Thanks Vulcan for today’s puzzle – I especially liked 21ac, 22ac, 5dn, and 19dn.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | BYPASS |
Sort of surgery that’s built outside town (6)
|
| double definition: surgery e.g. so that blood can bypass an obstruction; or a traffic bypass around a town | ||
| 4 | PLANCK |
Physicist from college welcomed by board (6)
|
| definition: Max Planck the physicist
C (college) in PLANK=”board” |
||
| 9 | TRIPLE WORD SCORE |
In corridor we slept badly, but it’s a bonus to be on Red Square (6,4,5)
|
| definition refers to a Scrabble board, where using a red square grants a TRIPLE WORD SCORE bonus
anagram/”badly” of (corridor we slept)* |
||
| 10 | PUTSCH |
Revolutionary outbreak shut PC up (6)
|
| anagram/”up” of (shut PC)* | ||
| 11 | NUISANCE |
Inconvenience of one square being in the shade (8)
|
| I=”one” + S (square); both inside NUANCE=”shade” | ||
| 12 | CHESTNUT |
Horse box, large cask on back (8)
|
| definition: a horse of a chestnut colour
CHEST=”box” plus TUN=”large cask” reversed/”back” |
||
| 14 | SPIRIT |
Animation of Irish in light rain (6)
|
| definition as in ‘liveliness’
IR (Irish) in SPIT=”light rain” |
||
| 15 | YOGURT |
Dairy product finally baffling in your starter for ten (6)
|
| final letter of [bafflin]-G in YOUR (from surface), plus the starting letter of T-[en] | ||
| 18 | PERVERSE |
For a line of poetry, deliberately obscure (8)
|
| definition: perverse can mean deliberately counter to expectations, strange, unusual… close in meaning to “obscure”
PER (for each one, “For a”) + VERSE=”line of poetry” |
||
| 21 | SUPPLIER |
Caterer is purple with rage (8)
|
| anagram/”with rage” of (is purple)* | ||
| 22 | PISCES |
Go round church for a sign from heaven (6)
|
| definition: an astrological sign, one seen in the heavens
PISS=”Go”, around CE (Church of England) |
||
| 24 | FALKLAND ISLANDS |
Make landfall, and kiss ground in remote region (8,7)
|
| anagram/”ground” of (landfall and kiss)* | ||
| 25 | ERRORS |
Fears not starting boobs (6)
|
| [t]-ERRORS=”Fears” without its starting letter | ||
| 26 | BETTER |
Much recovered, I’ll wager (6)
|
| a BETTER, as in someone who makes bets, is someone who “[will] wager” | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | BOROUGH |
Town’s nasty smell unhealthy (7)
|
| BO (Body Odour, “nasty smell”) + ROUGH=”unhealthy” | ||
| 2 | PEPYS |
Diarist looks furtively for audience (5)
|
| definition: Samuel Pepys the diarist
sounds like (for audience): ‘peeps’=”looks furtively” |
||
| 3 | STEPHEN |
He spent wildly for an old king (7)
|
| definition: King Stephen, an early king of England
anagram/”wildly” of (He spent)* |
||
| 5 | LADDIES |
Women protecting daughters and sons maybe (7)
|
| LADIES=”Women” around D (daughters, in genealogy) | ||
| 6 | NECTARINE |
Fruit, entire can demolished (9)
|
| anagram/”demolished’ of (entire can)* | ||
| 7 | KARACHI |
Dakar, a Chinese controlled city (7)
|
| found inside (controlled within): [Da]-KAR A CHI-[nese] | ||
| 8 | BONNET |
Headgear of good French fabric (6)
|
| BON=”good” in French + NET=”fabric” | ||
| 13 | STUD POKER |
A game to stir up the boss? (4,5)
|
| definition: a card game
a POKER is a tool used to stir, and STUD can mean “boss” as in a protuberance, a knob |
||
| 16 | OVULATE |
Produce eggs to value specially (7)
|
| anagram/”specially” of (to value)* | ||
| 17 | THIN AIR |
Into which to disappear up Everest? (4,3)
|
| reference to the phrase ‘to disappear into thin air’
and reference to the thin air at high altitudes, e.g. “up Everest” |
||
| 18 | PARADE |
Show off row of shops (6)
|
| double definition: to display or show off, or a row of shops | ||
| 19 | RIPOSTE |
I contribute online in extremely rude retort (7)
|
| I (from surface) + POST (to post on a website/app is to “contribute online”); both inside the extreme outer letters of R-[ud]-E | ||
| 20 | SLENDER |
Slim line in transmitter (7)
|
| L (line) in SENDER=”transmitter” | ||
| 23 | SMART |
Domestic equipment now may be so fashionable (5)
|
| double definition: the first definition refers to e.g. smart TVs, smart fridges, etc |
Good fun; SMART was the only one I didn’t get — which wasn’t very. Haven’t heard of PEPYS.
SMART defeated me, too. Thanks for the explanation! Everything else was fine.
Into Thin Air was a 1997 book about a disastrous Everest exprdition that led to the death of 8 climbers
I thought SMART was just a cryptic definition rather than a double def, but I can see manehi’s reasoning. Took me a littel while to get started on this, with YOGURT being my first (grateful) one in, but as I often find, once the down clues started falling the rest came together. Needed the ‘k’ to get PLANCK, for example. Liked TRIPLE WORD SCORE and FALKLANd ISLANDS, and PISCES raised a smile. Thanks to Vulcan and manehi.
Thanks Vulcan and manehi
I missed the first definition of SMART too. Smiled at the definition for TRIPLE WORD SCORE, but it wouldn’t make sense to anyone who hadn’t played Scrabble (though I don’t suppose that includes many crossword solvers).
Thanks Vulcan and manehi.
Easier fare from Vulcan on a Monday. I bunged in SMART following manehi’s logic but was’t entirely happy with it. Nice to see a reference to Scrabble and no cricket.
Liked PISCES and STUD POKER.
Thanks Vulcan and manehi
FALKLAND ISLANDS is a cracking clue.
PM @8
I felt it was slightly marred by LAND appearing in both fodder and solution.
Thanks both.
In the FALKLAND ISLANDS clue, I wondered what Make was doing if ground was the anagrind.
Very enjoyable, thanks both. Just a query though on 5d – in genealogy, can D represents ‘daughters’ i.e. plural? If not, shouldn’t it be ‘daughter’ in the clue?
William@10: ‘Make’ is just a filler word so the surface makes sense – remove it and that is meaningless.
William@10: I thought the anagrind was “make… ground”.
I liked STUD POKER. Only guessed SMART; was helped a little with PEPYS (was googling for someone named Pepes and he came up). BYPASS the LOI. Thanks Vulcan and manehi!
William @10 and Andy @12: I took ‘make’ as half of the anagrind – make [fodder] ground. Reads slightly oddly but were it, for example, ‘make [fodder] confused’, we’d have no issue with it at all, I suspect. And, as both ‘ground’ and ‘confused’ would be serving the same purpose, the construction works for me.
I liked TRIPLE WORD SCORE, PISCES, FALKLAND ISLANDS, LADDIES and STUD POKER. SMART was also my loi and I had the same take on make and ground as PM @14. I was surprised to see that PEPYS is unknown to some solvers, as this was my foi, as soon as I saw ‘Diarist’.
Ta Vulcan & manehi.
Like others above, SMART was my LOI. I had to look at it several ways around to see how it works: when it clicked I thought it was very neat. Penultimate entry PISCES also took a bit longer than it might have done, since I was trying to get PEE in somehow. I’d have thought PISS as part of a solution was more Private Eye than the Graun, but times change, I guess.
The maybe above average use of anagrams gave lots of good toeholds to help deal with the rest.
Thanks to Vulcan and manehi!
Thanks Vulcan and Manehi. Got there in the end but I agree with DerekTheSheep. Down here we ‘go p’ or even ‘take the p’, but ‘go’ being equal to ‘piss’ seems a bit of a stretch (so to speak).
Another one for whom SMART was my LOI. Nicely pitched with the 2 long anagrams providing a good way in. Thanks to V & m.
I also found FALKLAND ISLANDS excellent. And PISCES made me double-check if I had misread the setter 🙂
Thank you Vulcan and manehi!
The added ‘Make’ in 24a seems to be there to make the surface work, as Andy@12 notes. I think that a good cryptic crossword clue manages to assemble the definition and the wordplay elements within a smooth surface (grammatically sound and making sense) without the need for fillers to make it work. But I’m just an old Ximenean dinosaur.
PostMark @14: nicely argued, I see it now. Ta.
Spent as long on PISCES and SMART as the rest of the puzzle. I was far too polite trying to fit ‘pee’ in there.
My favourites similar to the blogger.
I’m seeing FALKLAND ISLANDS is up the news agenda again. I will put this down as a coincidence though and not related to upcoming sporting events.
Thanks Manehi and Vulcan.
OutSMARTed by 23d (I see I was by no means alone) and didn’t get the Paulian part of the cluing for PISCES, so an uncompleted grid for me today. Otherwise enjoyed some splendid clues, particularly cod TRIPLE WORD SCORE…
I solved the top half first with nothing appearing in the bottom half at first. I liked TRIPLE WORD SCORE in Scrabble being played in Red Square, the CHESTNUT horse box, the PISCES sign from heaven, kissing the ground in the FALKLAND ISLANDS, and STUD POKER, the game that the boss disliked.
Thanks Vulcan and manehi.
I thought the two long ones were excellent: TRIPLE WORD SCORE and FALKLAND ISLANDS, both with great surfaces. On the other hand I can’t make much sense of the surface of 25a — “Fears not starting boobs” — ?
PEPYS is surely history’s most famous diarist (except possibly Anne Frank) so like AlanC @15 for me that went in straight away.
Many thanks Vulcan and manehi.
SMART was LOI – had to mentally play through alternatives in order to see it.
A lot of fine clues today, but SUPPLIER struck me as the best.
[I read that the FALKLAND ISLANDS is why Michael Oliver is not allowed to ref Argentina games.]
Thanks for the blog , TRIPLE WORD SCORE very good , FALKLAND ISLANDS did not seem mixed up enough .
Max PLANCK began the quantum theory in 1900 , his constant h is very small .
h = 0.( 33 zeroes )6626 , used to quantify the smallest usable peice of wood .
Surely SMART should have been last in for everyone . I tell my students that smart things are just there to spy on them , they are sceptical but then start telling stories that proves the point .
24 across is a poor clue in my opinion.
Enjoyed this. Got almost none of it last night, all the rest this morning.
Thanks Vulcan and manehi.
A cracking six hits! MDB
A bit pedantic, maybe, but being Irish, to me IR means IRELAND, not IRISH.
Tx Manehi I didn’t know that ‘boss’ could mean ‘protuberance’. It’s clearly from French ‘bosse’ meaning ‘bump’ but I didn’t know we’d borrowed it. So learnt something new.
Fuddleduddy @32: You will see it particularly used in the context of a shield boss, a piece at the center of a shield, originally to deflect blows, later largely ornamental. It’s something that people interested in reenactment or in fidelity in fantasy fiction typically know.
I was also surprised that Pepys is not more widely known here, but as always, one person’s GK is another’s obscurity.
And add me to the list of those for whom SMART was LOI.
Postmark@14 and others
I read Falkland Islands as being ‘ground in remote region’ with Make as the anagram indicator, the Falklands are islands (ground) in the remote region of the South Atlantic.
Fell down on 22/23 as I was trying to make ‘pee’ go round ‘a ch/ce’, and I thought “Domestic … may be so fashionable” might be CHAR/T.
Oh well, better luck next time.
18A: that’s now the poet laureate is paid!
Nice simple start to the week. I’d have thought 5d would have been ‘daughter’ singular, as the other d is already in ‘ladies’.
Re: Stud Poker. My boss is a knob too.
We enjoyed that. It was the 1A/1D pair of BYPASS and BOROUGH that held us up at the end.
It took a while to get SMART. I liked the domestic equipment but not “fashionable” as a definition. I’d be pleased if someone said I dressed smartly but alarmed if they thought I was fashionable!
Thanks to V and M.
How on earth is SMART a synonym of FASHIONABLE? You can very much be one without being the other. Otherwise I enjoyed it!
Speaking of crossword CHESTNUTs, boss almost always = stud and vice versa, so STUD POKER went in quickly, as did PEPYS, surprisingly (to me) unknown to some – but then I only just about remembered that PLANCK existed (and had a Constant: I don’t know what that actually does, but I rather like Roz’s idea…)
Oh dear. I suppose we are going to have to add Scrabble to the things we have to know all about – though I liked the misleading Red Square.
Back after a week or so off, pleased to be greeted by a standard Monday puzzle. Nothing too scary or dubious. Favourite RIPOSTE.
Amongst many definitions , Chambers93 had SMART=fashionable , so the setter has full cover .
Roz #42. Ah, good old Chambers eh?Thats ok then, but I still think they’re very, very far from being synonyms!
I tend to agree Jasper but setters have many clues to write and many words have multiple meanings so the major dictionaries have to be the judge in the end .
I have just checked Collins , my Guardian Prize from long ago .
3rd definition – SMART=fashionable , chic – (it then gives an example) – a smart hotel .
Gasmanjack@36, and also traditionally with a butt of sack. Meaning the equivalent of about 700 bottles of sherry…
Ianw @37: lol, I presume your boss doesn’t post on here!
Vulcan in fine form. Good Monday difficulty, except my last two, 22a PISCES and 23d SMART took a long time (like other commenters). I suppose they shouldn’t have, but hey ho…
Too many favourites to list them all. Maybe single out the two long entries, 9a TWS (fun) and 24a FI (surface — arrival of the pope?), as well as 18a PERVERSE (“For a”), 21a SUPPLIER (surface — I wonder what made them so angry!), 5d LADDIES (good surface), 13d STUD POKER (funny), 17d THIN AIR (invoking the sad book, INTO…)
4a I was talking about PLANCK’s constant with Mrs Mig just the other day, including confirming how his name is spelt, so he was fresh in my mind!
Lord Jim @25, re 25a, a young girl wanting to grow up? There’s actually a graphic novel about it
Thanks both
I had the same last two in as many people, so no need to spell it out. I did the major part of the crossword while eating my evening meal, but needed to stretch my cup of tea out by another minute or two to accommodate those last two. I think Vulcan must have had Imogen looking over his shoulder.
Thanks to setter(s) and blogger.
I rather liked SMART last night, my loi.
We only have one such appliance, a washing machine, but have never bothered to set up internet access, account, passwords and all the other nonsense. As a result, it still repeatedly bleeps annoyingly when finished, as it’s necessary to do all that just to turn off the damned thing. We thought that it was just a washing machine when we bought it…
Otherwise it’s pretty good.
A lot of fun especially the 2 very long anagrams. RIPOSTE was my last one in. My only slight quibble is that ‘caterer’ is surely only one example of a SUPPLIER so the clue needed a ‘maybe’ or ‘perhaps’ to signal a DBE? Thanks manehi and Vulcan.
18a A line of poetry is not a verse except perhaps if you are very cutting edge.
Mig @48: ah yes, that does make sense, thank you.
Mad Actuary @52: I thought the same, but the second definition of VERSE in Chambers is “A line of metre”.