with a fresh approach to cluing, which made for an enjoyable solve. I particularly admired the linkage of the first three clues – a brilliant start – and the cross-referencing of 6 and 15 in 8dn. There are some neat anagrams (12ac TREACHERIES, 20av EVANGELISM), three ‘lift and separates’ (2dn, 14dn and 23dn) and smooth, meaningful surfaces throughout. My other ticks were for 13ac BANANA SKIN, 23ac GASTRONOMIC and 5dn DIRECTION. There are a couple of places where I can’t quite see the parsing, so thanks in advance for enlightenment.
(Those expecting / hoping for a Paul puzzle at this end of the week might not be too disappointed, I think.)
Thanks to Ramsay for the puzzle. I’m sorry I missed your first one (I’ve just consulted my 2025 diary and see that I was busy cooking for a family occasion on that day) and look forward to the next.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 Just as orgasm prompts poem by Yeats … (3,6,6)
THE SECOND COMING
THE SECOND (just as) + COMING (orgasm)
9 … wrongly read note by misfortunate Keats (7)
MISTAKE
MI (note) + an anagram (misfortunate) of KEATS
10 For example, Keats and Yeats (or not) (7)
RHYMERS
Keats and Yeats are both poets but their names don’t rhyme with each other
12 Heretics are punished for unfaithful acts (11)
TREACHERIES
An anagram (punished) of HERETICS ARE
13 You might slip on this bats blood (6,4)
BANANA SKIN
BANANAS (bats) + KIN (blood? – it works for me)
15 Light’s non-binding energy (4)
NEON
NON round E (energy)
18 E … e (4)
ECHO
ECHO represents E in the NATO alphabet – and the best I can do is that the second e echoes the first – but I’m sure you can do better
20 Bible teaching wrongly maligns Eve (10)
EVANGELISM
An anagram (wrongly) of MALIGNS EVE
23 Gordon’s starter presented to massive foody? (11)
GASTRONOMIC
G[ordon] + ASTRONOMIC (massive); food-y – a neat (Pauline) definition
25, 11 That man follows backwash of river froth (6)
SEETHE
HE (that man) following a reversal (backwash) of TEES (river)
26 Playing bingo, the French are mean (7)
IGNOBLE
An anagram (playing) of BINGO + LE (the French) – I’m not entirely happy with the grammar here but it’s a nice clue and I’d like it to work
27 Beast of burden returned to castle (7)
CAMELOT
CAMEL (beast of burden) + a reversal (returned) of TO
28 Fascist leader controlled Houston with rumba master general (9,6)
FRANCISCO FRANCO
F[ascist) + RAN (controlled) – but I can’t disentangle the rest, I’m afraid
Down
1 Backup part of database liable to corruption (9)
TEMPTABLE
TEMP (backup) + TABLE (part of database)
2 Sea-sick seabird from China? (7)
EASTERN
An anagram (sick) of SEA + TERN (seabird)
3 Challenging former lover on stage (8)
EXACTING
EX (former lover) + ACTING (on stage)
4 Huge honour to sit on banks of Seine (5)
OBESE
OBE (Order of the British Empire – honour) + S[ein]E
5 Re-entering language course (9)
DIRECTION
RE in DICTION (language)
6 Gone wild with axes splitting something needed for fire (6)
OXYGEN
XY (axes) in an anagram (wild) of GONE
7 Provide detailed account of quite miserable passage (7)
ITEMISE
Deftly hidden in quITE MISErable
8 Donates, as replacing 4, 6 and 15 (5)
GASES
G[iv]ES (donates) with AS replacing iv (4)
14 International waters still surrounded by dumb-asses (5,4)
SEVEN SEAS
EVEN (still) in an anagram (dumb) of ASSES
16 Dropping dead, wrote frantically (6,3)
NUMBER TWO
NUMB (dead) + an anagram (frantically) of WROTE
17 Fresher report of any toilet more sullied (8)
NEWCOMER
NE (sounds like – report of – ‘any’) + WC (toilet) + an anagram (sullied) of MORE; I was held up for a minute or two here, trying to make NEWER from ‘fresher’ – but it was cleverer than that
19 Take end from communion wafer – on reflection, an exaltation! (7)
HOSANNA
HOS[t] (communion wafer) + AN NA (AN – on reflection)
21 Slight temperature dropping off with cool hormone (7)
INSULIN
INSUL[t] (slight) minus t (temperature) + IN (cool)
22 A right-beginning, dotted-letter-including alphabet (6)
ARABIC
A + R[ight] + I (dotted letter) in ABC (alphabet) – I’m not sure of the definition but I liked the clever use of the last hyphen
23 Sadness as building terminally fire-damaged (5)
GRIEF
[buildin]G + an anagram (damaged) of FIRE
24 Like Top Gun pilot’s taxiing speed (approximately) (5)
MACHO
MACH O (pilot’s taxiing speed, approximately) – I don’t really understand this one
In 24 Mach 1 is the speed of sound so Mach 0 might be taxiing speed. In 19 the AN is part of wordplay not definition.
Thanks both.
Thanks Ramsay and Eileen
Not on Ramsay’s wavelength in several places here (including 28, which I don’t see either!)
Favourite RHYMERS.
I’ve never seen Top Gun, but were the pilots macho? (Wouldn’t Mach 0 be stationary?)
(Slight typo, Eileen – you have V instead of X in 3d.)
Thanks Eileen. After some research, (i.e. Google, Wiki), I found Cisco Houston, an American folk singer and songwriter, and Franco Luambo, “a master of the Congolese rumba”.
Much respect to anyone that knew either of those two without doing research!
Quite tricky and enjoyable puzzle.
Favourites: BANANA SKIN, RHYMERS, NEWCOMER, ECHO (loi).
I could not parse the temp part of 1d and 19d – I was brought up C of E and went to an Anglican school but I did not understand the communion wafer bit of this clue! I also realise now that I did not parse 28ac but the answer was obvious.
New for me: 1ac – thanks to google I found the poem by Yeats.
FRANCO in FF I think refers to Franco Luambo a rumba master (thanks wikipedia) I’m struggling with CISCO/Houston
I see Crispy @3 has it. Thanks!
Yes, much to enjoy including BANANA SKIN and the Keats & Yeats clues. Many thanks to Ramsay and Eileen.
Mach 0 works as “approximately”
Crispy @3
Well, much respect from me for doing the research! – many thanks. I suspected something like that but couldn’t see where to start. Bravo!
Lots of clues which I thought initially didn’t work but which turned out to be clever when fully understood.
muffin @2 – taxiing speed is only slightly faster than mach 0, so it’s approximately mach 0
I also can’t parse most of 28
I think in 22, ABC could come from “beginning” leaving alphabet free for the definition
I have no recollection of having tackled Ramsay’s previous offering (which doesn’t, of course, mean I didn’t do it) and I agree with you, Eileen, about the clueing style and resulting enjoyment.
I much prefer smooth surfaces to word-salads, and this was chock-full of pleasing images.
I can’t help with the parsing of 28A (I only managed to semi-parse it – and chapeau to Crispy for unearthing the Congolese Rumba maestro) but perhaps 24D, in addition to Mach 0, is simply referring to the plethora of tiresome macho antics in that film…
Lots of clever anagrams, but actually my faves were OBESE, NEON and EASTERN – for their respective surface and pithiness.
Thank you for the blog, and thank you Ramsay – I look forward to your next one.
I think ARABIC is a semi &lit, as Arabic has many dotted letters, but I can’t quite make it work. A very enjoyable puzzle.
I was equally puzzled by the rumba master, so many thanks to Crispy and Rich, but was rather proud of digging up Cisco Houston from the depths of my memory of a very early Dylan number, ‘Song to Woody’ (Guthrie), with the lines ‘Here’s to Cisco an’ Sonny an’ Leadbelly too / An’ to all the good people that traveled with you’. It’s a lovely tribute to Guthrie that Dylan sang to him when he was dying of Huntington’s chorea.
I think ARABIC is an &lit isn’t it? Starting on the right, containing dotted ‘letters’ …
ARABIC
Looks like an &lit clue
ARABIC is written from right to left, many dotted letters included…
Thanks Ramsay and Eileen.
And just to add – I very much enjoyed this, so thanks to Ramsay and Eileen.
I would assume 22 is meant as an &-lit – it’s certainly an accurate description of the Arabic alphabet.
Mach 0 as explained at #1 and the Top Gun possibly a gunslinger. More macho than a pilot. Another lift and separate? Elsewhere I liked DIRECTION and RHYMERS. Thanks.
ARABIC is an &Lit, “right beginning” because it is written right-to-left, it has dotted letters, and is an alphabet.
Like others here I suspected FRANCISCO FRANCO for a long time before entering it when enough crossers appeared, I had no idea why Houston might be CISCO or rumba master FRANCO but it eventually became obvious that it was the answer so kudos to Crispy@3 for the obscure info.
What a wonderful forum this is! Many thanks to all who’ve helped with 22dn – &lit it is, then.
This puzzle gets better all the time. 😉
Browsing through the wikipedia article on Keats (to find the unheard of poem) I discovered he founded a poetry club called THE RHYMERS. Could this be part of a theme?
Re ECHO. My reading is that the e is the quieter echo of the E.
Crispy@21 That’s exactly what I thought.
I’m with Crispy ref ECHO – the E is getting smaller and fading away … away … awa
Cisco Houston rang a faint bell but only after reading Eileen’s try, so my entry was a total biff. As for the rumba bloke, well ..! But yes, lots of clever clues. I liked the choice of name in 23ac and the sly cheat of foodie->foody to give the -ic ending. Thanks Ramsay and Eileen, looking forward to the next.
Like Crispy @3 I’d Googled the previously unheard of Messrs Houston and Luambo. Like everyone else, the solution had become self-evident before that.
I loved MACHO (Top Gun is one of the most homoerotic blockbusters in history, reaching an apotheosis in the infamous/celebrated volleyball scene. As has been discussed repeatedly this week, words take on new meanings over time.) I like the idea of taxiing speed being measured using a totally inappropriate scale, like measuring my running speed using a calendar.
Other favourites include GASES and BANANA SKIN (first one in).
This was an excellent puzzle.
Thanks Ramsay, Eileen and elucidatory commenters.
I enjoyed this, but there were a few doozies, chief among them FRANCISCO FRANCO, which I’d never have solved, as I see it involves three people I’d never heard of. I also entered timetable for 1d, as it fitted nicely, and I was looking forward to coming here for parsing. The clue for ECHO — which I got — was a bit unusual.
Crispy @21 – you’re on form today! Thanks Amma @22 and PM @23 for confirmation.
I found this one brilliant! Loved the &lit of 22D – the non-rhyming RHYMERS was a real “A-ha!” moment. NEWCOMER was nifty as well, and wondering if 23A was slightly eponymous.
Still struggling with Echo and don’t quite follow “Just As” = “The Second”, but thank you Eileen and Ramsey.
Eileen @27. No I’m not. I always believed Franco’s first name was General!
N-S @28
I gave him a cup of tea just as/the second he arrived?
Thanks muffin!
Thanks Ramsay and Eileen.
I think I’ve said it before, but it feels like you can tell someone’s on their first few cryptics and is finally getting to publish some clues they’ve been sat on a while. TEMPTABLE (wonder if this came from creating a temp table in SQL), INSULIN, ARABIC and NEWCOMER are all very nice.
Re ECHO. When texting, capital letters are seen as shouting, so the first E is very loud and the second is fainter – hence echo
Nobody so far seems to have mentioned a general theme here – if you know the poem in 1a it makes a number of the references in other answers extremely pertinent to today’s global situation.
I’m sad enough to know CISCO Houston, link to something I vaguely knew was by him and others may know. I didn’t know Franco without research.
Thank you to Eileen and Ramsay for the puzzle.
Really enjoyed this one and it was largely a write in for us. We felt it was easy for a Thursday but I suspect that we were seemingly on the same wavelength as the setter. It makes such a difference.
Like many others, the parsing of 28 stumped us and was only allowed in after it became obvious. Two seemingly incredibly obscure people required to complete it. Kudos to Crispy for finding them! I can’t help but think that there was a better way to get to the answer.
We particularly liked NEWCOMER, GASES and ECHO (I thought it was really elegant and assumed it was an oldie – Mr Cheesewoman didn’t agree).
I wondered with ARABIC and considered that A BIC might be used for creating those dots but I prefer the reading that ARABIC is an alphabet with lots of dots.
Sarah@12: snap! Cisco Houston came easily to mind for me, probably through the Dylan connection. Not so the rumba master, though the dictator was pretty obvious. For 18a, I had EASE for a while, but I like the fading ECHO. MACHO was also really neat. Indeed, it was good all round. Thanks, Ramsay and Eileen.
Well, I didn’t find this a Rough Beast at all, after having written in 1a . Some lovely clues throughout…
travellingran @34 – I wish that I could go back and start again – and most of all that this had been a Prize puzzle, with time to do more research, as already mentioned, to do full justice to the puzzle.
I have never actually studied the poem (knew ‘things fall apart’ from the Chinua Achebe novel) but I always knew I should and shall certainly do so now. Many thanks for pointing out the theme.
This is bordering on ‘Be careful what you wish for’ territory. Having said that I look forward to Ramsay’s next puzzle, I hope that, if it falls to me to blog it, I can make a better job of it than today’s effort.
Eileen@39. Don’t worry – a theme leapt out at me after three or four answers only because I know that wonderful (and prescient?) poem which was my second one in. I do however recommend anyone here to read it.
I found this a bit easier than previous Thursday puzzles, though still needed this blog to help me parse a few (e.g. 28, as most people here). Did not know host=communion wafer (having had a Calvinist upbringing). I must confess I did not know that Yeats does not rhyme with Keats. I googles rhymers, and came across the Rhymers club. I assumed Keates was part of it and Yeats was not… I liked oxygen, for its mix of chemistry (oxygen needed for fire) and mathematics (xy axes). I needed help the parse 8 down though, thinking 4 must be “obese”…. Thanks, Ramsay, for a very enjoyable puzzle, and Eileen for this blog
Great fun, with the same bung for the fascist general. Thanks Ramsay, Eileen and bloodhound Crispy!
…I’ve often wondered why certain authors/poets are referred to by their initial letters instead of by their forenames – W.B.Yeats, T.S.Eliot, E.E.Cummings, H.G.Wells, G.K.Chesterton to name but a few…
I don’t normally manage to finish a Thursday one, so this was a nice surprise! Lots of fun clues today.
I really enjoyed that, a lovely level of wit from Ramsay. Looking forward to the next ones.
Lovely grid, too many favourites to list. Every other clue had me laughing! I couldn’t parse Francisco Franco, and had to resort to google to figure out Cisco Houston and Franco Luambo. Not an easy puzzle, but most certainly an enjoyable one.
Ta, Ramsay & Eileeen!
That was very enjoyable with some neat cluing.
Like Eileen I could not parse 28a, though the answer had to be the Generalissimo.
I particularly liked 5d and the Paul-like 16d.
Thanks both.
Not sure anyone’s given a full parsing of 22D yet (which I really liked). I make it:
A -> A
right beginning -> R
then dotted-letter = I, so a dotted-letter-containing alphabet would be an ABC containing I -> ABIC
and the definition is the whole thing as an &lit, as arabic runs RTL and many arabic letters are combinations of dots
I have a vague memory of a previous “Second Coming” themed crossword. There was one where Rodriguez used the first words as a Nina, but I think there was another, too.
I didn’t like the puzzle because of the strong Paulish vibe. Having said that, I found some of the clues very ingenuous; my favourite is ARABIC, which is full &lit. as KVa@14 and Channel Swimmer @18 said. FRANCISCO FRANCO is a semi-&lit., and MACHO, I think, too (I’ve watched the movie long ago but if I’m not mistaken they take off almost immediately requiring virtually no taxiing). I didn’t fully understand RHYMERS before coming here, but it is a great clue. Except for some parsing, the puzzle wasn’t difficult. Thanks Ramsay and Eileen
Finished the whole puzzle last night, unusual for me..
FRANCISCO FRANCO came to mind as a general, and then Cisco Houston seemed natural. Never heard of the rumba man.
How does TEMP = backup?
Thanks, Ramsay and Eileen.
Wouldn’t the clue be slightly more convincing as E … e …?
Petert @49 – here’s the Rodriguez puzzle: https://www.fifteensquared.net/?s=Independent+11%2C139
Valentine @51
I took TEMP as ‘a person employed on a temporary basis’ = backup (‘support or reinforcement’) (both definitions from Collins.
A very entertaining puzzle. My favourite was EVANGELISM for the brilliant surface (“Bible teaching wrongly maligns Eve”). 28a (FRANCISCO FRANCO) was a very interesting clue because the first two words could also have been the definition, although in fact they’re part of the wordplay.
travellingran @34 and 40: I’m afraid I can’t really see a theme relating to the poem in the other answers. Could you (or anyone else) explain please?
Many thanks Ramsay and Eileen.
Very enjoyable, albeit over a bit too quickly. 20A was my clear favorite for its clever surface. I had no issues with ECHO, so perhaps I am underthinking it. (Is that a thing?)
I looked up the poem as suggested by travellingran@34 and discovered I know it well, but never knew the title!
Martin@25 A calendar would be totally appropriate for my running speed these days. Even at the peak of my running days, I could run a half-marathon in the time some people can complete a full one.
For the temp/backup thing, see here: https://www.avaware.com/avawire/2019/10/Understanding-Auto-Backups-and-the-Windows-Temp-Folder.html
Loved the Rhymers clue, Franco I got without parsing the rhumba master bit, which I would never have worked out.
ronald @43 There was an undoubted literary vogue for this between the later years of the 19th century through until the late 1930s. Besides those you mention, see AE Houseman, DH Lawrence, TE Lawrence, EF Benson, CP Snow, EM Forster, AA Milne and even critics such as AC Bradley, WK Wimsatt and FR Leavis. I once asked a colleague better versed than I in that area what the reason was for this, but he had no idea.
Billy Mills @58
Many thanks for that!
[E E Cummings was, of course, e e cummings!]
Doh! Another one here putting in TIMETABLE instead of TEMPTABLE; I just couldn’t see what else would fit the crossers. I should know that if I can’t parse it, it’s probably wrong. Though that didn’t apply to FRANCISCO FRANCO, which – especially now I look at the various comments here, I hadn’t a hope in Hades of parsing. Well done to Crispy@3 and others for working that out.
Huge amounts to enjoy in this, and enjoy it I did. I’m partial to a bit of Cyclopian or Paul-ish scurrility, so that all added to the fun.
CotD probably the Yeats / Keats RHYMERS. That reminds me that I might re-read “Brother of the more famous Jack”, which pleased me greatly when it first came out. NEWCOMER was also a high spot; a very neat assemblage of differently set-up bits.
I look forward to more like this from Ramsey, and of course to Eileen’s blogging.
[Balfour@59 et al. : the poetic nomenclature I always find puzzling is “Alfred, Lord Tennyson”. I don’t know of any other ennobled poets or other notables whose name and title are expressed thus. Why not “Lord Alfred Tennyson”? ]
Nice mix of face-slappers and head-scratchers. Paul’s position as smutmeister general under threat…
DerekTheSheep @62 – as an (ex) SQL Developer, TEMPTABLE was a write in for me, though I can understand that those unfamiliar with SQL would find it a bit mystifying.
Thanks as always to Ramsey and Eileen
Taking up MatofThorner’s reminder to check on the setter’previous offerings I see that in their 1st puzzle 1a was FIRST APPEARANCE, followed here by 1a THE SECOND COMING
Any bets for the answer to 1a in their next offering?
Like others struggled to parse Franco, but finally all is explained for me
Thanks all
HIYD@65: TABLE as part of a database was fine (I’ve been cursed with doing things in MS Access), it was the TEMP/TIME on which I stumbled. You see the trouble was, I was too hasty. And you’ll never get nowhere if you’re too hasty.
Good research, DropBear @66. Third time’s a charm?
[Balfour@59: the vogue has a contemporary echo in the Georgia-born poet and translator AE Stallings, currently the Professor of Poetry at Oxford.]
DTS @67
As Fred discovered?
Or maybe lucky, Martin@68?
Thanks Ramsay, I enjoyed that, though I failed to parse several (communion wafer = HOST and just as = THE SECOND among others), and guessed (rightly) that FRANCISCO FRANCO contained people I hadn’t heard of. I liked the E(e)cho and the neatly misleading GASES, and some very nice anagrams and surfaces.
Having worked for some years as a TEMP, I was often acting as backup for an absent employee, so no problem there. However, although EVANGELISM may involve Bible teaching, it doesn’t have to, and that isn’t quite what the word means.
Thanks Eileen – I for one like the way you involve all of us in the blog.
Great fun, clever throughout, and tricksy in places.
I loved NEON, ECHO and the undoubtedly &lit ARABIC for their entertaining devices, plus GASTRONOMIC, EVANGELISM, OBESE, OXYGEN, NUMBER TWO, GRIEF… well the whole puzzle really! To my shame I couldn’t parse NEWCOMER or HOSANNA, both of which are also faves after the fact.
I got off to a flying start and with pencilling in FRANCISCO FRANCO and all its helpful checkers very early though like most others here I couldn’t parse it beyond FRAN. Very nicely hinted via Fascist leader, though.
However that was counteracted by the nho poem THE SECOND COMING being my loi and hence I had none of its helpful checkers! Inevitably, then, I found the top half slightly chewier than the bottom half. It seemed very likely that there would be a theme but I equally knew it would be lost on me.
I took a while to see that SEETHE was enumerated as 6 rather than 3,3 which did make me reluctant to put in the rather obvious THE for a while.
IGNOBLE may or may not be grammatical depending on what the rules are! Can we say that the two parts – (BINGO)* and LE – are (the constuents of the) def? I’d be interested to hear the thoughts of more experienced solvers, especially KVa.
I too missed Ramsay’s first outing (on 30 Dec last year so in that busy busy period) but I am certainly looking forward to their next one. Thanks both!
*constituents
Oh, great spot, DropBear@66! This puzzle keeps on giving.
Tough but very enjoyable. Nothing to add to the erudite discussion. Also like DerekTheSheep@62 recommend reading Brother of the more famous Jack.
Many thanks to Ramsay, Eileen and all the other contributors to parsing this puzzle.
I thoroughly enjoyed the humour in this last night and got off to a flyer with the poet clues. Crispy on a roll (geddit) this morning for sure. I thought the theme was GASES with obviously NEON and OXYGEN and maybe GAS(TRONOMIC). Knowing little about Chemistry (scraped a C at O Level), I wondered if an IGNOBLE gas was a thing, as opposed to the noble ones, and the only google hit I got was Xenon, but I’m sure muffin can enlighten me. My favourite was EVANGELISM and thanks to those who pointed out the clever &lit ARABIC. Looking forward to the third man.
Ta Ramsay & Eileen.
[AlanC@76: Ignoble gases? Well, I suppose propane is pretty close to being profane… ]
DerekTheSheep @77: 👏
Loved this. Looking forward to Ramsay’s next, if only to see how long the 1a ordinal number trick can be spun out 😁
There’s something rather friendly about the way this setter works which I very much warmed to. Hard but not vicious! Loved BANANA SKIN.
As Eileen said, a refreshing approach to cluing–I especially liked the subtle use of hyphenation in 5d and 15ac (LOI). 16d my clue of the day.
I did get Franco once I’d bunged it–an absolute titan of African music, but unlike say Fela or Sunny Adé not as well known outside it unless you’re in the habit of trawling Robert Christgau’s A plus grades (which is how I found him). Had to look up Cisco though. Fair to say that the GK was pretty taxing here.
Thanks Ramsay and Eileen!
Slightly related to the discussion above on writer’s names (although not about initials) I have always liked the reasoning of James Dover Grant when he chose to use Lee Child as the pen name for his ‘Jack Reacher’ series of thrillers. He calculated that being placed between Raymond Chandler and Agatha Christie on library and bookshop shelves would give his sales a boost. He was not wrong! Thanks Eileen for the blog, and especially the ones that I failed to parse, SEETHE (I thought it was 3,3) NEWCOMER and HOSANNA. Thanks to Crispy @3 for explaining FRANCO. Thanks Ramsay for a very enjoyable puzzle!
I’m not very keen on splitting single word solutions (as in 25,11 SEETHE), but I enjoyed this overall. And the references to ‘fading away’ in comments above (re 18A) have brought to mind one of my favourite limericks from Spike Milligan, so thanks for that.
There once was a fellow called Wyatt
Whose voice was abnormally quiet.
Then one day
It faded away
…
Keats, Yeats … eat your hearts out!
Ramsay new to me too. Lovely puzzle. I too was stumped on the parse of Francisco Franco – thanks for the clarifications! Maybe the references are a bit too obscure – but as long as it’s solvable from the definition and crossers, it creates a learning opportunity, which is always a bonus.
Loved BANANA SKIN and GASES.
Look forward to more RAMSAY – as Eileen says – a new twist on clueing to test us!
I was afraid when I started this that it was going to be a poets theme all the way through, and I’m not at all up on my poetry! But a quick google confirmed 1A and then 9 and 10A fell into place and I could breathe a sigh of relief!
Being a biochemist, I really enjoyed the 6, 8, 15 GASES combo, especially the xy axes in 6 and IV to AS wordplay in 8. Also, INSULIN for 21d.
For 25,11 SEETHE I too was looking for a 3,3, so it took a while for me to get.
For 28, I was looking for some connection to the literary CISCO Kid for the Houston part – the stories took place on the Mexico/Texas border region – but couldn’t find anything better than that. The rhumba master was way beyond my pay grade.
Few others I couldn’t parse, so thanks Eileen for the blog, and Ramsay too.
[Dropbear@63 : barons are correctly referred to as (forename), Lord (barony title). As a recent example, John Prescott was formally John, Lord Prestcott of Kingston upon Hull, though journalists rarely got it right!
Similarly, Alfred was Alfred, Lord Tennyson of Aldworth in the County of Sussex and of Freshwater in the Isle of Wight. ]
Ramsay was a new setter for us too, What a marvellous crossword – particularly for the reference to Franco Luambo, which at the time we thought couldn’t be part of the wordplay as it is a bit obscure as GK (unless you know it). As matt w says @81, he is one of the greats of African music. We are big fans, so here is a link to one of his classics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zZyGkGN7Sw Congolese rumba is a lovely type of guitar-based groove, which isn’t widely enough known. Thanks to Eileen and Ramsay
I was wondering if Cissy Houston’s real name could possibly be Cisco, but I didn’t bother to check. I came here, instead, for that, rhymer and newcomer. Arabic definitely my favorite clue.
I tried TRACTABLE for 1d. But “cart” backwards didn’t make sense.
Excellent crossword, nicely chewy, subtle and humourous.
[DavidA@86: That was me, not Dropbear! Thank you. I didn’t know that. Quite a business properly addressing an envelope to Lord Alf, then. ]
DropBear@66. Good idea! How about THIRD STONE FROM THE SUN? (Possibly not Jimi Hendrix‘s finest moment.)
AP@73: “SEETHE was enumerated as 6 rather than 3,3 which did make me reluctant to put in the rather obvious THE”. As I understand it, the convention is that if you have a six letter word and two three letter lights, each of the three letter answers must be a word, but the enumeration is (6), not (3,3).
Great stuff although THE SECOND COMING and NUMBER TWO weren’t the best breakfast solving material.
Couldn’t parse NEWCOMER so thanks for the blog.
So many favourites in this most already mentioned.
Thanks Ramsey and Eileen
I enjoyed this, especially the GASES from 6 & 15. And NUMBER TWO. I enjoyed the long anagrams at 12 and 20. And the RHYMERS not rhyming…
Well done Crispy@3 for searching out the references in 28a, but if I were the editor I would have been having a word with the setter about the obscurity of ‘Houston’ and ‘rumba master’. OK, the answer was clear from the crossers, at least it was to those of us who didn’t think that FRANCO’s moniker was GENERAL (Crispy again @29! 🙂 ).
But that’s a minor quibble on my part.
I stuck a totally wrong MAXIM in at 24d – it’s a gun, and a maximum speed of one while taxiing, no it doesn’t work at all, does it – and groaned at the thought of a ‘beast of burden’ beginning with X. Luckily it wasn’t that sort of crossword.
Thanks to Ramsay, and to Eileen as always.
I loved the FIRST APPEARANCE and did for THE SECOND COMING too (great spot, DropBear@66!).
Among a few other lovely clues, MACHO made me laugh out loud in the bus. Thank you Crispy @3 for disentangling the Francos.
Thank you Ramsay and Eileen!
COD NUMBER TWO. FRANCO is a well-known musician in East and Central Africa.
Some bits I liked some bits I didn’t, and overall I felt a bit meh. I liked MACH 0 a lot, and feel we should call out that Maverick (Tom Cruise’s character) had the catchphrase “I feel the need, the need for speed” so that low taxiing speed for the pilots at Top Gun seems appropriate. Thanks Eileen and Ramsay.
If this is Ramsay’s second puzzle, there is a theme: The Second Coming, Number Two, and Echo.
A lot of oblique synonyms made this really tricky. Took all day, although my time was limited. Couldn’t solve 15a NEON, 7d ITEMISE, or 8d GASES (thought it had double-S)
I agree with Wellbeck@10 that this one had a lot of good surfaces, especially 20a EVANGELISM (“wrongly maligns Eve” — ay-men!) and 1d TEMPTABLE (“Backup part of database”), and others
Eileen, 26a IGNOBLE, further to AP@73, would you say “(1) and (1) are (two)”? If so, then “(Playing bingo) [and] (the French) are (mean)”? Does that work, or did you have some other objection to the grammar?
Well done Ramsay, you’ve prompted over a hundred comments.
It’s mostly all been said, but good spot Tintinophile 99. I too dimly remembered Cisco Houston, but couldn’t say why, and guessed that there was a FRANCO rumba expert. I add my thanks for the parsing of NEWCOMER. I rather liked the clue for ECHO in the end.
On ECHO’s slightly incomplete definition: it feels a stretch, but I found also that the “E/e’ ratio” is an important measure taken in an echocardiogram (“echo”).
A day or two late, but just wanted to thank Eileen in particular as always.
So much to enjoy in this puzzle.
Thank you, Tom – glad you enjoyed the puzzle.
A day or two late but thanks to Eileen as always.
So much to enjoy in this one. I particular liked GASES at 8D and RHYMERS at 10A