This puzzle is clearly intended as a tribute to someone (perhaps a dog) who is no longer with us
Not only is there a Nina across the top and bottom rows reading Farewell Eddie Boy, 2 down makes a specific reference to Eddie, and several other clues refer to dogs. I hope that Brockwell will drop in (he usually does) and explain who Eddie was.
Other than that, Timon and I found the puzzle fairly challenging, but I think that we found all the parsings. Our eyebrows were raised at the upstanding member in 15 across, which is perhaps more typical of a clue by Cyclops in Private Eye than one to be found in The Guardian. But it’s all in the dictionary!
| ACROSS | ||
| 9 | LIBRA |
Left underwear lying around one’s house (5)
|
| I (one) inside L(eft) BRA (underwear). We’re talking houses in the astrological sense here. | ||
| 10 | YORKSHIRE |
Pig bowl is her potty (9)
|
| YORK (a cricket term for a specific kind of ball bowled) *(IS HER). Other pig breeds are named after other counties. | ||
| 11 | TWENTY TEN |
2x + x = y? (6,3)
|
| 2 x 10 (X in Roman numerals) + 10 = the year 2010. Could this be Eddie’s year of birth? | ||
| 12 | AILED |
Cockney showered and was unwell (5)
|
| (h)AILED (showered). | ||
| 13 | PET NAME |
Maybe 25 go touring Thailand and Vietnam (3,4)
|
| T (hailand) NAM (short for Vietnam) all inside PEE (go). A cross-reference to the answer at 25 across. | ||
| 15 | HARD-WON |
Whiskey drunk by upstanding member requiring great effort (4-3)
|
| W(hiskey) inside HARD-ON (upstanding member). Chambers defines HARD-ON as “vulgar slang”. | ||
| 17 | SCENE |
Old boy leaves disgusting picture (5)
|
| (ob)SCENE. | ||
| 18 | HIM |
That bloke’s song on the radio (3)
|
| Sounds like hymn (a song). | ||
| 20 | LOWER |
Take down bloomers having removed outer wear (5)
|
| (f)LOWER(s) (bloomers). | ||
| 22 | TERRIER |
Nameless casserole recipe for dog (7)
|
| TERRI(n)E (casserole) R(ecipe). Perhaps Eddie was a terrier? | ||
| 25 | SWEETIE |
What’s behind James Bond cuddling little baby? (7)
|
| S (last letter of JameS), WEE (little) TIE (bond). | ||
| 26 | TETRA |
Arsenal boss abruptly flipping fish (5)
|
| (Mikel) ARTET(a) (Arsenal manager, rev and omitting last letter). Tetra are tropical fish. | ||
| 27 | MEANDERED |
Fix bit of Elastoplast to cover a bloody wound (9)
|
| A inside MEND E(lastoplast) RED (bloody). | ||
| 30 | EMOTIONAL |
Intense Germany escaping relegation before the end of Europa League (9)
|
| (d)EMOTION (relegation) (europ)A L(eague). | ||
| 31 | ADOPT |
Take in song and dance part (5)
|
| A DO (a song and dance) PT (part). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | FLAT |
Monotonous place to live (4)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 2 | ABSENTEE |
A bin originally delivered Eddie – gutted he’s not here (8)
|
| A B(in) SENT (delivered) E(ddi)E (gutted). This seems to be a reference to the theme. | ||
| 3 | RANT |
President blowing his top in Stormy diatribe (4)
|
| President Ulysses (g)Rant. The capitalisation of Stormy is (quite fairly) misleading. | ||
| 4 | EYE TEETH |
Alien stops to watch the angry canines (3,5)
|
| ET (alien) inside EYE (watch) *THE. | ||
| 5 | WRENCH |
Architect on top of church reveals tool (6)
|
| (Sir Christopher) WREN CH(urch). | ||
| 6 | ESPADRILLE |
Mongrel pees over a training shoe (10)
|
| A DRILL (training) inside *PEES. | ||
| 7 | LIE LOW |
Keep doggo in mattress did you say? (3,3)
|
| Sounds like Lilo. | ||
| 8 | LEAD |
Guide dog’s accessory (4)
|
| Another double definition; you have to split the clue after “guide”. | ||
| 13 | POSIT |
Revolutionary surgery on model is put forward (5)
|
| OP (rev) (surgery) on SIT (model). | ||
| 14 | ACETIC ACID |
Hermit rejecting society’s help to collar canine that’s in a pickle (6,4)
|
| A(s)CETIC, C(anine) in AID (help). | ||
| 16 | NURSE |
Climbing ladder on slide without stopping to get treat (5)
|
| RUN (rev) (a ladder in a stocking can also be called a run) S(lid)E (without stopping indicates without the intermediate letters). | ||
| 19 | MISSABLE |
Clever girl swapping places is difficult to spot (8)
|
| An ABLE MISS is a clever girl. | ||
| 21 | WATERLOO |
Single defeat is terminal (8)
|
| Another double definition. “He’s met his Waterloo” means that he has finally been defeated. | ||
| 23 | RETROD |
Old school Head of Dance performed steps again (6)
|
| RETRO D(ance). | ||
| 24 | RIMINI |
Brit stripped car in Italian city (6)
|
| (b)RI(t) MINI (car). | ||
| 26 | TREE |
Shirt is OTT for Robert Plant (4)
|
| R (the top of, or for Robert) inside TEE (shirt). So the shirt is Over The Top of Robert. | ||
| 28 | DRAB |
Boring poet making comeback (4)
|
| Bard (rev). | ||
| 29 | DUTY |
Henry Tudor raised housing tax (4)
|
| Hidden and reversed. |
It’s not often a crossword brings a tear to the eye but, as the theme emerged late on, this one certainly did. Thoughts with Brockwell and family. A fitting tribute to Eddie. Thanks bridgesong.
This was a lot of fun, with some tricky ones. In a couple of cases I was wondering about the logic:
So, is ACETIC ACID in a pickle, or is a pickle in acetic acid? Both, in a way, I suppose.
SWEETIE: Is “what’s behind James” the letter S, or what follows it (in some context)? Still, I’ve seen this usage before, so it’s probably considered standard, if not 100% accurate (imo).
I thought of TWENTY TEN early on, but didn’t figure it out completely till later, so it was my LOI. Along the way, I had the thought that if 28 is twenty-eight, and 29 is twenty-nine, then by cryptic logic 2x should be twenty-ten, allowing for a more concise clue.
My condolences to Brockwell for Eddie.
I think ‘bowl’ in 10ac has to be a verb, because you york a batter by bowling a yorker. Stuffs up the surface though.
15ac oh my!
RIP Eddie 😞
YORKSHIRE
Agree with Dr.WhatsOn on ‘bowl’.
ADOPT
Took ‘song and dance’ as ADO
(as in ‘It was a minor incident, but he made a song and dance about it’)
Thanks Brockwell and bridgesong.
WATERLOO
Took it as
def 1 Single (ABBA)
def 2 defeat is terminal
I knew that 26 was either TETRA or BETTA, but couldn’t parse the clue. Seriously, managers of English football clubs are gk now?
My fam in N8 are Gunners fans, so I know of Arteta.
I saw 21d WATERLOO as a triple definition:
1 “single” by ABBA
2 major “defeat”
3 railway “terminal” in London
Thanks bridgesong for a beautiful blog and Brockwell for a theme powerfully delivered!
Thanks KVa@6 for the explanation of “single” but I think this is a triple def, “terminal” referring to a train station (Judge@11 was first)
Thanks bridgesong. As usual I completed this, not without difficulty, without either noticing the theme or the nina. It was only later that I came to understand how well it had been constructed and, as the besotted owner of an elderly dog myself, to appreciate the tribute. Presumably Eddie was a yorkshire terrier born as you suggest in y= year 2010.
At some point I wondered if I’d complete this; there had been more clues than usual where I’d not really seen the parsing, and 2x+x had bewildered me. But slowly it all filled in, and I even understood most of the clues – though I did miss the point of ‘single’ in WATERLOO, and the NINA, although I thought there was a ‘dog’ theme. I still don’t see TWENTY-TWO though. All sorts of numbers are years, so 2010 = year seems a stretch unless you know 2010 was a significant year, as bridgesong suggests. I’d wondered if ’20-10′ was some sort of convention for ‘yes’, like ’10-4′, but couldn’t find any suggestion that was the case. Still, an enjoyable challenge, and I must keep remembering to look out for NINAs in future. Thanks bridgesong and Brockwell, and sorry to hear about Eddie – but what a send-off!
Thanks for the blog ,some very neat constructions here , SWEETIE and EYE TEETH flow very nicely , TREE is devious . Agree with Grant@3 to YORK = to bowl out ( bowl) but the clue is fine , the mixture of isher gives the rest . Agree with Biggles@13 for TWENTY TEN , y? is the definition , 2x + x gives the wordplay .
Thanks Brockwell and bridgesong
bridgesong – you have missed “bloody” for RED in the parsing of MEANDERED (though “cover” doesn’t see quite right in an across clue).
This was a very satisfying challenge and I made it through it, fully parsed except for YORK… since I had had no idea about York/bowl. Missed the theme completely, but now that I see it I’m even more impressed. I was initially reluctant to write in HARD WON as the setter was not Paul, but it couldn’t be anything else. Having lost a beloved Labrador recently our sympathies go out to Brockwell and family. Thanks bridge song for the blog.
7d might have been difficult for Americans. In British English you’d say “I’m going to lie low for a while”, but in American it’s “I’m going to lay low for a while.” The simple past tense in BrE is “I lay low” and in AmE “I laid low.” I’ve come across British speakers copying the American version.
Muffin @14: thanks, I have amended the post.
Took a while but got there in the end but with a few unparsed. Didn’t spot the theme. What a lovely tribute.
Liked: EYE TEETH, TWENTY TEN, TETRA, AILED
Thanks Brockwell and bridgesong
A poignant yet still delightful puzzle from the master of theming. I was delighted when TWENTY TEN finally parsed – ironically on a dog walk – not long after having completed the puzzle. We lost two within a year – but now delight in a rambunctious year old Border collie pup who is sat on the end of the bed as I type.
Thanks both
[ MrPostMark@19 , extremely off-topic , BBC4 last night had a compilation music programme – Acoustic at the BBC – featuring a very young “James Page” in a skiffle band . ]
15d I took ‘without stopping’ to refer to removing the ‘lid’ from ‘slide’.
[So many started off that way, Roz. Thanks for the heads up. Some of those programmes are very good indeed with remarkable access to the musicians.]
[ We have all BBC4 music on series-record , they have a vast back catalogue to make cheap themed programmes . ]
I don’t remember this being too hard. I had it done before breakfast. I think I noticed the theme, which one assumes encompasses virtually every clue.
I did jot down, just out of interest, that the construction at 24D can yield another Italian city: B[rit] + stripped [c]ARI[n] = Bari.
Good fun and a fitting tribute. I liked YORKSHIRE, TWENTY TEN, WATERLOO (ABBA was my route in) and TREE.
Thanks Brockwell and bridgesong.
For once, I spotted the Nina early on and so was immediately intrigued. A different kind of theme from Brockwell but just as subtly woven as ever, the lovely 2dn being the key, followed by the equally lovely 25ac. The canine theme was delightfully exploited, taking just a little longer than usual to emerge.
TWENTY TEN held out longer than it should have – it seemed it must be TWENTY TWO – and there was a thud of a pdm when I worked out the very simple sum – delightful! Other little gems were HIM, TREE, DRAB and, best of all, DUTY. Like bridgesong and Timon, I had a bit of a jaw-drop at 15ac but I appreciated the cleverness of it and it earned a tick.
Others were for the clever triple definition WATERLOO, which made perfect sense, MEANDERED (I don’t understand your quibble, muffin @14) and ESPADRILLE – and I think I may have missed some: my annotated puzzle strayed into the recycling bag this week.
My thanks to PostMark @19 for expanding my vocabulary with a word that turns out to mean exactly the same as the one I’m more familiar with. 🙂 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rambunctious
Huge thanks, as ever, to Brockwell, for a poignant labour of love (I hope it helped) and to bridgesong and Timon for the blog.
Eileen@25. Our blogger has corrected the error in his blog, but so seamlessly as to make Muffin’s correction appear to be unnecessary. 😀
Eileen @25
You are right – I was carelessly applying “cover” to the wrong element.
Sorry, Eileen. My mistake. Different “quibble”!
Lovely puzzle and tribute. Missed out on SWEETIE and ADOPT but a thoroughly enjoyable work-out. Agree with KVA@5 on ‘ado’. Thanks to Brockwell and bridgesong.
I found this quite challenging, though in hindsight I’m not sure why. Didn’t see theme of course.
All fair clues, except that for TERRIER I think of a terrine as a coarse pate rather than a casserole – though I suppose when the terms refer to the containers rather than the contents, they can be much the same.
HARD-WON was a favourite and my first one solved on initial scan of clues – the definition and enumeration, and the fact it clearly contained a W, made the answer clear before I did the rest of the parsing. Also liked YORKSHIRE and several others.
MAC089 – I’m no great football fan, but IMO the manager of this year’s league champion team is not at all obscure knowledge.
Thanks bridgesong and Brockwell.
I completely missed the Nina — I usually do — though in retrospect it’s pretty obvious! I did think TWENTY TEN was a slightly unusual answer for a crossword but that’s a bit clearer now.
I agree with Eileen that some of the short answers were great. 26d had to be TREE from the crossers and definition, but I just couldn’t quite see how it worked until later, when I was mowing the lawn, the parsing just came into my head. I think this was my favourite, with the characteristically clever use of “Robert Plant”.
[Roz @20: that clip has been shown before. Last night they omitted the bit where the very condescending interviewer asks young James what he wants to do when he grows up, and James replies “biological research”, which sort of came true in a way.]
Many thanks Brockwell and bridgesong.
Was stuck for a while on 13d, convinced myself that the answer was CHEST: Che (revolutionary) S (urgery) on T (model T ford), your chest being something that is put forward.
Couldn’t parse SWEETIE (weirdly SPECTRE fitted the crossers and couldn’t get the James Bond connection out of my mind), nor PET NAME.
And I’m still not sure I understand why y? means TWENTY TEN?
But a lovely puzzle and a heartfelt theme
TwoLeftHands@32
TWENTY-TEN
y is short for year
y? indicates that the solution is an example of a year.
And 2010 is one.
Thank you KVa@33, clear now!
This was a delightful puzzle, which I eventually managed to parse. For once, I spotted the NINA and this aided my finish. Not being a pet person I missed some of the significance. Indeed. I dabbled with PET HATE rather than PET NAME.
I had a wobble in thinking that somehow the Ridings (thirds i.e. 3 X = Y) were involved in 11A, with Y referring to Yorkshire rather than y being simply short for year.
Many thanks, B and b.
Another good one from Brockwell although I forgot to look for the NINA. I liked the PETNAME that was used in Thailand and Vietnam, the bloody wound after one MEANDERED, and the mongrel peeing over an ESPADRILLE.
Thanks (and I expect condolences) to Brockwell and bridgesong.
Missed both the theme and the nina., naturally.
11a doesn’t appear to have a definition.
Never heard of the Arsenal boss and had to look him up. I don’t see why ‘Stormy’ appears in 3d as the clue would work without it.
11a I thought “y” was too loose a definition for “year” so I am now better informed about ytrium and the Y chromosome than I was, including the fact that neither has anything to do with TWENTY-ONE, at least until Roz tells me otherwise.
16d Like Em#21 I thought lid = stopping, an alternative to stopper.
26d Surprised not to have seen OTT as an instruction to use the first letter before. I like it.
Thanks to Brockwell and bridgesong.
Poc@37: see the explanation by Kva @33.
Poc@37: ‘Stormy’ may not have been strictly necessary to the clue for RANT, but the reference to porn star Stormy Daniels and her alleged relationship with the current president enormously added to the fun of the surface.
Delightful puzzle with lots of humour and superb surfaces. A fine demonstration of the setter’s art — thank you Brockwell, and condolences. Pretty much every clue had a great surface, but especially 9a LIBRA, 10a YORKSHIRE, 17a SCENE, 20a LOWER, 1d FLAT, 5d WRENCH, 6d ESPADRILLE, 8d LEAD, 29d DUTY, and all the others
Other favourites, 11 TWENTY TEN (clever equation, with a surprising solution), 15a HARD-WON (naughty!), 25a SWEETIE (“James Bond”), 27a MEANDERED (tricky parsing), 19 MISS ABLE, 26d TREE (use of “OTT” for the wordplay)
26a TETRA took some research, since I knew neither the boss nor the fish
Thanks bridgesong for an excellent blog
Thanks Brockwell and bridgesong. Tried to fit in BERKSHIRE (as in bark-bark, or woof-woof) for a long time but couldn’t find EBB TEETH in the dictionary anywhere!
Many thanks to bridgesong (& Timon) for the excellent blog and to everyone else, for the comments and condolences. It is much appreciated. Eddie was dumped in our wheelie bin as a tiny pup back in 2010 and became our wonderful and much-loved family pet. We had to say goodbye to him earlier this year and still miss him hugely. Writing this puzzle definitely helped me process the grief and I hope I did him justice. B
Nice of you to drop in, Grecian. I assume Eddie was a Yorkshire Terrier?
He was indeed, muffin @44
Grecian/Brockwell, that’s beautiful. Thank you for the background. Amazing that a puzzle with such a sad underlying theme had so much humour on its surface. Well done — a wonderful tribute!
What a lovely tribute!
Loved this puzzle. I could bang on about the technicalities but I’ll just endorse the comments of Mig@46.
Thank you Brockwell and bridgesong.
Thank you, Brockwell, for introducing us to Eddie and telling his story. How lucky for both of you that some reprobate picked your wheelie bin!
I’d never heard of Anteta and I bet I’m not alone. Michael B@25 “Lay” fpr “lie” is no more considered grammatical on my side of the pond than yours, but it’s a losing battle. I for one would not say “I laid low” and I’m not alone in that one.
Eileen, :what is the word you’re familiar with that means the same as “rambunctious:”? I enjoy the word, it’s in my collection of colorful pseudo-Latin words. I think of them as American inventions, but I may be wrong.
Thanks and sympathy to Brockwell. and thanks to bridgesong and Timon as well. Happy heat wave to you all.
I loved this puzzle. Dan is one of my favourite setters anyway and this was just a wonderful tribute. Having lost an elderly canine companion not long ago, the theme was especially poignant. Beautifully done, and as others have commented, not without flashes of humour too.
Many thanks
Valentine @49: I believe Eileen’s word was ‘rumbustious’
Quite correct, PostMark, as in the link I gave.
Thanks to Brockwell as always for dropping in. I did wonder whether ADOPT could be part of the theme. 🙂
What a lovely tribute to (evidently) a lovely dog.
The football manager may or may not be obscure as football managers go, but I didn’t know him, and like GrahamC@42 I thought the pig was a BERKSHIRE as I hadn’t heard of the other sort.
So much to love about this puzzle. Loved the misdirection in SWEETIE. Missed the nina (again) …… and feel a bit teary now I know. Wonderful tribute. Please can I add my condolences?
Thank you bridgesong and Brockwell
MichaelB#16 regarding lie/lay/laid
‘en Brer Fox, he lay low.’ From the wonderful Tarbaby Uncle Remus story. So maybe lay is/was standard on both sides of the pond.
Lovely crossword, and so glad it was cathartic. Thanks both.
Very enjoyable puzzle. Pleased to parse all the clues correctly, but I was stuck on LOI 27ac MEANDERED. I spotted the word fit, but was hopelessly fixated (misdirected) on the noun, wound. I used a word filler to confirm that nothing else fitted, stared at it for a while, then the penny finally dropped that it was a verb, past tense. A horror pair of different sounding meanings for students of English. Thanks bridgesong and Brockwell for explaining the NINA which was an elegant tribute. Sorry that I forgot to look for it despite noticing the big nudges, 12ac and 2d. Favourites TWENTY TEN, TETRA, MEANDERED, ACETIC ACID, WATERLOO.
MichaelB#16: It isn’t “lie low” that is likely to make 7d difficult for Americans like me; it’s what I and many others of us would say, although I do hear “lay low” (present tense) from my countrymen. It’s that (1) Lilo is unknown here as either a proper or common noun and (2) “doggo” in the “lie doggo” sense is rare to nonexistent in USAnian English. (I have seen doggo meaning dog in recent years.)
I liked this although I didn’t quite finish it. Kept thinking of SPECTRE for the James Bond clue. Now I look at the missing answers I can’t see why I didn’t get them.
I also missed the nina. My heart goes out to Brockwell. My dog was also called Eddie, also known as Eddie Boy, died in 2018 and I still miss him very much. A nice idea to memorialise him in your chosen craft. Thank you for the puzzle.
Waterloo is a single defeat by Napoleon, it is his ‘terminal defeat’ (from which the saying ‘meet one’s waterloo’)
but it is also a terminal station,
it is also single song by ABBA