My second blog of a Vlad Prize puzzle in a row – no complaints here!
The ‘Impaler’ seems in rather gentler mood here, towards both solvers and his traditional targets – and I see that I said something similar last time. There’s all the expected inventive cluing, wit and misdirection, making for an absorbing and enjoyable solve. The answers are mostly straightforward but there are one or two tricky bits of parsing. I’ve been unable to sort out the parsing of 10ac to my satisfaction and so I’m looking for help there.
When I came to review my ticks, awarded (for various reasons), as I went along, I found I had sixteen – an impossible task – and so I decided to comment on individual clues within the blog. As it happens, my first – and possibly top – three, since I boringly tackle the clues in order, were for 11ac ON PAPER, 12ac XENOPUS, and 16ac GIVE IT SOME WELLY.
Many thanks to Vlad for a highly enjoyable puzzle, well worthy, as always, of the Prize slot.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
9 Not on the level? Dunno, Paw tricked over 500 (2-3-4)
UP-AND-DOWN
An anagram (tricked) of DUNNO PAW round D (500)
10 Neighbour of 7 right at home wearing nothing (5)
RHINO
I’ve pondered over this one all week, on and off – I just can’t see how to accommodate the H:
Is it R (right) + H (at home – as in football tables? – but then I’m not happy with ‘at’) + IN (wearing) O (nothing)?
Or, on the other hand, ‘at home’ more often than not = IN, which makes me want HO to mean ‘nothing’ round IN – but I can find no authority for this
Looking forward to your suggestions and ready for a huge pdm – as always, thanks in advance
Edit: it seems my first thought was the correct one – thanks to Clyde @4, Balfour @10 and Crispy @17 ; I hope I haven’t missed anyone.
R (right) + (at -by /next to) H (home) + IN (wearing) O (nothing)
11 How many like to solve crosswords in theory? (2,5)
ON PAPER
Double / cryptic definition – I loved this one: count me among the many ๐
12 When reviewing, I used to love her work about new frog genus (7)
XENOPUS
A reversal (when reviewing) of EX (I used to love her) + OPUS (work) round N (new) – beautifully constructed, with a lovely surface: I loved ‘I used to love her’
13 Theyโre not free to work (5)
SERFS
Cryptic definition, serfs being bond slaves
14 Breeding grebes in a N Pacific location (6,3)
BERING SEA
An anagram (breeding) of GREBES IN A
16 Yes, I will get move to Reform โฆ and put the boot in? (4.2,4.5)
GIVE IT SOME WELLY
An anagram (to reform) of YES I WILL GET MOVE
I was expecting a rather different solution on first sight of the clue but I’m very fond of this expression
19 Moves casually round hotel, speed initially being ineffective (9)
TOOTHLESS
TOOTLES (moves casually – a lovely word) round H (hotel) + S[peed]
21 Books sweetheart into empty Montreal accommodation (5)
MOTEL
OT (Old Testament – books) + swEet in M[ontrea]L
22 Type of sex from Thailand grotesque โ runs to join in (7)
TANTRIC
T (Thailand – International Vehicle Registration) + ANTIC (grotesque – as in Hamlet’s ‘antic disposition’) round R (runs) – a tick for the surface
23 Skirt covering nether regions the French rejected for beachwear (7)
MANKINI
MINI (skirt) round ANK[les] (nether regions) minus les (the French) – a neat construction and witty surface
24 Wrong about hidden warning (5)
SIREN
SIN (wrong) with RE (about) hidden
25 Do something about sealing gap over light (3,4,2)
SET FIRE TO
SEE TO (do something about) round a reversal (over) of RIFT (gap) – I enjoyed the misdirection of the positioning of RIFT
Down
1 Revealed by this fog breaking up? Hardly (3,2,5)
OUT OF SIGHT
OUT (revealed) + an anagram (breaking up) of THIS FOG – clever use of a partial anagram
2 Master on board climbing wooden mast stops playing (8)
KASPAROV
SPAR (mast) in (stops) a reversal (climbing) of V (versus – playing) + OAK (wooden) – enjoyable construction and misdirection
Edit – thanks to KVa @22: (SPAR in (stops) reversed OAK) +V (playing)
3 Assumes trouble with POTUS regularly
ADOPTS
ADO (trouble) + PoTuS
4 I don’t like that Republican lout
BOOR
BOO (I don’t like that) + R (Republican)
5 One following gets careless, almost dying (2,8)
IN EXTREMIS
I (one) + NEXT (following) + REMIS[s] (careless, almost) – great construction
6 Mint tea with a touch of nutmeg added (5-3)
BRAND-NEW
BREW (tea) round AND (with) + N[utmeg] – of course, I loved the ‘lift and separate’ ‘mint tea’; I think our much-missed Nutmeg would have liked this one – her kind of clue
7 โAnimalsโ in Post Office beginning to sweat (6)
HIPPOS
HIP (in) + PO (Post Office) + S[weat] – an amusing picture (but it could be a darkish reference to the scandal which Vlad won’t let go – and I wish more power to his elbow)
8 Sense it could be largely pointless (4)
NOUS
NO US[e] (largely pointless)
A deft use of ‘sense’ as a noun in the definition and a verb in the surface – we need to read the clue as ‘Sense: it could be largely pointless’
14 Like Kelvin and the others in bed, not a reliable type (6,4)
BASKET CASE
AS (like) + K (Kelvin – the SI unit of thermodynamic temperature) + ETC (and the others) in BASE (bed)
15 Scrap music hall staple (3,3,4)
ANY OLD IRON
Double definition – the second a reference to the music hall song
17 Where you may find me contracted not natural (8)
INHERENT
IN HERE (where you may find me) + N’T (contracted ‘not’) – I enjoyed the construction
18 Where do soldiers go? Are they required at the front during occupations? (8)
LATRINES
Initial letters of Are They Required INย LINES (occupations – as in ‘What’s my line?’) – loved it for the definition, of course and it’s a great surface
20 They have a point, debtors admitting (6)
OWNERS
OWERS (debtors) round (admitting) N (North – point)
21 Insect (a different one) is trapped under Tomโs foot (6)
MANTIS
ANT (a different insect) + IS, from the clue, under [to]M – a tick for the smile
22 Both gutted heโs out? Flipping rubbish! (4)
TOSH
H[e]S and O[u]T both ‘gutted’, then reversed (flipping) – an amusing pdm here
23 My best friendโs letter to Times? (4)
MUTT
MU (Greek letter) + TT (times) – a slang (originally American) term for a mixed-breed dog
Tough as always and didnโt parse them all but got there.
Favourites: MOTEL, SIREN, HIPPOS, ANY OLD IRON, MANTIS, TOSH
Thanks Vlad and Eileen
10A: I thought it might be: RH (right, i.e., right-hand) + IN (at home) + O (nothing), but I am not entirely satisfied with that, either.
Most enjoyable crossword with lots of chuckles, helped by quite a number of phrases. Started with UP AND DOWN and finished with MUTT. We loved GIVE IT SOME WELLY reminding me of a fellow full back who was dry fond of the expression! MANKINI was fun (or not!) and the later down clues formed a clever group.
Thanks to Vlad and Eileen. By the way, I thought that right could be short for right honourable, hence RH with IN for at home and O for nothing. No doubt, someone else may have posted this suggestion already while I have been typing.
I’m not at all sure about this, but for 10across (right at home wearing nothing), I took the “at” to mean “next to”, which then gave R (right) next to H (home) IN (wearing) O (nothing).
Thank you Vlad for a very entertaining challenge, and thank you Eileen for a terrific blog. Your pleasure in writing it was obvious!
I needed your help with the parsing of TOOTHLESS (“Tootles”! Aargh! Of course!), and MANKINI.
I agree with all your favourites, and I would add MUTT, which made me laugh.
My only slight quibble in the crossword was the use of SPAR for “mast”, in KASPAROV. I thought a spar went across the way.
The poor Xenopus in our school biology lab tank was called the African clawed toad, can a 225 biologist elucidate please? Thank you Vlad and Eileen, most enjoyable.
After solving, I still felt slightly nervous about about SERFS and TOSH, having satisfied myself with MUTT (I’m sure some people will have biffed in mate there.)
As an upper intermediate I still have doubts, but I don’t fear the Impaler and this was approachable. He offered some big gimmes like GIVE IT SOME WELLY, ANY OLD IRON, UP AND DOWN and OUT OF SIGHT providing plenty to work with.
It still took over an hour. I thought TOSH was my last in but realised the M _T_ was still sitting there.
SIREN was neat and I liked TOOTHLESS, KASPAROV and SET FIRE TO.
I was with Cineraria @2 on RHINO.
Thanks Vlad and Eileen.
Hadrian @6
I am not a biologist, but on the authority of Wikipedia (!), taxonomy now identifies toads as warty frogs.
Comment #9
I thought this was considerably less challenging than Vlad’s previous Prize – it certainly didn’t detain me for as long in the small hours. On RHINO, I am more inclined towards Eileen’s tentative parsing than towards Cineraria’s. I took ‘at’ to be a slightly clumsy way of attaching the R=right, to the H =home and then IN=wearing and O, but it made for a surface that was coherent. I can’t think how else it could have been done economically.
Thanks Eileen, another solid workout that took several sessions. As usual, coming back to it after a break readily yielded several answers which should have been apparent much earlier. The SE corner held me up, MANKINI offered itself quite early on but I just couldn’t see why and I had entered but wasn’t happy with ‘mate’.
Fun romp from Vlad, with many excellent surfaces, as noted by Eileen. NE held out the longest, completed with help from DuckDuck for 12a XENOPUS
Favourites, the 10a RHINO and 7d HIPPOS neighbours, 11a ON PAPER (โHow manyโ misdirection), 16a GISW (delightful phrase, nho), 21a MOTEL (Canadian reference), 24a SIREN (surface), 3d ADOPTS (political surface), 4d BOOR (ditto)
For 10a, like others I took โatโ as indicating โbesideโ, as in โat the starting lineโ. R at/beside H…
Thank you both!
Delightful puzzle that took me a while. Lovely, very helpful blog.
I didnโt solve MUTT (times = TT doh!). Thank you for that as well as some other parsings: the V in KASPAROV, the H in RHINO.
With RHINO, the explanation by Clyde@4 makes sense.
The expressions GIVE IT SOME WELLY and ANY OLD IRON were new to me as was XENOPUS. Thanks to the wordplay and a dictionary, they could be worked out.
Many favourites including IN EXTREMIS, BRAND NEW, ON PAPER, MANKINI, TOSH.
Could someone tell me what pdm means?
Thank you to Vlad and Eileen.
SueM@13 pdm = Penny Drop Moment. You can find all the usual abbreviations in the FAQ
Hmmm…Admin, I wonder if “nho”, Never Heard Of, is FAQ-worthy?
Thanks for the blog , solid puzzle with many neat clues and lots of nice extra touches .
For RHINO I am with Clyde@4 which agrees with the blog .
I spent too long being suspicious of ( 4.2,4.5) for 16Ac before deciding the full stops were just a misprint .
XENOPUS laevis – used in pregnancy tests for many years , the Hogben test was harmless and a single specimen could be used for decades . When hormone strips came in the hospitals released their frogs which have caused invasive population problems . ( this is NOT one of my spoofs )
[ PDM also Paddymelon a much-missed contributor , I hope she returns , and Grant . ]
I read RHINO as R (right) H (Home, as seen in football – H for Home, A for Away) plus IN O ( wearing nothing). Thanks Eileen for clearing up a few things for me
Is this my first ever all-in, all-parsed(*) Vlad? There or thereabouts I think. Seemed quite a bit gentler than his usual offerings!
(*) doubts about RHINO notwithstanding. I decided it could be made to work in a couple of ways, as has been discussed.
Loads to like, but the prize goes to ON PAPER for the two interpretations of “how many”. A brilliant PDM when parsing after getting it from the def and a checker or two.
I was held up only by inexplicably putting in THUMBLESS (tumbles) for TOOTHLESS (tootles). That made the SW largely intractable until I came to my senses. Accordingly, loi was TOSH… took me all puzzle to untangle it despite being sure early on about the T from TANTRIC (ah, Sting eh!).
And MUTT indeed wanted to be Mate for a while. I enjoyed that one a lot.
Thanks both
Very enjoyable. Thanks Eileen for the parsing of the V at the end of KASPAROV. When I wrote in IN EXTREMIS I doubted it because it required a seven letter word beginning with X. Nho XENOPUS but obviously right. Thanks to Roz@15 for prompting me to look up the scientific uses of Xenopus Laevis – fascinating.
Too many favourites to list.
Thanks to Vlad and Eileen.
Itโs not often I finish a Vladโฆ and I didnโt finish this either, with 2 left unfilled, and a whopping 8 I couldnโt fully parse. Oh and I put MATE thinking it was just another unparsed one. So thanks to Eileen for the help and to Vlad for the fun challenge.
I always enjoy a Vlad tussle – and would agree his last couple have not been too punishing. ON PAPER, BERING SEA, MANKINI, KASPAROV and LATRINES my faves. RHINO was the only one I felt uncomfortable about – it had to be that and the parse had to be what Eileen has outlined in the blog. I appreciate dictionaries get out of date and have the odd omission but I do prefer to see abbreviations with dictionary backup. H for home seems to fall into the same category as T for Tuesday or W for Wednesday (justified because they appear in most mini-calendars as at the top of this page).
Thanks both
My faves:
ON PAPER, GIS WILLY, MANKINI, S F TO, KASPAROV, OUT OF SIGHT,
NOUS and LATRINES.
KASPAROV
(SPAR in (stops) reversed OAK) +V
Sorry. If someone has already mentioned this.
OUT OF SIGHT
Meant to be a CAD, I think.
Thanks Vlad and Eileen.
Mig@14. Nho is in the FAQ. Are you suggesting it shouldnโt be?
Not my first Vlad. Some really nice clues: NOUS, ON PAPER, INHERENT and TOOTHLESS amongst my favourites. Maybe a slightly dated feel to some of the solutions? That ought to have been a plus for me.
Would I have felt different if I’d spotted the neat MUTT in place of an unparsed MATE. Perhaps. But I didn’t enjoy the lack of anything especially cryptic in SERFS, the equating of SPAR to mast, the obscure clueing of LINES in the otherwise neat LATRINES, and the clued definition of BASKET CASE as “not a reliable type”. Just not my taste. Sorry to be a party-pooper.
Thoroughly enjoyed both the puzzle by one of my favourite setters and the blog by the peerless Eileen. Vlad gave us a sporting chance this time with the NW corner going straight in and GISW providing lots of help for later. Loved all of the surfaces and misdirections but I always enjoy Vlad for the extra spice of his political quips of which there were many here. Missed out on IN EXTREMIS and XENOPUS and I was another MATE. Thanks to Eileen for the (too) many parsings which passed me by.
Mig@14 Thanks.
I forgot to say earlier that I thought NOUS was a clever misdirection – for me, anyway. I spent far too long looking to remove (compass) points from some kind of sense.
Thank you all for the comments so far. I’m glad to see that the puzzle was generally well received and enjoyed and relieved that I was not the only one to have had trouble with RHINO. The consensus (see Clyde @4, Balfour @10 and Crispy @17) seems to be for my first shot: my blind spot was the pesky at =by, / next to, which I don’t think we’ve seen for a while.
Hadrian @6 – I am not a biologist, so had to look up the fascinating XENOPUS, which was classified as a frog throughout the front page of Google. I chose the link to the Cambridge University entry as my authority.
KVA @ 22: re KASPAROV – that was my intended parsing in the blog – my apologies if it wasn’t clear.
KVa @22 – my apologies: you’re quite right, that is not exactly what I wrote. I’ll amend it now.
What does FAQ mean ?
Excellent puzzle. I parsed RHINO by taking H to mean “at home”, as in a team’s fixture list would be a list of opponents’ names with either (H) or (A) after them. Liverpool (H) would then be read as “Liverpool at home”. This makes the parsing neater, I think.
Comment #31
Just too late, Fiery Jack @30 – please see my comment @27.
Roz @29 – Frequently Asked Questions: please see under Info at the top of this page.
Eileen @32: I think you might just have been ‘Rozzed’ ๐คฃ
You’re very probably right, PostMark – I’ll just go back to bed.
I had five unparsed though one of these was the incorrect MATE – not being a dog-lover has its downside, it appears.
For those who think a mast is not a spar, my reading of Hornblower books suggests that a spar can be a yard, a mast and even a gaff, I think.
Thanks to Vlad, and thanks to Eileen for parsing those that escaped me.
Yes, I agree with the blogger that Vlad seemed quite generous in this great puzzle.
I wondered about a possible XENOPOD for a while, before realising that work could also be the full OPUS rather than just OP.
SH 35: I’ve heard roofers refer to the timbers, which carry the laths, as spars too.
Thanks all.
Enjoyed the puzzle. Lots of pleasantly devious clues. I do use the expression GISW, so it went straight in. Good start, but the rest took me a few days to finish. All correct except sadly wrong LO I, MATE. Glad to read that I wasnโt the only one. I wondered if M8 could mean a letter M next to 8 for times, but wasnโt convinced. Grateful for Eileenโs help to fully explain a few other answers.
As a big fan of Vlad, I was surprised to need help with parsing a few so I feel quite humbled by all the โgentleโ comments.
Rats! I much prefer to solve ON PAPER and when I dug out my now crumpled sheet I realised I was yet another unparsed MATE. But that aside I really enjoyed this one, with some very neat clues and a number of very clever misdirections. And GIVE IT SOME WELLY is such a great phrase. Thanks for the blog, Eileen, and thanks for the puzzle, Vlad.
PhilB@23 Admin just added it!
PostMark@33 “Rozzed” should definitely be added to the FAQ! ๐
If 4d had been POOR instead of BOOR we’d have had an okapi to go with the other creatures in the grid.
Thanks as ever to Vlad and Eileen
MrPostMark @33 , surely you should know by now that I am as innocent as a baa-lamb .
And I have never heard of Nho .
Dave@38 it is just a question of scale , Vlad can be scarier than this at times but in no sense was this an easy puzzle .
Well spotted, DuncT @ 42. ๐
Eileen @32
I was referring to the debate about how to account for the “at”. I personally think at = next to is a bit of a stretch, but if you take H = “at home” then you don’t need to account for at in this way. Maybe I missed something.
I’ve never heard of the we?lly pharase. Or the frog of course. But the puzzle was fun.
Where is the FAQ button? I followed the link to it, but couldn’t find it on its own.
How does POOR get us to okapi?
Thanks, Vlad for the puzzle and as ever to Eileen for a great blog..
Valentine@46 the FAQ is under the “Info” menu at the top of the page
And Roz, “Info” is short for “Information”
Valentine@46 if you click on “menu” and then “info” you will find FAQ.
DuncT was referring to the top row of the grid, which reads OKABI, but Vlad could have made it OKAPI. Not part of the crossword proper, just as a bit of extra fun.
Fiery Jack @45 – but H does not mean ‘at home’ – only home, in football, as opposed to ‘away’ . I think the parsing is explained in the comments that I quoted @32. As I said, we’ve met at = by in the past but not for a while. I’m quite happy with it.
Valentine @46 – as I said @32 (with egg on my face) FAQ is under Info at the top of this page.
Re OKAPI – look in the top row of the grid. If BOOR had been poor …
Sorry for all the crossing … I’m giving up now.
Eileen @49: my original post described how H could be read as “at home”, which made me chuckle and I thought it was a really neat parsing. I have no idea whether this is what Vlad intended but I enjoyed it anyway.
Fiery Jack @50
๐
FAQ? NHO, even though I have frequently asked the question, and I have heard of NHO, so it isnโt. ๐
Iโm one of Eileenโs many at 11a ON PAPER. For people of our age there seems to be a connection between the brain and pen-in-hand. I wonder if young people have the equivalent connection between brain and thumbs-on-phone?
Like Eileen again, I was running out of ticking ink – so many clever constructions and witty surfaces. So Iโll just mention the connected surfaces of 3&4d (the loutish POTUS), and the brilliant surface of 18d LATRINES.
Thanks V&E for the Very Entertaining puzzle and blog.
I think I’m going to find an alternative forum that reads my posts and doesn’t try to mansplain something different back to me
Thanks to Eileen for the nice blog and to others who commented.
‘At’ in 10ac was intended as ‘next to’ or ‘alongside’ as Clyde and others suggested.
Thank you, Vlad, for dropping in – and for the confirmation. ๐
Thanks Vlad and Eileen. Fiery Jack, even though Vlad didn’t intend our parsing of 10ac I read it in exactly the way you did, but I don’t think anyone was mansplaining in the way they disagreed with you and this forum is one of the friendliest and most collegiate on the web so please stay.
Fiery Jack @53 , I did read your post and I thought it was a nice idea but discounted it because for (A) we never say – AT AWAY – so it is not consistent . In the end I just settled for the simplest explanation . A simple difference of opinion for a clue that was perhaps the weakest in the puzzle . Do not let this put you off the site , in the end things like this do not really matter .
Nice to (almost) finish a Vlad prize.
Just beaten by the Frog genus as I could not fathom the parsing.
I nearly fell off my chair when I tried googling “frog genus”, by the number of them.
Thanks for help sorting out RHINO parsing, without wishing to open a can of worms, I was used to HOME = IN…
Thanks Eileen and Vlad