Another offering from the enigmatic Omnibus
Just ten days ago, we had a Prize puzzle from Kite, marking America’s national holiday, which also fell to me to blog. Today, (‘le 14 juillet’) there’s not surprisingly something of a Gallic flavour to the clues. (It happens to be my birthday – I remember looking it up as a child in Old Moore’s Almanack and found that it was Bastille Day: it was years before I learned what it meant – I now have many happy memories of holidays in France, joining in the celebrations.)
After a number of puzzles now, the identity of Omnibus remains a mystery. As Andrew said in his blog of a previous puzzle, a couple of months ago, Omnibus puzzles are speculated to be a compilation from multiple setters. Once again, this has all the signs of a compilation, with a mix of very straightforward clues and some rather chewier ones. I think the two French quotations at 16/12D/19 and 20/25 are familiar enough not to raise too many eyebrows.
Thanks to Omnibus for the puzzle.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
7 Part of Arsenalβs business includes ability to discern pitch (7)
FIREARM
FIRM (business) round EAR (ability to discern pitch – as in having an ear for music)
8 Rees-Zammit, say, and his team that once ruled 3 (5,2)
LOUIS XV
LOUIS (Rees-Zammit – rugby player, say) + XV (his team)
9 Residence permit is in state (4)
VISA
IS in VA (Virginia – state)
10 Consent to split β basis for a good divorce? (2,7)
NO CONTEST
An anagram (to split) of CONSENT TO
12 Setter takes refuge in scrum (5)
MΓLΓE
ME (setter) + LEE (refuge)
13 Limp, missing heel? (8)
LISTLESS
LIST = HEEL
15 Mowgli β a rebel part for storyteller (4)
LIAR
Hidden in MowgLI A Rebel
16, 12, 19 The French cataclysm comes after a promise betrayed β 8βs not bothered? (5,3,2,6)
APRES MOI LE DELUGE
LE (the French) + DELUGE (cataclysm) after an anagram (betrayed) of A PROMISE – 8ac is Louis XV, to whom the quotation is attributed
17 With strike, filming is finished now (4)
WRAP
To wrap is to finish filming or recording
Edit: W (with) + RAP (strike) – thanks, Valentine @44
18 Served red, red wine (WI abstaining) to get plastered (8)
RENDERED
An anagram (served) of RED RED [wi]NE
20, 25 Kingβs claim on the throne β Charlie overwhelmed by confounded steam toilet (5,4,3)
L’ΓTAT C’EST MOI
C (Charlie) in an anagram (confounded) of STEAM TOILET –
A claim attributed to Louis XIV, great grandfather of Louis XV
21 Brought a bit of fun to number, as it happens, in desperate need (9)
ENLIVENED
N (number) + LIVE (as it happens) in an anagram (desperate) of NEED
22 Overturn internationally accepted code of conduct? (4)
UNDO
Not sure about this one: an allusion to ‘the done thing?’
24 A smile follows church discontent (7)
CHAGRIN
CH (church) + A GRIN (a smile)
Down
1 Kissogram in Ireland hides dress (4)
MINI
Hidden in kissograM IN Ireland
2 One who flogs deranged 15 with tree (8)
RETAILER
An anagram (deranged) of LIAR (15ac) + TREE
3 Republic not quite free to include liberation movement (6)
FRANCE
ANC (liberation movement) in FRE[e]
4 Weird DNA seen in indifferent society scoundrels (2-3-3)
SO-AND-SOS
An anagram (weird) of DNA in SO-SO (indifferent) + S (society)
5 Inherited nearly everything after occupation (6)
LINEAL
LINE (occupation) + AL[l] (everything)
6 Retirement no longer PC, etc (4)
EXIT
EX (no longer) + IT (PC, etc)
11 US tint β a measure of rank for one from Aspen or Boulder (9)
COLORADAN
COLOR (US spelling of colour – tint) + A DAN (a measure of rank in judo)
14 Surprise when viscous substance covers street? Just the reverse (5)
START
ST (street) covers TAR (viscous substance)
16 Dismissal of one in Euro VAR review (2,6)
AU REVOIR
I (one) in an anagram (review) of EURO VAR
17 Swimwear fits after spine removed (3,5)
WET SUITS
WET (spineless) + SUITS (fits)
20 Split pea reversed the German food chain (6)
LADDER
A reversal of DAL (split pea) + DER (the German)
21 Trace oche awkwardly (4)
ECHO
An anagram (awkwardly) of OCHE
23 Party or 6? (4)
DOOR
DO (party) + OR – the answer to 6dn is EXIT
Well, that was very interesting and most enjoyable, especially as Iβve been doing Duolingo French for 7 years now and still canβt string a sentence together. I was familiar with APRES MOI LE DELUGE attributed to LOUIS XV but worked out the apocryphal LβΓTAT CβEST MOI, attributed to Louis XIV, from the anagram. I also liked NO CONTEST, RENDERED, and AU REVOIR but some of the clues were quite clunky. A real mixed bag to mark Bastille Day and maybe a French victory against Spain tonight.
I checked List and Heel as nautical terms and they mean something slightly different but close enough for a crossword, I suppose.
Ta Omnibus & Eileen
22a What the United Nations do?
I had to thInk a bit about APRΓS MOI LE DELUGE, and I couldn’t parse LOUIS XV, so thanks to Eileen for adding to my minimal knowledge of rugby! An enjoyable change today – thanks everyone?
I had the same thought as Shirl for UNDO.
I wonder if anyone else remembers Bastille Day 1988 (Roz maybe?) when there was a one-off appearance from a setter calling themselves Robespierre? Pre-archive of course, but I bet there was some crossover with today’s puzzle.
Thanks both. 3d warns us of the theme at least.
Thanks both. This is the first omnibus puzzle I can give a thumbs up to, with the previous ones having a number of poor clues. Not familiar with either phrase but both were gettable, and again the French rugby player is a nho but not a great obstacle to the clue.
The reference to Rees-Zammit seems a little obscure. You might guess he was a member of a team but you have to know he is a rugby player to complete the clue, otherwise Louis XI is just as likely. The associated phrase makes it guessable but I am one of those who thinks a clue should be solvable in isolation.
SimpleS @7: Rees-Zammit is Welsh.
Thanks, Eileen. As you say, a mixture of the very easy and the somewhat recherchΓ©, and an obvious theme. Is Louis Rees-Zamitt well known? I know nothing about rugby so of course I’ve never heard of him. But easy enough to look up.
Had to look up the rugby player but otherwise a nice straightforward puzzle. Thanks.
Thanks for the French lessons Eileen and Omnibus (although 2 of the answers still – all too commonly – required USA parsing). I got stuck on thinking a steam toilet might be a bidet.
AlanC @7. Thanks, I should have googled to check rather than assuming he or she was part of the French theme, but I dislike having to use google for crosswords until as a last resort.
16, 12, 19 is also the motto of 617 Squadron, RAF.
Happy Birthday Eileen!
@2 & @4 DO = code of conduct in the sense of Dos and Don’ts? Thanks Omnibus and Happy Birthday Eileen
brian-with-an-eye @10 LR-Z is probably best known for his attempt to make a successful switch from Rugby Union to American Football, which I think is pretty rare if not unique. Many happy returns and thanks for the customary excellent blog Eileen. I still have very fond memories of Arachne’s birthday tribute to you a few years back
Many thanks, Eileen, and…whomever you are.
Bit surprised at the numeration of (5) for l’etat and (4) for c’est. Are there rules covering this, I wonder?
Thanks for the blog Eileen, for what I found a tedious puzzle with such a mishmash of styles. Even as a rugby fan Iβd forgotten Rees-Zammitβs first name. Guess the heat has got to me.
Nho the rugby player, and thought the unusual name must be part of the clue, which of course it isn’t.
I assume UNDO is UN (United Nations)+DO, but not sure what DO is meant to represent. One can have “dos and don’ts” , but a single “do” can hardly represent a code of conduct.
William @18, I mentally queried the same. Bastille Day is also our granddaughter’s wedding anniversary; it was she who (as an infant) coined my nom–de-blog.
Happy Birthday, Eileen!
French was my worst subject at school so was quite pleased to get through this. A bit of luck over whether Rees-Zammit was a footballer or rugby player but otherwise not too many difficulties. LADDER last in after I accepted I didnβt need Lidl or Aldi in there.
Thanks omnibus and Eileen
NHO Rees-Zammit and feel no guilt about googling his identity. Could we not have had a French player such as Louis Bielle-Biarrey?
Dadslad @17: I think a couple of rugby players and at least one Australian Rules player have made a go of it in the American game as kickers. Rees-Zammit unusually was trying to play as what the Americans call a “skill player” – initially a running back, then a wide receiver.
For me this was the usual mishmash with Omnibus, in particular a number of very clunky surfaces. I don’t know what the Guardian style is for enumerating french elisions, but it didn’t get in the way of solving. But at least I spotted the theme for once.
Tricky in parts, but the French theme helped. Nho the rugby player but as ravenrider@8 says, you need to know the sport to work out which Louis.
Worked out LβETAT CβEST MOI knowing it must be French but not in my GK. First in was aprΓ¨s moiβ¦ which helped.
Thanks to Omnibus and Eileen for her excellent as always blog.
I took it to be UN = internationally accepted code, and DO = conduct
I enjoyed this. Luckily I had mentally noted the significant date before starting, which helped. Presumably the setter was aware from the World Cup schedule that France was highly likely to be playing in a semi-final today which adds a little something.
I thought the surface of FIREARM was amusing — the ability to actually find the pitch is surely a fairly fundamental requirement for a football team π .
Many thanks Omnibus, whoever you are, and Eileen, and Happy Birthday.
I found this very tough and could not finish – failed to solve 7,20,22,25ac and 17,23d.
16/12/19 – I know the French phrase so this was easy enough to guess from the letter count, but I could not parse it, guessing it was partly an anagram.
New for me: LOUIS Rees-Zammit (for 8ac) – but I could not parse the XV bit – I know nothing about rugby and filed to see what team LOUIS played for when I found Rees-Zammit online as at first glance it looks like he played for Bristol bears and also for the NFL.
Also I could not parse 6d (the IT bit).
Happy Birthday, Eileen!
michelle@27: references to PCs, networks, and even printers (and sometimes misdirecting mentions of apples…) are coming up more often in Grauniad clues for the string “IT”, so it is a useful one to put in your back pocket for next time.
Thanks for an excellent blog as always Eilleen, and a very happy birthday
Being far less educated than most on this site,- never having studied latin/greek/classics etc, i always expect to meet new words/meanings here, so i just sit back and enjoy expanding my knowledge
On which note thanks also to Omnibus, whoever ze may be
I confused my LOUISes, not being sure of which of them uttered the phrase (apparently, none as itβs attributed to Mme de Pompadour) or of the sport of Rees-Zammit. I am as perplexed about UNDO as everyone else. But overall, I agree that the puzzle is enjoyable and honours the day. Thanks Omnibus and Eileen!
agree with others that it seems odd to have a clue referencing a welsh rugby player in a french-themed puzzle. Seems like there must be a glut of famous french louis’ (louis’s?) who would have been more appropriate to drop in, and maybe could have clued XV differently as well if you didn’t want to limit it to rugby players
otherwise, I thought this wasn’t too bad, as others have said it does feel a bit like a mishmash of styles and difficulty levels, but I actually quite liked that since the easier ones provided a good foothold to tackle the harder stuff
Re 22ac UNDO. There are many United Nations Declarations On/Of – e.g Human Rights, Rights of Indigenous Peoples etc .. Could that be the intention?
William@18: crosswords compiled for the English language seem to follow an established convention that the apostrophe does not split words — so a solution such as THREE’S A CROWD will be enumerated as (6,1,5) or WHAT’S UP as (5,2). This style is consonant with the principle that surface punctuation can be ignored when parsing the wordplay in clues.
But I agree, this custom does get rather strained when solutions are French phrases.
A bit troubled by ‘served’ as an anagram indicator in 18ac. ‘get plastered’ would be a perfect anagram indicator bt is needed for the definition. Could ‘served’ be the definition? I can’t quite make that work. ‘render assistance’ is the closest I can get to render = serve
Late to comment, but have to join in the birthday wishes to Eileen, from whom another excellent blog.
I had the same opinion about UNDO as Eileen. UN plus what you DO. . For those of us who follow the Welsh rugby team (which has involved a little suffering over the last couple of years), no problem at all knowing Louis Rees-Zammit, making LOUIS XV a write-in. Surprised that the French phrases weren’t generally known, but perhaps those of us who lived through De Gaulle’s reign were exposed to rather more French than people these days.
Thanks to Omnibus and, once again, to Eileen.
That was très fun, thanks both, or thanks all, and hb Eileen.
pserve @33: many thanks, well reasoned. I was ok with it but only because I happened to know the quotation.
“DO” as in “Dos and don’ts”?
Bonne anniversaire Eileen et merci pour le bon blog.
Quite a mixed set of clues as befits an Omnibus of setters. I wonder if we will get a Belgian themed crossword for next week?
Forgot what day it is, or I might have seen the theme sooner. Like others above, I hadn’t heard of Rees-Zammit (yes, I could have looked him up) so tossed an imaginary coin before entering XV rather than XI.
Happy birthday!
Eyebrows raised here a bit too, not with APRES MOI LE DELUGE, which I did know, but with LETAT CEST MOI, which I didnβt. I see also that Omnibus is also a word in the French language.
On a bit of a digression, but those French kings almost certainly were pronounced as βLoo-eyβ. But Iβm reading some of the Irish poet Louis MacNeiceβs letters at the moment, and am wondering whether he was a βLoo-eyβ or a βLoo-wisβ.
And yes, this again felt like a mixed bag for this particular setter whoever he/she/they might beβ¦
Mike @34: I had the same take as you in 18A, I think that served is closer in meaning to RENDERED than plastered. Plastered makes more sense as the anagram indicator.
Happy Birthday to you Eileen!
Yes, I also had βservedβ as the definition in that one, rather than plastered. Found this a bit of a chore today, not helped by having to google both French phrases and the Welsh rugby playerβs first name.
Well, that was fun.
(
I thought DAL was lentils, not split peas.
Eileen, WRAP is W + RAP (strike). And happy birthday indeed, hope it’s full of jollity for you. You share a birthday with one of my favorite compatriots, Woody Guthrie (who was also pleased at having Bastille Day for a birthday). His Dust Bowl Ballads and many other songs for the people are a perennial treasure.
Thanks to Omnibus, whoever you are, and to Eileen, especially on her day.
Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose? Sorry no accents. Thanks to Omnibus and Eileen, and happy birthday!
Thx O & E. 16/12/19 reminds me of this limerick I penned long ago:
As le roi, fifteenth Lou, liked to cry,
“AprΓ¨s moi, le dΓ©luge!”, so do I.
I’m archaic, anarchic,
Chaotic, pre-arkicβ
An antediluvian guy.
Joyeux anniversaire, Eileen!
[Ronald @41 β MacNiece was a Loo-ey.]
Valentine @44 β there are various types of dal/daal, not all made from lentils.
Well, my personal “code of conduct” with cryptics is that it’s ok to look up a word or phrase in the clue that I’ve never heard of, without it being a dnf. So it was with R-Z, and all went swimmingly from then on.
Great puzzle. Not sure if the Venn diagram for solvers and football fans overlaps but this augurs well for Les Bleus today.
Happy birthday Eileen and thanks for the blog.
Less happy with the puzzle for all the reasons others have mentioned, but thanks I guess to the mysterious Omnibus.
For me multiple setters just doesn’t work as a good deal of the satisfaction of solving comes from getting into the same headspace as the setter.
#44 Any “pulse” can be used- red green yellow lentils split peas- to make dal. Dal makhani uses kidney beans also
Thanks for the blog and Happy Birthday .
Omnibus puzzles were very ropey but the last three have been fine , a theme for this date is okay and pretty well done .
WET SUITS , I think the whole clue is the definition . As I say to my Mermaids – Wear one if you want to be a soft , Southern wuss .
A tribunal is currently being established in The Hague to investigate wet suit wearers .
Sorry Mitz @5 before my time in crosswordland or even buying the Guardian . The summer after my A Levels and I had other interests .
[ AlanC @1 still dominating the charts but I think you are a little confused . The FINA World Cup begins next Wednesday , Spain have qualified but France lost out to Montenegro . ]
Well, I breezed through this because I can speak conversational French and studied French history to A-level. Had I done neither, I might have found it quite an infuriating puzzle. I never find the Omnibus puzzles completely satisfactory, and thereβs a few of the usual word salad surfaces today. Liked the (relative) efficiency of LOUIS XV and DOOR.
I’m not at all convinced by DO meaning code of conduct. If the latter were dos and don’ts, then DO is only half the answer and the setter should have made this clear.
Thanks both and all has been said.
Mike@34 (and Nakamova@42): ‘Render unto Caesar’?
Happy birthday to Eileen who is simply the best – NO CONTEST.
A couple of small mistakes, 8a LOUIS XV (XI), and 11d COLORADAN (…DON — measure of rank?), so dnf. Pleasant puzzle. Thanks Eileen for an excellent blog, and Happy Birthday! (Right on Alphalpha@57!)
[Ronald @41, Miche @48. But Louis Armstrong was definitely a βLewisβ, despite what everyone else seems to say]
Late to the party after a pleasant lunch by the River Thames. Mainly straightforward, although I didn’t know L’ETAT C’EST MOI. I liked the promise betrayed in APRES MOI LE DELUGE, and I thought the VAR review in AU REVOIR was very topical. Both serve(d) and plastered are in my Chambers list of anagrinds, so I think RENDERED can be parsed either way around.
Thanks Omnibus and Happy Birthday and thanks to Eileen.
[Roz @54: dΓ©solΓ©].
Many thanks for the birthday wishes – I’ve had a busy and enjoyable day, in many ways, after the early start!
Thank you, Valentine @ 44, for sorting out WRAP for me – I wasn’t happy with it and, of course, it’s now so simple! For the sake of the archive, I’ll amend the blog now.
I remember you mentioning Woody Guthrie and his birthday on a previous occasion, ‘a few years back ‘ – thanks DadsLad @17! π
Thanks Omnibus and Eileen (Happy Birthday)
I found this a bit underwhelming. Rugby is my number one sport, so LOUIS XV was a write-in, which immediately gave me FRANCE and the two quotes, without having to look closely at the clues.
The rest went quickly, though SE was a bit stickier. LOI and favourite was DOOR>
I interpreted LISTLESS as ‘to limp’ = ‘to LIST’ and ‘missing’ = ‘LESS’. Hence LISTLESS = (down at) HEEL. A bit tenuous I know.
And for me, Louis Rees-Zammit is best know for tearing down the wing than for his attempted switch to what Americans laughingly call ‘Football’ π΄σ §σ ’σ ·σ ¬σ ³σ Ώ
Mostly enjoyable, and the wordplay was usually clear. Although not sure how the LISTLESS thing works even now Iβve read the blog. Vive la France maybe for the World Cup match tonight, although I like the Spanish team also. Thanks Eileen and Omnibus
[ AlanC @61 , this Duolingo must work wonders . Are you sure it is only seven years ? ]
[Wold@64, why laughingly? Rugby football, American football, and soccer football are all legitimate varieties of football…]
thecronester@65, I took it to be the words used for boats βleaningβ, the boat listed to port, the boat heeled to port are synonymous.
thecronester@65: to “list” and to “heel” both refer to a ship or boat tilting to one side. So if a ship is not heeling over you could say that the “heel” was missing or, jokingly, that it’s “list-less”.
List and heel in boats may look the same, but probably have different causes. Sailing boats heel away from the wind direction; listing is more probably caused by uneven cargo storage.
[mig@67: there are also Australian Rules ‘football’ and Gaelic ‘football’ but any sport where handling the ball is allowed can hardly be considered truly to be ‘football’. Football is football, sometimes called ‘soccer’ for arcane reasons, and nothing else is football.]
muffin @70: thatβs why I commented on it @1 but didnβt bother to say why. Thanks for filling it in.
Yes, I saw that AlanC, but I thought it was worth spelling it out.
Eoink#68 & EleanorK#69 I can see that this equivalence is possible but boats donβt appear in the context of the clue at all so itβs a bit of a leap, at least for me, unless you have that boating knowledge to hand. But allβs fair in crosswordland w.r.t. obscure general knowledge LOL.
Dave #14 [617 Squadron wanted to use the famous quote but for some reason which I have forgotten it was deemed unsuitable. They used Apres Nous Le Deluge instead.]
I reloaded the app and The Guardian had reverted to the old version of the crossword section (I’ve seen the future and it is crap) so I had chance to solve one, and I did. Easy enough, had to look up our Welsh friend. I haven’t read everything here today; watching football. Thanks Eileen and everyone.
Surely most of you are overcomplicating the parsing of 22?. A U.N. ‘Do’, would represent internationally accepted conduct, as opposed to a U.N. ‘Don’t’. Seems straightforward to me?
I agree with DP@77. I thought UNDO was straightforward but didn’t write it in until I had the crossing WET SUITS, in case it was tricky after all.
Likewise I thought LISTLESS was fine – if it had been Paul or Philistine no one at all would have queried it. Hey, it might even have been Paul – we don’t know, do we?
I prefer the way Brockwell/Grecian uses proper nouns – as disguised wordplay. I reluctantly looked up Rees-Zammit, but was no wiser, because I didn’t even look at his given name. Doh! And I didn’t cotton onto the salience of the number of players in the wrong sort of rugby. As someone commented, he’s also played American Football, so it could just as well have been XI.
In fact I was quite content to have got that close to completing on a day when I was also celebrating my birthday – Happy Bastille Day, Eileen! – as well as travelling by train to the Lake District and visiting some of my favourite pubs there.
But this Omnibus is a puzzling conundrum of a group effort, veering wildly between Quick Cryptic and Enigmatist in terms of difficulty. Anyone else remember the Biggles puzzles – a collaboration between setters all called John? That was classy, whereas Omnibus comes across as clunky.
This went smoothly overall, but I still donβt see how a food chain is a ladder, or why 14d needs βjust the reverseβ. There were a few things like this that would have irked me if the puzzle were any harder overall.
Like Queenslander@12, I wondered at the idea of a steam toilet; if itβs a kind of bidet, the implications are troubling.
I appreciate the setter’s artful camouflage — via some ostensible “theme” — of what’s in fact an homage to yours truly, in recognition of my contributions to this forum. (It’s right there, dominating the center of the grid. What else am I to conclude?)
Bobtato @79,
LADDER can be any heirarchy, such as the food chain in the animal kingdom (bigger ones eat smaller ones). The START clue worplay initially asks us to put the ST inside the TAR, so needs “just the reverse” to switch it the other way round.
I liked this puzzle, particularly the FIREARM and UNDO clues. The Charlie on the throne clue was also fun.
Thanks, Omnibus and Eileen. I can’t wait until this combo gives use a public transport theme π .
sheffield hatter @78 Happy Birthday! Wonderful that you share the day with our esteemed blogger
Coloradan@80 Congratulations on the name check! I should have known the correct spelling (me@58) from your moniker, and I did put it in correctly at first, but then the wordplay made me doubt…
Agree with Mig@82 , well done Coloradan , surprisingly hard to spell , perhaps because the river ends in O .
I felt the usual frustration at not being sure that I was being challenged by another persona, as I do with this setter or these setters.
I bunged in L’ΓTAT SOIT MOI from crossers before I spotted the fodder, and not being currently familiar with the actual expression.
Roz@83, perhaps it’s shortened from Coloradoan?
Mig@85, Roz@83: Interestingly, the main newspaper serving the northern part of our state is the Fort Collins Coloradoan. On the other hand, the alumni journal for the University of Colorado at Boulder calls itself Coloradan. This article from the latter discusses the naming debate, and cites “the English-language convention β for place names of Spanish origin ending in o β of dropping the o before adding -an to denote a resident, as in San Franciscan“.
Thanks COLORADAN@86! Interesting stuff. Makes sense to drop the O. Of course, I should have known, being an Ontarian!
Interesting , there are probably no hard and fast rules .
Some countries – Mexican , Moroccan , Puerto Rican . Kosovan .
But others – Congolese , Montenegrin , Monegasque .
What about Idaho and Ohio ?
My name change was not intentional , no idea what happened .
I agree Roz — no single rule. In some cases the correct demonym may just come down to euphony. Certainly no resident of Boise would refer to themselves as an “Idahan”. Just sounds weird.
[Maybe Ken having some fun?]
What’s the problem?
Protozoan@90: see Roz@88: “My name change was not intentional , no idea what happened .”
[I think Protozoan was making a humorous comment about their moniker! I haven’t been able to find Protozo on any map…]
[Ah, thanks Mig π]
Correct, Mig, 92. It was me.
I would have liked to see Mme Lafarge in there!