The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/30045.
A quick solve for me, although it took a little digging to make sense of 7D THE SEAGULL. In all, an enjoyable romp.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | ADAM AND EVE |
Dave made an alternative biblical origin story (4,3,3)
|
| An anagram (‘alternative’) of ‘dave made an’. | ||
| 6 | STOP |
Component of post-operative check (4)
|
| A hidden answer (‘component of’) in ‘poST–OPerative‘. | ||
| 9 | PROVENANCE |
History of article found in French region (10)
|
| An envelope (‘found in’) of AN (indefinite ‘article’) in PROVENCE (‘French region’). | ||
| 10 | MEME |
Widespread idea setter repeated (4)
|
| ME (‘setter’) ‘repeated’. | ||
| 12 | IN RETROSPECT |
Restrict open representation during review (2,10)
|
| An anagram (‘re-presentation’) of ‘restrict open’. | ||
| 15 | SPAGHETTO |
Recreation area beside slum provides very small portion of pasta (9)
|
| A charade of SPA (‘recreational area’) plus GHETTO (‘slum’), for the singular of spaghetti. | ||
| 17 | MUG UP |
Do some research for facelift? (3,2)
|
| Definition and literal interpretation. | ||
| 18 | RETCH |
Almost vomit from contents of secret chamber (5)
|
| A hidden answer (‘from contents of’) in ‘secRET CHamber’. | ||
| 19 | OBSTACLES |
Blocks former pupil’s heartless challenges (9)
|
| A charade of OB’S (‘former pupil’s’) plus TAC[k]LES (‘challenges’ eg in soccer) minus its middle letter (‘heartless’). | ||
| 20 | AN ALL-TIME LOW |
Limbo dancer’s record performance? It couldn’t be worse for some (2,3-4,3)
|
| Definition and literal interpretation. | ||
| 24 | UNIT |
Incompetent fellow quits squad (4)
|
| A subtraction: UN[f]IT (‘incompetent’) minus the F (‘fellow quits’). | ||
| 25 | ISAAC HAYES |
I dismiss unclear vision articulated by soul pioneer (5,5)
|
| Sounds like (‘articulated’) I SACK HAZE (‘I dismiss unclear vision’). | ||
| 26 | LEND |
Advance! It’s part of command Nelson rejected (4)
|
| A hidden (‘part of’) reversed (‘rejected’) answer in ‘commanD NELson’. | ||
| 27 | BETTER HALF |
Spouse felt breath getting uneven (6,4)
|
| An anagram (‘getting uneven’) of ‘felt breath’. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | AMPS |
Current measures while politician is inside (4)
|
| An envelope (‘is inside’) of MP (‘politician’) in AS (‘while’). | ||
| 2 | ATOP |
Queue said to follow these characters on the summit (4)
|
| Q (‘queue said’) ‘to follow’ A TO P (‘these characters’). | ||
| 3 | ACE IN THE HOLE |
Champion, before successful putt, reveals secret edge (3,2,3,4)
|
| A charade of ACE (‘champion’) plus (‘before’) IN THE HOLE (‘successful putt’) | ||
| 4 | DRAPE |
Cover beginnings of debate regarding act prohibiting euthanasia (5)
|
| First letters (‘beginnings’) of ‘Debate Regarding Act Prohibiting Euthanasia’. | ||
| 5 | VICARIOUS |
Indirect service provider promises to pay (9)
|
| A charade of VICAR (religious ‘service provider’) plus IOUS (‘promises to pay’). | ||
| 7 | THE SEAGULL |
Drama created by one stealing chips (3,7)
|
| This is a reference to an actual bird, dubbed Steven Seagull, notorious for stealing bags of chips (aka crisps in the UK). The ‘drama’ is by Anton Chekhov. | ||
| 8 | PRETTY PASS |
Difficult spot with picturesque route through mountains (6,4)
|
| A charade of PRETTY (‘picturesque’) plus PASS (‘route through mountains’). | ||
| 11 | ASK ME ANOTHER |
One has market in chaos? I can’t answer that (3,2,7)
|
| An anagram (‘in chaos’) of ‘one has market’. | ||
| 13 | USER MANUAL |
Lama unsure about guidance it provides (4,6)
|
| An anagram (‘about’) of ‘lama unsure’, with a Yodaesque definition. | ||
| 14 | CASTRATION |
Actors’ share that ensures kids are excluded in future (10)
|
| A charadeof CAST (‘actors’) plus RATION (‘share’). | ||
| 16 | TOOK ISSUE |
Kidnapped but had disagreement (4,5)
|
| Definition and literal interpretation. | ||
| 21 | EXALT |
Praise plasticity of latex? (5)
|
| An anagram (‘plasticity’) of ‘latex’. | ||
| 22 | MYNA |
Bird impersonator sounds lightweight to some (4)
|
| ‘Sounds … to some’ like MINOR (‘lightweight’). | ||
| 23 | USAF |
It protects Americans caught in calamitous aftermath (4)
|
| A hidden answer (‘caught’) in ‘calamitoUS AFtermath’, for the initialism of United States Air Force |
Amazing how many phrases I’ve never heard of. ACE IN THE HOLE, MUG UP, PRETTY PASS were all new to me. Also never heard of THE SEAGULL, and only a vague recollection of ISAAC HAYES. But all were gettable from the wordplay. I’d have said (1,1,1,1) for USAF, regardless of what style guides might say. CASTRATION my favourite.
Nice puzzle to end the weekend with.
Crossers plus knowing of the Chekov drama got me THE SEAGULL, but unlike our blogger didn’t have the energy to track down the chips connection.
Tx
I did like CASTRATION, witty, and ATOP was pretty neat too. No idea why I’m so early onto this blog for once. Must be because I’m on Vancouver time on holiday?
Thanks PeterO.
An interesting reference for SEAGULL, but I took this to be SEAGULLs in general, well known for stealing chips (the ones you buy from fish and chips shops).
Thanks Anto too, much easier than the last one
Thanks Anto for the Monday entertainment. My top picks were ISAAC HAYES, ATOP, VICARIOUS, CASTRATION (COTD), TOOK ISSUE, and MYNA. I nho PRETTY PASS but it couldn’t be anything else. Thanks PeterO for the blog.
Thanks Anto and PeterO! Tricky in places; some were just good guesses based on the clues (PRETTY PASS, ISAAC HAYES). My favourite is TOOK ISSUE. It seems strange to me that SEAGULLs only steal the chips and not the fish.
Favourite: CASTRATION (loi).
I was not keen on 23d. As an abbreviation it is example of a clue that ought to read as (1,1,1,1).
Re 7d – I agree with others above that seagulls like to snatch the potato chips that come with fish and chips, not crisps in packets.
Layman@6 – maybe the seagulls prefer the raw fish that they catch, and the fried chips are something they have to steal as they cannot find them in the sea;)
Despite getting held up briefly on IN RETROSPECT this still only took slightly longer than yesterday’s breezy Quiptic. All good though.
I agree Steven is merely an example of a wider issue with gulls and chips. The RSPB will tell you there’s no actual species called a “SEAGULL” but we all get the idea. I thing herring gulls may be the prime snatchers.
I enjoyed this. No obvious stand outs though. A romp indeed.
Thanks Anto and PeterO
Gentle but good fun from Anto.
Didn’t know the Chekhov play and never used the singular SPAGHETTO but easy enough to work out. Originally had EYE UP rather than MUG UP which I think works in a cryptic way.
Liked PROVENANCE and IN RETROSPECT.
Thanks Anto and PeterO
Nho Isaac Hayes but looking him up I see I’ve met a bit of his oeuvre: Birdland club, Munich, ’67, great little soul band playing Sam and Dave numbers. Cruisy puzzle, ta Anto and Peter.
Thanks Anto and PeterO
A particularly entertaining puzzle from Anto. I laughed at AN ALL-TIME LOW. ATOP was neat.
I agree that chip stealing is more rife than just by one particular seagull.
Not just chips – here in Totnes I’ve seen SEAGULLs take a slice of pizza from unsuspecting tourists
A quick romp indeed but fun while it lasted
Cheers P&A
Bodycheetah @12: no doubt. I’m still feeling outraged at the theft of my ice cream on Aberystwyth beach. They have learned to spot inattentive tourists, I guess.
Does anyone pronounce ISAAC with a sibilant s? Only ever heard it with a z.
Excellent crossword for beginners.
Might have a spaghetto for dinner tonight. 🙂
Interesting that although spaghetti is plural we usually treat it as singular. We’d be unlikely to say “Spaghetti are on the menu.”
First time commenter! Thanks for this blog and all previous I’ve lurked on.
Agree with everyone about chips.
The only thing I’d add is that I took 13d to be not so much Yodaesque wording but “Guidance IT provides”, as in that shipped with software.
GDU, agreed. Data is another which many of us forget is actually a plural. I suspect most people would say “the data is confusing”.
Good fun and quite easy. I knew all the phrases so could write them in.
Martin@8 It’s the black-backed gulls down in Weymouth that patrol the esplanade stealing anything that’s food.
Liked THE SEAGULL, AN ALL-TIME LOW, CASTRATION and TOOK ISSUE.
Thanks Anto and PeterO.
William @16. Data is a word almost entirely misused: data are just the numbers – once put into context it becomes information.
While we’re on the subject, the singular datum is a different thing from its plural data. If I were talking about a surveying benchmark datum, I would probably use datums for the plural.
Scolopax @18: Yes, plurals seem often to catch us out. In a radio play the other day, I heard, “…he has presided over dozens of court martials…” Aargh.
[William @20 – the OED allows both courts martial and court martials, as does Chambers, though it designates the latter as ‘informal’.]
Entertaining Monday crossword – thanks, Anto.
Like PhilB@17, I found this straightforward and very enjoyable. Many answers went straight in because I know the phrases: AN ACE IN THE HOLE, MUG UP, PRETTY PASS. Loved the SEAGULL clue. In my experience, seagulls will go for pretty much any food; my daughter has never quite recovered from having the last bit of her sausage roll snatched from her hand.
“Just one spaghetto –
Give it to me….”
THE SEAGULL went straight in for me. Thieving blighters. They give you a very nasty look, too.
I always use “the data are…” but then I’m an oldie with a long-ago O-level in Latin.
I liked the alternative takes on PRETTY PASS and AN ALL-TIME LOW.
Nice start to the day – thanks Anto & PeterO.
Fairly straightforward, but SPAGHETTO sounds like cod Italian. Would anyone ever really say that?
I wonder if Anto confused the one-l LAMA (a priest) with the two-l LLAMA (a beast)? Otherwise ‘it’ in 13d seems a bit harsh.
Chapeau to the setter for acknowledging that MYNA and ‘minor’ are only homophones for some people.
poc @24
Spaghetto is genuine, though you would feel a bit shortchanged to be served it. I have two or three times been served a raviolo, though – they were all quite large, and delicious.
Don’t get me started on on “a panini”!
Would you ADAM AND EVE it, SPAGHETTO is a thing. Liked AN ALL TIME LOW, ISAAC HAYES, ATOP, VICARIOUS, CASTRATION and TOOK ISSUE. Gentle enough and a lot of fun shining through.
Ta Anto & PeterO.
Enjoyable puzzle. I agree that PeterO has missed the point of THE SEAGULL, not perhaps being familiar with the behaviour of gulls around the UK.
CASTRATION raised a pained smile.
poc @24: muffin is quite right – Italians would refer to a single strand of spaghetti as a SPAGHETTO whereas in English the plural has become a mass noun and so takes a singular verb. The reverse has happened in English with ‘pease’, originally a mass noun like ‘wheat’, now only found in the expression ‘pease pudding’, but otherwise mistaken for a plural, hence giving the new singular form ‘pea’.
Thanks to Anto and PeterO
Having recently lost half a dozen chips and a piece of scampi to an enterprising SEAGULL in Whitby, that one was a write-in (and I still have a scar on my thumb where a ham sandwich was snatched from me years ago in Cornwall). Are herring gulls’ well-known piratical habits purely a UK thing? They will eat just about anything, but the cartoon seagull (on the signs warning you not to feed them) always has an unwary tourist’s chip in its beak.
Mostly easy today but a lot of fun: favourites ATOP, CASTRATION, AN ALL TIME LOW, the service provider and the very small pasta portion. I was taught to spell MYNA with a final H, but the other way is OK, and I just about remembered ISAAC HAYES once I had all the crossers. Thanks Anto and PeterO.
Comment #29
I had SKUA for 25D for a while (sounds like skewer/impersonator, though couldn’t account for lightweight) but got there in the end.
Thanks Anto and PeterO.
While it’s no fun to lose your chips, I’m generally on the side of the seagulls, who were on our coasts long before the seaside became overrun with human tourists.
A have different question for Chekhovians, since ‘seagull’ is not a bird species, but a term we apply to various types of seabird, does the Russian word that is the title of the play have the same characteristic, or is it an actual species?
Thanks to Anto and PeterO
gladys@28:
[Interesting seagull fact. Herring gulls and Lesser black-backed gulls are a “ring species”. There is a continuous chain of interbreeding forms in both directions all around the north pole, but when they meet in Western Europe, these two have become cumulatively so different that they can’t interbreed.]
I meant to leave this link: but the comment box is being uncooperative.
In plain text: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2026/jun/20/christopher-harry-dangers-seaside-holidays-cartoon-seagulls
Amazingly, herring gulls – the ones with the grey backs, which I grew up with on the south Wales coast – are now on the UK Red List of endangered birds. So your chips are helping them survive!! Liked the crossword. Thanks Anto and PeterO
Good Monday crossword that I enjoyed. I liked the slum providing SPAGHETTO (the Wiktionary says: (rare, prescriptive or humorous)), AN ALL-TIME LOW for the limbo dancer, the thieving SEAGULL, and ASK ME ANOTHER after the market is in chaos. I forgot the A TO P gag. I don’t know why we still have the repeated arguments that USAF and any other abbreviation should be enumerated 1,1,1,1. Apart from the Style Guide, doesn’t anyone look at dictionaries? In the rare cases where a word is given as N.N.N.N etc it should be enumerated 1,1,1,1 but otherwise clearly not [end of rant!]
Thanks Anto and PeterO.
Very entertaining. I agree (William @13) that ISAAC HAYES (surely best remembered for the Theme from Shaft) is not an exact soundalike of “I sack haze” but I thought it was amusing.
Seagulls are not the only culprits for chip-stealing. Once by Windermere I saw a swan knock a tray of chips from someone’s hand and start devouring them.
Many thanks Anto and PeterO.
[Aye-Aye @31: The Russian name of Chekhov’s play is Ча́йка (Chayka) which, like the word (sea)gull, is the general term for any bird in the family Laridae – individual species are distinguished by the addition of other words, as in English]
Lord Jim @38. Of course, ISAAC HAYES (surely best remembered for playing Chef on South Park!) is not an exact soundalike of “I sack haze.” This type of clue is intended to amuse, like it did you and me and if anything, the more ridiculous the match, the better it is. Having said that, the Alex Bellos section had a whole collection of these last week which would cause pandemonium here e.g. Anna plaid hey key psst thud Octo hey whey!
Enjoyed this; favourite was CASTRATION which raised a smile, as did VICARIOUS.
Not heard of PRETTY PASS, added that to the bank.
I’m not sure that THE SEAGULL is in fact a reference to the stealing of crisps (chips in the US), but rather the hot chips you get at the seaside and of which seagulls are more than a little fond.
Yes all great fun but I didn’t get the last clue as I don’t have arcane knowledge of soul singers and didn’t get the wordplay.
Could somebody explain how “former pupils” leads to OBS in 19 across?
THE SEAGULL last one in. Spent too much time trying to think of an agent noun.
Couldn’t parse ATOP.
Otherwise no real head scratching.
Nick @42
Old Boys. It used to be common to see rugby clubs called, for example, St Custard’s OB.
…looking forward to tangling a taglietello round my forchetta next time I’m in my local Italian.
And I do love to be beside the seaside, except the threat of overbold herring gulls (mostly) dive bombing on expensively bought fish and chips and ice cream cones has made things a little more hazardous these days.
Lots of very agreeable clues today, my last two in ISAAC H…oh,yes, HAYES and MYNAH which felt a bit tailless to my way of spelling it…
Lord Jim @37 and Martin @39: Sorry to appear curmudgeonly, but I only find ‘soundalike’ clues (like Spooner ones) amusing and memorable if the alternative reading makes sense. ‘Yul never wore cologne’ does, ‘I sack haze’ unfortunately does not 🙂
Nobody in the UK means “crisps” when they say “chips” ; and “slum” is a very poor definition of “ghetto”.
Ronald @ 45, that would be a “tagliatella”
Layman @6 It is more common for gulls to steal only chips because it is common for people to BUY only chips. A portion of chips is a common snack when you don’t want a full meal.
With no wordplay to help, 7d THE SEAGULL had to remain unsolved. Otherwise a pleasant solve. Thank you Anto and PeterO
If you Google
“Videos of seagulls going into shops and stealing crisps”
you’ll find numerous YouTube clips of them doing just that !
Thanks Anto and PeterO. And thanks Nick and muffin for asking and answering about OB pupils. I have never run across the ATOP bit of cleverness before; fun.
To see if it’s cooked, fish a spaghetto from the pan and throw it at the wall. If it sticks, your dinner is ready.
TJA@52. Tried throwing a spaghetto at the ceiling once. It was done. When we vacated the rented flat a couple of years later I remembered to pull it down. Part of the ceiling came with it.
Mostly all good, almost Sunday-ish. Was held up a bit in the bottom half and was staring at OBSTACLES for ages because I’d forgotten how ‘old boys’ are usually former pupils in crossword land. Thanks PeterO, and to Anto.
Many thanks for that David Mansell@47…on my stumbling along Duolingo Italian I’m forever getting those genders in a tangle too…
…and Blaise@53 ha! ha! ha! but I just don’t believe you. Surely not?
I don’t think that I can ask for a biscotto (when speaking English) without sounding pretentious, but I can’t bring myself to say “a biscotti”. So either I have two or I ask for “one of those biscotti”.
Since no-one has mentioned it……
I have seen herring gulls assert their right to (and it’s not easy for me to say this) chichi dock-side sushi, by which I mean they change from thieves (‘I know I’m chancing my arm’) to sea-lords (‘That’s mine!’). And who can blame them? Add to this that a fully grown herring gull is a bit of a prospect and I sympathised fully while the sushi was surrendered without demur.
VinnyD@57: v good
[The SPAGHETTO test reminded me of the student sock test – throw them at the wall and if they don’t stick they’re good for another day…..]
If you read down from the ‘P’ in SPAGHETTO you find another pasta lurking. And SE from the ‘U’ in USER MANUAL leads us to ‘up Scots’ ale’ but I’m inclined to hazard that this is a quinky dinky.
I am of that age where I first came across ISAAC HAYES through his voice work on South Park. I think I’d watched a full season of the show before I learned he was primarily famous as a musician!
I don’t think I have ever come across anything else by Isaac Hayes, but when I was doing my long vac course in Bangor (pre Cambridge genetics) in 1972, the theme from Shaft was never off the radio. I don’t remember that there was an awful lot of vocal on it, though – just the occasional “Shaft!”.
Protase@46, but “I sack haze” does make sense. It means what it says in the first part of the clue, “I dismiss unclear vision”. Or, in other words, “I reject fuzzy thinking”.
I think that people would be happier if instead of soundalike or homophone they would think pun or aural wordplay (with an emphasis on play).
I like the word curmudgeon. When I retired, I had business cards made up that said “Professional Idler and Curmudgeon-at-large”. I have tried hard to live up to that.
I quite liked this puzzle, especially 1a, although I categorically deny any role in the origin of the species. (I still have all my ribs.)
Liked it but too many hidden answers. I think one per puzzle is sufficient.