Kite returns to the Prize slot, three months after his puzzle themed on the Artemis Moon Mission,
which I also blogged. Given that this puzzle was published on the Fourth of July, I was more than half expecting another themed offering and I was not surprised to see UNITED STATES DECLARATION INDEPENDENCE SEMIQUINCENTENNIAL emerging pretty promptly after the broad hint in the last clue at 22,23,1. I thought there might be other, less obvious, references (Founding Fathers / signatories?) but the only others I could see were THIRTEEN COLONIES – did you find more?
Apart from that mild disappointment, there were some clever clues here, with some deft devices / constructions, a few smiles and generally smooth, meaningful surfaces. I particularly liked CRITERIA, UNITED STATES, ART MUSEUM, COLONIES, INDEPENDENCE, TOTS, DASH, LAY HANDS ON and SEMIQUINCENTENNIAL.
Thanks to Kite for the puzzle.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 Spies admitting author’s missing the first tests (8)
CRITERIA
CIA (spies) round [w]RITER (author) minus the initial letter
5, 10 Country dictator’s honoured after Posh and principally Scary Spice’s gallery opening (6,6)
UNITED STATES
U (posh) + NITED – sounds like (dictator’s) knighted (honoured) + TATE (gallery) in (opening) first letters (principally) of S[cary] S[pice]
9 See drain broken facing the kerb (8)
NEARSIDE
An anagram (broken) of SEE DRAIN
12 Bats get in palace restaurant perhaps (6,5)
EATING PLACE
An easy anagram (bats) of GET IN PALACE
15 Book Christmas drinks – vodka at the start (5)
NOVEL
NOEL (Christmas) round (drinks) V[odka]
17 One with no issue is invalid sitting next to one short diver (9)
NULLIPARA
NULL (invalid) + I (one) + PARA (short for PARAtrooper – (sky)diver)
A perhaps less familiar word: -PARA is a suffix referring to delivery, parturition being the medical term for childbirth, from the Latin verb parere, to bring forth: for instance, women can be described as primipara, giving birth for the first time, multipara, having given birth to multiple children – or NULLIPARA, never having given birth (‘having given birth to none’)
18 Old are with mother, describing operation where hangings occur (3,6)
ART MUSEUM
ART (old form of ‘are’) + MUM (mother) round USE (operation) – I always enjoy the old are / art trick
19 Chart Viagra Pharmaceuticals supplies (5)
GRAPH
Hidden in viaGRA PHarmaceuticals
20 Month with City helping to make announcement (11)
DECLARATION
DEC (month + LA (city) + RATION
24 Avoided crazy duel with journalist (6)
ELUDED
An anagram (crazy) of DUEL + ED (journalist)
25 Possessions: last of batteries including that is … (8)
COLONIES
: (colon) + [batterie]S round IE (that is) – a neat use of punctuation and ellipses, which I always enjoy
26 … 11 ones easy to charge (6)
IONISE
An anagram (easy – as in ‘relaxed’) of II (eleven) ONES
27 Their ten bananas or bakers’ 12 (8)
THIRTEEN
An anagram (bananas) of THEIR TEN – a reference to ‘baker’s dozen’, possibly relating to this practice
Down
2 To stop from working during start of play, 5 brew tea (10)
INACTIVATE
IN ACT I (during start of play) + V (five) + an anagram (brew) of TEA
3 Directions for European city (5).
ESSEN
A combination of compass points (directions)
4 Trendy state with former vice-president accepting objective is home rule (12)
INDEPENDENCE
IN (trendy) + DE (Delaware – state) + (Mike) PENCE (former US vice-president) round END (objective)
6 Smashing knight, as bachelor, is having a chat (9)
NATTERING
bATTERING (smashing) with the b (bachelor) replaced by N (knight, in chess notation)
7 Babies’ fingers (4)
TOTS
Double definition – fingers as (approximate) measures of alcohol, especially whisky, when pouring into a glass – my husband tended to have rather fat fingers when using this ‘approximation’
8 Depressed about Charles the Second ruin (4)
DASH
A reversal (about) of SAD (depressed) + cHarles (second letter of) – definition as in having one’s hopes dashed
11 Bloody selfish Officer Commanding hospital seen in ancient Scottish settlement (12)
BALLYMEANOCH
This may look complicated but it’s a simple charade: we just need to follow the directions on the tin
BALLY (bloody) + MEAN (selfish) + OC (Officer Commanding) + H (hospital) – it looks like an interesting place to visit
FANATICISE
FAN (cool) + A TIC (a jerk) + I SE[e] (almost recognise)
14 Seize and confirm (3,5,2)
LAY HANDS ON
Double definition, the second as in the ecclesiastical service of Confirmation
16 Lamela discontented with strip’s cleaner (9)
LAUNDRESS
L[amel]A + UNDRESS (strip) – I always enjoy looking up unknown (to me) names in clues, to see why they were chosen; googling revealed that Lamela was a footballer, hence the ‘strip’
21 Fling mail that’s not readable on the front (5)
AMOUR
A[r]MOUR (mail) minus first letter of readable – ‘on the front’ sounds rather awkward to me
22, 23, 1 Quiet men in line can initially start getting excited for significant anniversary (18)
SEMIQUINCENTENNIAL
A clever anagram ( getting excited) of QUIET MEN IN LINE CAN S[tart]
My apologies – published slightly early, in error: I pushed the wrong button. I’m afraid my brain is even more frazzled than usual: I’ve never been good in the heat 🙁
No worries Eileen. I rescheduled it for midnight
Never apologise Eileen, you’re the Teflon doyenne (I’ve been listening to a podcast on John Gotti this week). I got the theme early as well with the big SQC taking a while to sort out, but like you I couldn’t find any other references. BALLYMEANOCH was loi but coming from NI, it could only be BALLY in the end and then the rest followed. NULLIPARA worked out from the wordplay.
(Roz, I’ve no idea what the KPR reference is, in anticipation).
Ta Kite and as always, Eileen.
I share your husband’s fat fingers with Bushmills 🤣
Nice puzzle, nice blog. Eileen, it looks like your write-up for 13d FANATICISE has been corrupted.
Nho the B place, but pieced it together readily enough.
Tx
Middling difficulty for me.
I ticked NOVEL, and LAUNDRESS. Otherwise, Kite seemed to struggle a bit to produce nice surfaces.
I could not parse UNITED STATES or NATTERING, and I am afraid I thought 11 down and NULLIPARA were both awful.
Thanks Kite and Eileen
Sorry about the heat Eileen. It does frazzle the best of us it would seem. Anyway, your blog for this puzzle hit the nail on the head as ever. I particularly enjoyed your full explanation on NULLIPARA: this kind of extra etymological info is what we wordy people like (at least this one does 😉).
Also grateful for the link you gave for BALLYMEANOCH which I’d never heard of either. In fact, I’d left this clue unfilled, mainly because I had never heard of “bally” as a synonym for “bloody”and so was unlikely to solve this one in a month of Bally Sundays!
[another unfamiliar synonym I chanced on in Collins was bally=thumb: apparently Northern dialect but maybe my adopted home of Manchester is still rightly considered southern for such purposes]
Thanks to Kite for the puzzle: I’d include TOTS and NATTERING in my list of ticks.
Stay cool everyone. Maybe Krakatoa (other volcanoes are available) will erupt and rebalance things for a while and give us humans an opportunity to focus on something useful for ourselves for a change.
Enjoyable challenge that took a few sittings. Short a few parsings, and couldn’t solve 1a CRITERIA (because I now see I had INACTIVATE for 2d DEACTIVATE), so dnf. The theme was pretty clear if you thought to look for it…and I did! Belated Happy SEMIQUINCENTENNIAL everyone!
Favourites 19a GRAPH (good container), 25a COLONIES (cleverly hidden “:”)
Many thanks Eileen for a great blog, and Kite for the entertaining puzzle
[AlanC@3, I suspect the reference is in 17a, though it should rightfully be plural…]
[…I should add that diving in ice hockey is not only frowned upon, it will also get you a two-minute penalty…]
Thanks for the blog , very good set of clues and the theme is fair enough given the date .
ART MUSEUM is very neat wordplay and definition , the same for COLONIES , I always like use of a symbol and the same trick appeared in the FT a few days later , many more fine clues , LAUNDRESS flows so smoothly .
Minor quibble for AMOUR , we are not told which R to remove and a severe Paddington stare for IONISE .
For NULLIPARA I suspect the second part refers to Emil PARA , former KPR striker famous for being 5foot2 in old money . Mig@10 was getting close .
At least it has tempted AlanC back to the Prize .
The big themed clue was obvious and made things easier. I’m not one of the enthusiastic theme spotters but fair enough if a setter like Brockwell pushes the boat out. To have just a handful of themed clues feels disappointing, as our esteemed blogger so tactfully put it. Irritating maybe. Choosing the day of an apparent theme to plonk in an unrelated, obscure, prehistoric Scottish settlement seemed somewhat disjointed.
Anyway, all good. Thanks Kite and Eileen.
[They’ve redesigned and trashed the crossword app today. It doesn’t work. Only a third of the keyboard and no delete button. Aargh! I’ll have to make do with the FT.]