The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/30052.
A splendid puzzle from the ever-reliable Qaos, with more than usual use of numbers. Qaos always has a theme, but I have not been able to spot it here, despite several entries that look as if they ought be part of one.
| ACROSS | ||
| 8 | DELICATE |
Fine food store providing meals 50% off (8)
|
| A charade of DELI (‘food store’) plus CATE[ring] (‘providing meals’), discarding the last four of its eight letters (‘50% off’). | ||
| 9 | PUNCH |
Wordplay by church magazine in the past (5)
|
| A charade of PUN (‘wordplay’) plus CH (‘church’). | ||
| 10 | FREE |
Release knot after cycling (4)
|
| REEF (‘knot’) ‘after cycling’. | ||
| 11 | DETENTIONS |
50 leave prayers over 10 school punishments? (10)
|
| An envelope (‘over’) of TEN (’10’) in DE[vo]TIONS (‘prayers’) minus V (Roman numeral ‘5’-) and O (-‘0’). | ||
| 12 | BARREN |
Lord caught being unproductive (6)
|
| Sounds like (‘caught’) BARON (‘Lord’). | ||
| 14 | EMBODIED |
Half of them plot to protect cricket match represented (8)
|
| An envelope (‘to protect’) of ODI (One Day International, ‘cricket match’) in EM (‘half of thEM‘) plus BED (‘plot’). | ||
| 16 | SHUFFLE |
Prepare to deal in Harlem, maybe (7)
|
| Double definition; the first referring to cards, and the second, a dance, the Harlem Shuffle. | ||
| 18 | EXPRESS |
Ruler deports 1,000 to win vote, say (7)
|
| EMPRESS (‘ruler’) with the M (Roman numeral ‘1,000’) removed (‘deports’) and repalced by (‘to win’) X (‘vote’). | ||
| 21 | OFF AND ON |
Occasional cricket sides (3,3,2)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 23 | PADDLE |
Wearing white, England finally get 500 with sweep (6)
|
| An envelope (‘wearing’) of D (‘EnglanD finally’) plus D (Roman numeral, ‘500’) in PALE (‘white’). | ||
| 24 | TENNIS BALL |
One in court sent in criminal to get shot (6,4)
|
| A charade of TENNIS, an anagram (‘criminal’) of ‘sent in’; plus BALL (‘shot’). | ||
| 26 | WING |
Wide initially given following batting side (4)
|
| A charade of W (‘wide’) plus IN (‘batting’) plus G (‘initially Given’). | ||
| 27 | DANCE |
Perhaps Hamlet seizes Claudius’s crown in play (5)
|
| An envelope (‘seizes’) of C (‘Claudius’s crown’) in DANE (‘perhaps Hamlet’). | ||
| 28 | DRUM ROLL |
‘Beats drinking alcohol’ – aristocrat on reflection with slice of lemon (4,4)
|
| An envelope (‘drinking’) of RUM (‘alcohol’) in DROL, a reversal (‘on reflection’) of LORD (‘aristicrat’); plus L (‘slice of Lemon’). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | REPROACH |
Scold or preach conversion (8)
|
| An anagram (‘conversion’) of ‘or preach’. | ||
| 2 | TIME |
Magazine’s obligation to describe source of material (4)
|
| An envelope (‘to describe’) of M (‘source of Material’) in TIE (‘obligation’). | ||
| 3 | PARDON |
What even number is divided by 5000? (6)
|
| An envelope (‘is divided by’) of D (Roman numeral, ‘500’-) plus O (-‘0’), in PAR (‘even’) plus N (‘number’). | ||
| 4 | FEATHER |
Iron Lady’s bored by acting Tory leader’s ‘soft touch’ (7)
|
| An envelope (‘bored by’) of A (‘acting’) plus T (‘Tory leader’) in FE (chemical symbol, ‘iron’) plus HER (‘lady’). | ||
| 5 | SPIN |
Country rejects American PR (4)
|
| A subtraction: SP[a]IN (‘country’) minus the A (‘rejects American’). | ||
| 6 | UNHINDERED |
10 hide under end of divan, trembling (10)
|
| An anagram (‘trembling’) of ‘hide under’ plus N (‘end of divaN‘). with the definition being FREE, the answer to 10A (’10’). | ||
| 7 | CHANGE |
Transfer money (6)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 13 | REFRAINING |
Stopping official education ignoring tense (10)
|
| A charade of REF (referee, ‘official’) plus [t]RAINING (‘education’) minus the T (‘ignoring tense’). | ||
| 15 | BOX |
Beauty product to go in container (3)
|
| A subtraction: BO[to]X (‘beauty product’) minus TO (‘to go’). | ||
| 17 | LED |
Guided light (3)
|
| Double definition, the second being originally an initialism for Light Emitting Diode, but which has become a word in its own right. | ||
| 19 | SILENTLY |
Foolish to steal ten pounds without a sound (8)
|
| An envelope (‘to steal’) of ENT, an anagram (‘pounds’ – would pound be better?) of ‘ten’ in SILLY (‘foolish’). | ||
| 20 | EN GARDE |
Take defensive position as grenade’s thrown (2,5)
|
| An anagram (‘thrown’) of ‘grenade’ | ||
| 22 | FIENDS |
Demons? Companions, run away! (6)
|
| A subtraction: F[r]IENDS (‘companions’) minus the R (‘run away’). | ||
| 23 | PULL UP |
Stop going both ways? (4-2)
|
| The wordplay indicates a palindrome. | ||
| 25 | STEP |
Society backing favourite way to go up in the world (4)
|
| A charade of S (‘society’) plus TEP, a reversal (‘backing’) of PET (‘favourite’). | ||
| 26 | WORM |
Creature of indeterminate gender? (4)
|
| W OR M (woman or man, ‘indeterminate gender’) – and indeed earthworms are hermaphrodite. My first thought was F OR M. |
I agree with PeterO’s preamble. Very enjoyable. Now that I check, I see I got 14a EMBODIED wrong (EMBEDDED). Didn’t know the cricket reference (of course — abcr), so made a guess. I figured a journalist embedded with a military unit is a press representative? Ah well, dnf
Lots of favourites, though. Maybe single out 18a EXPRESS for the political surface, 24a TENNIS BALL for the “One in court” definition, 28a DRUM ROLL (“Beats”), and 3d PARDON, creating a question with the definition
Like PeterO I had initially had FORM instead of WORM at 26d, which held me up for a while, before my loi, 26a WING
Many thanks for a fine blog, and Qaos for an enjoyable puzzle
Sweep oars are typically a bit long to be called a paddle, but hey ho, a mere quibbletino in, yes, a pretty sweet and smooth puzzle, ta PnQ.
Good fun, plenty of smiles. DETENTIONS was the only one I couldn’t parse.
Like others, I had FORM first. Is M a standard abbreviation for Man (M for male is pretty common)?
Also, in the context of gender, F or M seems to work better.
Took a while to parse DETENTIONS. PARDON uses the same trick again. Just saying.
Enjoyed the puzzle and the blog.
Thanks Qaos and PeterO.
Nice puzzle. There’s a lot of cricket here. PUNCH (down the ground), SHUFFLE (across one’s stumps), EXPRESS (pace), OFF AND ON, PADDLE (sweep), TENNIS BALL (bounce), FEATHER (-ed behind), SPIN, BOX, PULL…
I couldn’t parse DETENTIONS so thanks for that. Agree with KVa@4 with the repeated mechanism with PARDON.
Also glad to see that there’s more to WORM than I thought at first.
Great fun from QAOS.
I had the theme to be dancing -DANCE, SHUFFLE, SPIN, WORM, STEP etc but I am far from convinced by my conclusion.
OFF AND ON also follow a lot of the words SPIN OFF, DANCE OFF, STEP ON etc but again not overly convinced. I will keep an eye on the comments.
Enjoyed QAOS’s signature maths clues and WORM.
Thanks QAOS and PeterO
KVa @4: no – as far as I am aware M is not a dictionary-backed abbreviation for ‘man’ – and neither is W for ‘woman’. M can stand for ‘male’ or ‘masculine’ and W can be ‘women’ or ‘women’s’. The usual justification for ignoring the need for dictionary support is the letters seen on the doors of toilets/restrooms – though I’d have thought those would stand for Men and Women rather than Man and Woman. FORM would be an excellent answer to the clue as given.
Thanks Qaos and PeterO
First pass of acrosses yielded nothing, but it all went in more easily once several downs were entered. Favourites FEATHER and UNHINDERED.
A couple of definitions puzzled me. Why is BALL “shot”? Why is DANCE “play”?
WORM is closer for “creature” than form is. I didn’t have this problem, though, as it was LOI, after WING.
muffin@8
Ball=shot……think ammunition.
In 4dn I thought her was Lady’s. Enjoyable and thanks for the helpful blog.
I started well and then it was hard going. Didn’t know why paddle meant sweep but the clue made the answer clear. Failed to parse DETENTIONS.
No problem with WORM as I already had WING.
Last ones in PARDON and BARREN.
A bit too much cricket for me but otherwise excellent.
Thanks QAOS and PeterO
I couldn’t parse 15d and don’t like it. The surface is smooth but wordplay grammar would demand “to to go” or “to goes”, but not simply “to go”.
Even more numerical jiggery-pokery than usual from Qaos, and rather a lot of cricket. I eventually saw the sneaky trick (5000 = D+O) in PARDON, but failed to see that Q had done it again (50 = V+O) in the wordplay for DETENTIONS. But I did remember the O D I from some previous occasion when it – er – stumped me.
I agree that sweeps are on a completely different scale to paddles (and are operated differently) so I missed that one – and play=DANCE isn’t the world’s most obvious synonym. Good fun though. If there’s a theme I can’t identify it.
(Conrad@14: no, I didn’t like “to go” either.)
Found this quite a bit gentler than normally is the case for me with Qaos the setter. The only two that hold me up for a while were UNHINDERED, which I didn’t realise was connected to 10ac, thought it might be another of his numerical puzzles. And loi 3d which of course was. WORM was another little puzzler that took a while to wriggle its way in…
Conrod@14
BOX
Agree that the cryptic grammar doesn’t work.
Staticman1 @6 – a few more dance-related items to add to DANCE, SHUFFLE, SPIN, WORM, STEP: BARRE(N), BALL + CHANGE, WING, BOX (as in ‘box step’), TIME (as in ‘time step’), FEATHER (as in ‘feather step’) as well. I wonder if REFRAIN(ING) is also a tangential link.
Beauty product = BOTOX; T O (the letters) go, = BOX. Isn’t that OK? And surely the W and M in WORM don’t have to be woman or man, they could be women and male, and the clue still works.
No idea about the theme!
Many thanks Qaos and PeterO.
… alternatively the “go” in BOX could be an imperative.
I also thought there were an unusual number of numerical clues but they were all enjoyable. My favourites were SHUFFLE and DRUM ROLL and I also didn’t like ‘to go’ in BOX. With TIME, DETENTIONS, FREE and PARDON in early, I thought there might be a prison theme but that didn’t last long. Then like Staticman1 @6, I thought the theme might be DANCE but I’m also not that convinced. Qaos seems to be more benign these days, than in the past.
Ta Qaos & PeterO.
I’m another who needed help with the parsing of DETENTIONS. Nice to see 50 parsed as something other than L.
Lots of witty surfaces, my favourite being the clue for BARREN.
Conrad@14 and gladys@15 – is “to go” okay if “go” is an imperative, telling TO to go? Though I like both of Lord Jim’s explanations.
Many thanks to Qaos and PeterO
Very enjoyable – thank you, Qaos 🙂
Favourites: DETENTIONS, EXPRESS, PARDON (loi).
New for me: the fact that most worms are hermaphrodites (for 26d) and I now realise I had not parsed it fully, assuming it was not very cryptic or the whole clue = the answer. Now I see there is more going on there!
I enjoyed this. Lots of rather intricate, but doable word and number play. Quiet progressive satisfaction rather than the laugh-out-loud penny-dropping of, for example, the recent one by Paul.
It took a while to remember One Day International to justify EMBODIED to myself. A lot of cricket in this one.
The volunteer-run café in our local hospital is invariably called in our family the “League of Fiends”.
Thanks Qaos and PeterO!
The theme, if indeed there is one, must surely be ‘cricketing arcana’, a topic of which I know nothing other than from other crosswords. I did finish it, but with rather muted enjoyment.
Managed to finish this despite 2 late football related nights….. Tricky in places and needed help to parse a couple.
Thanks to P & Q.
The paddle sweep is a cricketing stroke where the batter hits it the “wrong” way – to the off side – by reversing the direction of a sweep shot.
Xerxes @27
You might be right about the sweep, but I thought both paddle and sweep were references to oars.
Quite a few subtractions but they didn’t take anything away from an excellent crossword. I rather liked BOX and the numerical clues were sufficiently diverse to keep me on my toes
Extra points for all the cricket references- sorry Roz
Cheers Q&P
Most went in smoothly but was held up by 18 which I was convinced should be EMPRESS – although that left the conundrum that 15 in that case was B*M, and this was not a Paul! Thanks both – good fun.
Good trademark Qaos puzzle. I guess the theme must be cricket, unless Qaos says it isn’t! I liked the ruler deporting 1,000 in EXPRESS fashion, the good surface for WING, the TT aristo with his DRUM ROLL, the even number producing PARDON, the pounds anagrind in SILENTLY, and the WORM of indeterminate gender.
Thanks Qaos and PeterO.
I too thought it was probably cricket. To add to the other proposed cricketing terms, there is WORM. If you follow ODI commentaries online, as I tend to do, a WORM is the name given to a a graph shown periodically during the second innings which plots the two sides’ runs and scoring rates against each other.
I thought PARDON was excellent.
A good workout for me, with PARDON my LOI and unparsed. I tried splitting 5000 various ways except the correct one.
Thank you Qaos and PeterO
Lord Jim, you are ingenious… More ingenious, I suspect, than the setter!
Nice puzzle – thanks Qaos and Peter O for parses on BOX and DETENTIONS. Feels definitely more cricket than dance.
PS – I almost never get the themes until they’re pointed out. Always too focussed on solving. I’d be interest to know from others whether spotting a theme helps to solve or just brings a smile after the event.
Thanks for the blog , I am very sad to know that a PADDLE stroke is simply an ordinary sweep shot played very fine . Light will often DANCE/play on the water .
Some good clues , EXPRESS is very neat . BOX is very clumsy .
[ AlanC@21 , did you spot the KPR reference in the Prize puzzle on Saturday ? If not , all will be revealed this Saturday coming . ]
Great relief after yesterday’s Caius horror. Qaos and Caius nearly naughty homophones-same person?
Do cricketers say they are going in to bat or going on to bat? Or both?
Loved this one , thanks to all
Fun puzzle.” (I don’t know why the software is inserting font instructions)
I don’t bother looking for a theme in Qaos if it isn’t immediately obvious, which this isn’t. It’s sure to be a film from the 70;s or some obscure rock band’s greatest hits.
I don’t think “express’ means “say,” even though they both refer to speaking. Can someone give a sentence where either can be used?
And a reef isn’t a knot. Would you say “I tied a reef”?
Nho ODI or the Harlem Shuffle.
I enjoyed the number games.
Thanks Qaos and PeterO.
Chardonnay @39, they say going in to bat. When a side is “in”, it means they are the side currently batting.
Valentine @40, not sure what you’re saying in your third paragraph. Can you express it in a different way?
As for the puzzle, I failed to parse BOTOX, but I like Lord Jim’s approach of regarding to as the letters T and O, not as the word to. I wasn’t aware PUNCH had gone under (a shame). PADDLE, I think, is is better viewed as a synonym of sweep as a verb rather than a noun. WORM’s extended definition clue was very good. I liked both DETENTIONS and PARDON – good examples of Qaos extending wordplay to numbers as well as words.
Good fun. Thanks, P&Q. Better mind ’em…
[For those struggling with cricket references I recommend Arm Ball to Zooter by Lawrence Booth, editor of Wisden, a witty explanation of every cricketing term you’re likely to encounter on here.]
Valentine@40: About “Reef”: point taken, but I think it’s a marginal one. I might for example say “You berk – that’s not a reef, it’s a granny!”, and expect it to be understood that I was talking about my crew’s ropework, not a rather unexpected sight off the starboard bow. But I agree it’s more usual to say “reef knot”. (Likewise “I abseiled into the abyss, on a rope tied with an alpine butterfly”, wouldn’t lead my fellow cavers to think I was taking needless risks or endangering local wildlife.).
I’ve seen “Estate” and “Car”, also “Eider” and “Duck”, for example, used as equivalents / pointers in crossword clues, so this transfer of meaning, for which there is probably some classical rhetorical term, has some precedent.
Thanks Qaos for an entertaining crossword filled with characteristic numerical clues. My top picks were DELICATE, DETENTIONS, BARREN, EXPRESS, DRUM ROLL, and SPIN. I revealed WING (didn’t know ‘in’) and couldn’t fully parse EMBODIED (didn’t know ‘ODI’). WORM was a pure guess after I had revealed WING and had the W in place. Thanks PeterO for the blog.
AI definition of paddle sweep in cricket.
A paddle sweep is a cricket batting stroke where you guide a ball on a fuller length—often slightly outside off stump—down to fine leg or third man. Instead of forcefully hitting it, you drop low and deflect the ball using its own pace while maintaining precise bat control.
A sweep where the batter / batsman changes their stance and hits the ball to third (man) instead of to fine leg, whether by paddling or forcefully, is a reverse sweep.
I know little to nothing about cricket, so parsing some of these clues is tricky.
Am fairly new to cryptic puzzles, and thought the use of Roman numerals to be plain wrong… 5000 is V with an overscore, not 500 + 0 (D0). Similarly 50 (L) is not the same as 5, 0 (VO) this just doesn’t work for me.
Did enjoy Shuffle, Delicate and Drum Roll.
This was good fun. I didn’t think of it being a cricketing theme during the solve, more “Ooh, the people who don’t like cricket references won’t be happy” but, on reflection, I guess there’s enough arcana as POC puts it to qualify.
I liked the fiddly clues that I’d have struggled with two years ago like PARDON, DETENTIONS and EXPRESS.
My only unparsed clue was WORM. I assumed there was more to it but, as Michelle reported, a straight reading of clue gave only one solution, especially with two crossers in place.
Thanks Qaos and PeterO
Enjoyable as always with Qaos. Does he/she ever have two themes. The dance references pointed out above and the many cricket ones made me wonder. I did like PARDON. Sure, that’s not the Roman numeral for 5000, which is why I was puzzled for a bit, but the tricky device with the extra zero was very neat, and very Qaos-like.
As ever, about 75% done, the rest beyond me. When I checked the excellent hints, the missing ones seem obvious, like always. Thanks both.
“Wide initially given following batting side”
This is surely gibberish. Can anyone make it make sense?
Roundhegian @45 AI gets it wrong again. Lawrence Booth (see me @42) says of the sweep ‘ played on one knee…the most conventional version ends up at deep backward square leg.’ (Not third man). ‘There is the PADDLE sweep, played with an almost vertical bat, a la Nasser Hussain.’ He goes on to list other variants, including the reverse sweep, which does go to third man.
[Roz @38: I’ve stopped doing the prize, but now I have to give it a look].
My quibble with BOTOX is that it isn’t a beauty product, when you look at the results. Otherwise an enjoyable puzzle as I like cricket
[Roz @38: unlucky for some].
Thanks Qaos and PeterO. Really needed your parsing to understand why I was accidentally right, but at least I finished before comments closed. Loved WORM.
Was the theme definitely found? Doesn’t Qaos publish the themes somewhere?
[ AlanC @53 , not quite , you will need your knowledge of former KPR players . ]
The theme for this was the Security Services , BOX gave it away but I can’t say more .
Superb!
DaveEllison @55 He used to give a hint on Twitter, which would at least confirm if you had it right, but I can’t find him on any social media any more
I have a tiny quibbletino about 28a DRUM ROLL. The definition is “beats”, and a drum roll, properly executed, produces a continuous sound that doesn’t correspond to a particular beat or rhythm. The only justification is that technically a drum roll consists of beats that are so rapid that you can’t hear the beats. I don’t buy that, but solving the clue was unhindered by this pedanticism.
Unlike RnR@45, I like how Qaos plays fast and loose with Roman numerals. It’s the quirkiness that is his trademark.
Re 15d BOX, Lord Jim’s idea of separating the letters T and O makes perfect sense to me.
Thanks Q and PO.
Cellomaniac@59 for 28a I took “beats” to mean drum beats, rather than rhythmic beats. Beating the drum repeatedly (beats) produces a DRUM ROLL