Ah, an Enigmatist Prize puzzle on my blogging slot – that familiar pang of fear in the pit of the stomach, and the instinctive rush of fight-or-flight adrenalin!
And it was a tough fight, but tempered by two generous helpings of crossers from the long/linked entries left and right (once they eventually got solved!…)
A high proportion of &lit(-ish) clues and some devious surface reads and almost impenetrable parsings – I have my doubts about a few below – made it slow but steady going, but I managed to fill the grid on the day of publication – fairly rare for an E puzzle – even if some of the parsings took a bit longer.
ELECTRA and NECKERCHIEF were my two last ones in (LOIs), as they had to be those from crossers/definitions, but it took me a long time to see Electra hidden/reversed, and also to ‘wind’ CHECKER (cashier) to ECKERCH. My LO(M)P (last one (maybe) parsed) was TAMPER-PROOF – still not completely sure I have it all correct…or MEANS TEST, for that matter.
ICE-FREE reminded me of the time 20-odd years ago when we flew to Australia around New Year’s Eve and the flight was delayed by a couple of hours as ground-crews spent a long time carefully de-icing the wings/flaps until we were allowed to take-off.
My brain was so fried by the end that I don’t think I had the energy to pick a favourite at the time – maybe NOTATOR, on reflection – but I am sure commenters below will suggest a few…and hopefully supply a few better parsings in some cases.
My masochistic thanks to Enigmatist for a tough workout – and a silent prayer to the Grauniad editor to avoid my blogging slot next time out!…
[As is often the case, I will be out golfing on Saturday when this is published, so may not be too responsive, but I will keep an eye on proceedings in the comments – behave yourselves, please…and talk amongst yourselves until I am back in the room…]
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
| 1A | TAMPER-PROOF | Resistant to changing it, bar I am an expert in (6-5)
T (iT, bar i) + AM + PER (an, a, per, as in per person?) + PRO OF (Professor of …, expert in …) |
| 9A | ICE-FREE | Cleared by air defence after skirmish, and OK to travel? (3-4)
subtractive anag, i.e. skirmish, of ( |
| 10A | GUERDON | One drug troublingly Tennyson’s reward? (7)
snag, i.e. troublingly, of ONE DRUG |
| 11A | EPAULETTE | Essential for dress colours on outside of uniform? (9)
&lit – E (essence, or middle, of dress) + PA_LETTE (colours) outside of U (uniform) |
| 12A | THREE | In Exodus, perhaps, you’ll have run through a crowd (5)
TH_EE (biblical, perhaps, you) around R (run, through) [three’s a crowd!] |
| 13A | ORBY | Gold in reserve not often spherical (4)
OR (heraldic, gold/yellow tincture) + BY (in reserve) [‘orby’ being rare, so not often, for orbed, spherical] |
| 14A | GARDEN FLAT | Frantically rang about empty domicile, having been let down – one such? (6,4)
GAR_N (anagram, i.e. frantically, of rang) around DE (DomicilE, empty), plus FLAT (having been let down) |
| 16A | EGOMANIACS | Who say, in fancy dress: ‘Can I go as me?’ (10)
anag, i.e. in fancy dress, of CAN I GO AS ME |
| 19A | RUNG | Identified with a circle, called, spoke (4)
triple definition – identified with a circle can be RUNG, ringed; called, on the phone, can be RUNG; and a spoke of a ladder, or wheel, can be a RUNG |
| 20A | HEGEL | Absolute idealist turned on by Man (5)
HE (man) + GEL (leg, on side, in cricket) |
| 21A | MEANS TEST | What might be refused by statesmen? (5,4)
Anag, i.e. ‘?’, or STATESMEN (?) |
| 23A | NOTATOR | Controversial claim about Glastonbury? One puts the music down (7)
a cheeky/publicity-seeking historian might claim that Glastonbury Tor is NOT A TOR! |
| 24A | TESTUDO | Tortoises originally used to supply cover for Roman soldiers (7)
T (original letter of Tortoises) + ESTUDO (anag, i.e. supply, of USED TO) |
| 25A | NECKERCHIEF | Cashier’s wound dressed with fine designer cravat? (11)
N_IEF (anag, i.e. designer(?) of FINE) around ECKERCH (checker, or cashier, cycled, or wound, by putting two letters to the back)? |
| Down | ||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
| 1D | THE CAT BROUGHT IN | See 7 (3,3,7,2)
see 7D |
| 2D | MORAL | Lesson in speaking presided over by master (5)
M (master) presiding over (for a Down clue) ORAL (spoken) |
| 3D | ELECTRA | Upcoming party to start celebrating Agamemnon’s daughter (7)
reversed hidden word, i.e. upcoming, and party to, in ‘stART CELEbrating’ |
| 4D | PIGFEED | Babe’s grub mixed up? Tucking in, girlfriend beginning to eructate (7)
PI_ED (mixed up) around (tucking in) GF (girlfriend) + E (beginning to Eructate) [‘Babe’ being the eponymous pig from the film ‘Babe’] |
| 5D | OVERTONE | Open a suggestion (8)
OVERT (open) + ONE (a) |
| 6D | FEDERAL BUREAU OF (INVESTIGATION) | & 8 It’s mobilised for deviation and alien subterfuge around America (7,6,2,13)
A long anagram (mobilised) of FOR DEVIATION and ALIEN SUBTERFUGE, around A (America), which could be any one of the three As |
| 7D | LIKE SOMETHING (THE CAT BROUGHT IN) | & 1 Fancy item of jazz memorabilia on Antiques Roadshow, maybe not particularly presentable? (4,9,3,3,7,2)
LIKE (fancy) + SOMETHING THE CAT BROUGHT IN (if a jazz fan – cat – brought some item of memorabilia in to the Antiques Roadshow, it would be something the cat brought in?!…) |
| 8D | INVESTIGATION | See 6 (13)
see 6D |
| 15D | BALLETIC | With Grace to summon up, ducking delivery? (8)
BALL (delivery, cricket) + ETIC (cite, summon, mention, up) |
| 17D | IMMERSE | Slimmers enjoy taking dip (7)
Hidden word in, i.e. taken by, ‘swIMMERS Enjoy |
| 18D | CHAOTIC | Such parts this catastrophic? (7)
CHAOTIC (such) and PARTS, if chaotic (this), can make CATASTROPHIC! |
| 22D | SUSHI | Selection of exotic cakes along the way gets us high (5)
Hidden word in, i.e. along the way in, ‘getS US HIgh’ [exotic fish cakes] |
Now I definitely know I’m not premiership material just like my beloved KPR. I had TIMBER BRACE at 1ac so absolutely no hope of getting near this, although I did solve MORAL, ELECTRA and GARDEN FLAT. I can only marvel at your ability, and any other contributors to solve this mc_rapper67. Chastened Roz!
Thanks mc_rapper67. Very difficult and I can’t say I enjoyed it, only got there in the end through sheer doggedness. Wasn’t helped by thinking the cat had dragged the something in and I’d pencilled ELECTRA in at the start after Google had told me of her parentage but without ever understanding why. Kicking myself now. Still not really convinced by 1a but can’t see any other explanation.
TAMPER-PROOF
Had the same parse as the blog. Just that I had PRO and OF separately for expert and in.
NECHERCHIEF
Had the same parse. I feel it’s all right.
MEANS TEST
re-fused?
re-fused (anagram indicator)
refused in the usual sense in the surface.
ICE-FREE, RUNG, NOTATOR and CHAOTIC were my top faves.
Thanks mc.
Never have I finished a puzzle with so many unsure entries. It didn’t feel like much of an accomplishment, unfortunately.
Questions/quibbles included the following. Sorry if this appears excessively nit-picky, it’s just the effect the puzzle had on me.
ICE-FREE: tortured parsing
GUERDON: Not especially associated with Tennyson, I don’t think. thesaurus.com gives 5 example sentences of use, none of which were from Tennyson
EPAULETTE: “essential for” does not mean “essence of”
GARDEN FLAT: how does either “one such” or the whole rest of the clue provide a definition?
RUNG: “identified with a circle”? Isn’t rung the past of a different meaning of ring?
BALLETIC: why does ducking mean placed under?
IMMERSE: why does taking mean a part of, or hidden in?
CHAOTIC: clue is word salad.
SUSHI: “along the way”? There’s no “in” or “of” in the clue.
Liked MORAL and TESTUDO (foi), so it does have some redeeming parts.
Dr.W @5 Maybe it is because I know Shakespeare more thoroughly than Tennyson, but for me a less recherche source for GUERDON occurs in Love’s Labour’s Lost, when Berowne gives the clown, Costard, a shilling to transport a secret letter to his beloved after Armado has given him only three farthings to perform the same mission. “There’s thy guerdon; go,” says Berowne, and Costard, examining his GUERDON, responds, ” Gardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration, a’leven-pence farthing better: most sweet gardon!” That said, I think Tennyson possibly used it as a conscious archaism in Idylls of the King, but it has been a long time, 46 years in fact, since I taught a course on the English epic tradition at an American university..
First pass through the acrosses yielded orby, Hegel, testudo, and the garden bit of 14. And the downs started out just as sparse. But it slowly wove, then got easier once enough crossers gave the two big ones. So, a bit painful, and lots under-parsed, but worth the effort, thanks to Big E and rapper.
Enigmatist is for my money by a long shot the most intimidating of Grauniad setters, so I was mightily chuffed to (except for one letter — the Y in ORBY) crack this. And the icing on the cake was the two 28-letter solutions: both clues are marvellous, and the FBI &littish surface is a tour de force. It took me ages to eke out the answers, but how satisfying those pennydrop moments were.
Thank you, E, and thanks too, mc.
I have always had an issue with Enigmatist’s clues – while several make complete sense, there are far too many that are just way out there! I am sorry if I have insulted anybody, but I have to say what I truly feel here. By the way, it is very rare that I don’t crack the Prize puzzle entirely, but the only notable exception is Enigmatist’s puzzles!
Here is the problem – I had already solved nearly 75% of the puzzle, but still cannot parse several of them completely. I can see that it has been challenging even for the blogger here. So I hope you can understand where I am coming from.
Pretty humbling experience. Only solved three all week. Didn’t help that the Guardian web interface stopped working properly on my ancient tablet mid-week and deleted my modest progress. Kudos to those who managed to complete this one
Seems like we’ve had some tougher puzzles this week…
I find Enigmatist intimidating, and generally feel pretty good if I get most of one of his puzzles, let alone see the parsing, but – with one exception – I found this rather simpler than I expected when I saw the fearful name. It did help to guess the two long phrases almost from the enumeration. And it’s lucky one of the few I got first time through was the rather neat EGOMANIACS anagram, whose crossing ‘O’ stopped me from entering ‘dragged in’ ‘instead of ‘brought it’. I’m sure I’ve always heard the phrase with ‘dragged’. The exception, and I left it right until coming to the blog before committing to it, was ICE-FREE, which had stayed empty most of the week because I just couldn’t see the wordplay. Thanks, mc! (Wikipedia has a very long entry on Air Defence, and I read most of it, which was more than I really wanted to know on the subject. Obviously, it didn’t help.) I particularly liked NOT-A-TOR and the FBI clue. It did help to have a number of clues with the answer hidden in the wordplay. On the other hand, Enigmatist does sometimes seem to have an, er, ‘flexible’ attitude to precision – I can see all of Dr. WhatsOn quibbles @5. And I’d add ORBY, which is a pretty flexible word altogether.
Thanks for the blog , good to have this as the Prize for a sunny day on the beach . Some great clues , FBI , THREE (for thee) , CHAOTIC with the compound anagram , TESTUDO was very neat .
Quite a few quibbles . MEANS TEST , this is never refused , the outcome of a means test may lead to a benefit or payment being refused . NECKERCHIEF , wound for cycled just about , but fine designer ?? . ICE-FREE barely works if the skirmish gives icefreeand , then and is removed but a real stretch Several more but I have said enough .
MC a very minor typo for IMMERSE and something I wrote by the clue to make it better , you have put sWimmers instead of slimmers .
I agree with Biggles@2 and Keith@12 , cats drag things in , luckily I had HEGEL in place already .
[ AlanC@1 , you just need to be more stubborn , if you encounter a slighly robust blade of grass and go crashing to the floor simply get up and carry on . I had four goes at this with swims in between to sharpen the brain . ]
Me @13 , I meant unluckily with HEGEL so some crossing out later .
Couldn’t get anywhere near it. I usually nag away at the Saturday prize throughout the week until I finish it, but not this one.
Not being made to do the blog made me feel more relaxed
The RHS long one quickly came to me but the LHS cam to me while K was watching football
Dunno why.
Great to have JH on a Prize-its always worth the effort with him
And thanks for the blog.
Like Roz, I had several goes at this, but unlike Roz I still didn’t get more than a third entered, with some of those unparsed. I liked THREE and TESTUDO, PIGFEED, EGOMANIACS and NOTATOR, and wasted lots of time trying to make NECKERCHIEF end in SCAR(wound)+F(ine). But mostly the reaction on seeing the wordplay was “well, I suppose so…” rather than “I should have seen that”. So many clues not particularly rewarding: just difficult. (Sour grapes, I expect.)
Let’s just say I am glad this was a prize puzzle so I had the whole week to work on it. I say this everytime but whilst Enigmatist/IO/Elgar etc is tough in every publication he does turn the difficulty up an extra notch for the Guardian.
Helped along the way on this one by getting FBI early but then hindered by WHAT THE CAT (etc) going in last.
Liked EGOMANIAC and ICE-FREE
Thanks Enigmatist and well done mc_rapper for managing to fully circle some of my half reasoning.
I only got two ELECTRA and GARDEN FLAT and then gave up. But I enjoyed the Rosa Klebb puzzle in the FT
Some abstruse parsing, but I managed half. Go, me!
As a newbie I found this one really hard (finished but with far too much guessing and ORBS instead of ORBY). So I’m heartened to see that more seasoned solvers found it challenging too!
I know nothing about cricket, could someone explain the LEG part of Hegel please? Do we take ‘turned on’ to mean side in cricket? Or is turned the anagram signifier and on = side?
Well, I filled the grid, but was left with quite a few unparsed. Over the next day or so I narrowed these down to the ones that the blogger questioned too.
As Roz says, the key absolutely is stubbornness, but also a good-humoured approach to being perhaps completely blank-minded at first. As I often am.
I rather liked ORBY, and would be interested in examples of its usage.
Held up for a while as I’d put in ‘MENSA test’ at 21, thinking the clue was a dig at a certain UNstatesmanlike leader who keeps bragging about his “intelligence”.
Eventually managed to get through this all, but echo the previous comments about Enigmatist as a setter. Thanks mcrapper for picking this apart!
Thank goodness for these blogs especially when Enigmatist is the setter. I always take several attempts to complete Prize Crosswords but with this setter I often complete the grid while not completely understanding the parsing. I only make peace with some of these answers by treating them like those ‘magic pictures’ where you have to half close your eyes to see the image sometimes known as taking leaps of faith/guessing 😳! I still don’t understand 1a TAMPER part or 20a LEG part even after reading this blog.
For 24a TESTUDO is also Latin for tortoise and described how with interlocking shields a group of Roman soldiers advanced under such cover.
Alex 23, yes I had MENSA TEST for a while too, for the same reason.
@kiriakoo 21
Yes, your second explanation is right.
A cricket pitch is split into two sides, the off side, and the on side, which is also known as the leg side. Comes up a lot in crosswords, as does other cricket terminology. Which a lot of people don’t like. Much like I didn’t like this crossword which put me right in my place.
Hastings Honey @24. It has eventually dawned on me that ‘an’ could substitute for ‘per’ as in miles an hour or miles per hour.
@gw80 26
Many thanks! Have made a note of it in my crossword dictionary, which gets scribbled additions each week…
Very tough. I finally almost completed it with a lot of assistance. Got FBI very early which helped but took a lot longer with the left hand long clue.
Didn’t get PIGFEED – never seen it as one word.
There were too many answers I couldn’t parse to be really enjoyable. Agree with almost all the previous quibbles.
Favourite NOTATOR.
Thanks Enigmatist and mc_rapper67 for explaining the parsing
gwd80, 26
Re cricket terminology, my co-solver Mrs. E remarked that we seldom see traditional “ladies” – as opposed to “gentlemen’s” – knowledge, e.g. knitting stitches, as a basis for setting. Cookery references are becoming common, but perhaps only because cookery is now also very much a male province?
I had to double check GUERDON and the ’st’ in TESTUDO as it went in before SUSHI my (2nd) LOI – ‘exotic cakes’ is a bit of a stretch.
I thought ‘?’ was the anagram indicator for MEANS TEST (but re-fused would be neat), for which I had a slight stumble and bunged in ‘meats sent’, clearly a reference to the United States Army beef scandal of 1898 until a pdm later in the day.
I made relatively good headway without zipping through.
I think Tennyson just means “poetic” (as GUERDON is now described as being a poetic term for reward) so any poet could have been used. A bit like Antiques Roadshow could have been Bargain Hunt!
I think the point about the MEANS TEST is that a true statesman refuses to apply it, as it can be iniquitous in its effects. It was particularly hated in the 1930s
In my copy, the word ‘Grace’ (15D) was written ‘Gr_________ace’. I spent ages wondering what might fit in the gap. Time I’ll never get back!
Too hard for me. 50% solve.
Ah sound of pennies dropping thanks to useful comments since my post #24. As I said thank goodness for this community ☺️
Peter@33 , I had that thought but reasoned that the clue would have said rejected not refused .
Gladys@17 , I have had a lot of practice for this setter plus we get IO Wednesday every month in the FT so you do get a bit used to all the tricks . You make a very good point at the end , I like to admire the wordplay but for quite a few here it was – Well I suppose it just about works if you squint at it sideways .
Adrian@34 I raised this point last week and people kindly informed me that there was no gap in the online version . Then in the week we had a clue with a big gap and answer SPACE .
Since my comment @6, something that will have to pass for a night’s sleep has intervened. Now a little digging tells me that Tennyson uses GUERDON four times in Idylls of the King. This is the first of them:
“…. fain would I reward thee worshipfully.
What guerdon will ye?” Gareth sharply spake,
“None! for the deed’s sake have I done the deed,
In uttermost obedience to the King.”
The first time I’ve completed an Enigmatist grid and also with all parsings resolved. Took me several hours but I’m still thinking seriously of retiring from all cryptic crosswords.
Phew that was hard, but got there in the end after several bites of the cherry. Helped somewhat by getting the two long ones on each side fairly quickly (although originally had ‘cat dragged in’, until EGOMANIACS put me right on that one).
Particularly like TESTUDO, which as Hastings Honey@24 points out, is Latin for tortoise and the genus name for those creatures. Also liked NOTATOR, although technically I would agree with that sentiment – a tor strictly speaking is a rock outcrop rising out of an otherwise rounded hillside, like Haytor on Dartmoor or the Barns of Bynack Mor in the Cairngorms, Glastonbury Tor is a steep, conical hill with no exposed rock outcrops.
Lovely – that was a proper puzzle. So much fun – though I had to put it away for a few days (and a little subconscious consideration?!) when less than a half of the clues had been solved!
Huge thanks, big E
(and to our rapper, whose generosity of spirit clearly knows no bounds!)
I usually solve Prize puzzles on the day, but only got about two thirds the way through this one before setting it aside, and then not remembering to come back to it. I don’t think I would have completed it in any case, given some of the parsings here, so I don’t feel too bad about it.
Petert@31
MEANS TEST
Agree with you.
Also…
Refused in the sense of ‘binned’ or ‘turned down’ won’t work
as an anagrind. I think it is re-fused, just like removed is used
to indicate re-moved.
The normal sense of ‘turned down’ is applicable in the surface reading (CAD).
Finally managed to piece this together from a ragged patchwork of repeated guess and check, a few confirmed suffixes and some speculation based on enumeration (FBI, for example). I did nevertheless feel a sense of achievement when I finally entered my LOI, MEANS TEST, even though it was hardly a clean solve. EGOMANIACS and TESTUDO were the stand-out clues for me. I often had no idea about the parsing elsewhere, so immense thanks to mc_rapper67 for sorting it all out and to Enigmatist for the challenge.
I seldom comment on my overall experience of a crossword, but as that appears to be the dominant note on this thread, I will just throw in my ha’pennyworth. It was very much a Tale of Two Sittings. On Saturday I clawed my way painfully through about 60% of it but then left the rest for Sunday, when the Quiptic tends to afford brief and pretty undemanding entertainment. Returning to the Prize, I found that the last 10 or so clues fell like ninepins. How to account for this? I think it must be to do with the quality of my sleep, which tends to leave much to be desired..
Etu @ 30, I agree. Cricket, rugby, chess, motorsport, military terms et al. feature more often than female-dominated hobbies, sports and areas of interest. I’m glad that you mention it as I thought I was alone in observing this. I’d be curious to know if any of the setters are women.
NoryN @45
Arachne, seen here all too infrequently, is female. It was she who started the approach, now adopted by others, of referring to an unspecified person as “she” rather than “he”; some solvers were confused by this!
Other female setters that spring to mind are Nutmeg and Hectence, but sadly both have died relatively recently.
Nory@45 , this setter compiled the Genius puzzle at the end of the trail from puzzle 30000 .
The theme was genius , twenty named people for the theme , ALL MALE . Two female first names made it into the grid because they are quite pretty names .
Thank you, Muffin@46, I didn’t know that Arachne is a woman. I’ve only recently started doing the prize crossword most weeks and don’t recall her use of ‘she’ that you mention. (Made me laugh.)
Thank you, Roz@47. I don’t know quite what to say to that! Male geniuses are certainly more celebrated, sometime at the expense of women (Pierre and Marie Curie come to mind).
[I take Roz’s point about that particular Genius puzzle, which she has made before, but otherwise I do find NoryN’s comment quire extraordinary. What would they classify as “female-dominated hobbies, sports and areas of interest?” Embroidery, cake decoration, knitting, quilting, ironing? Has the recent T20 women’s cricket World Cup passed them by, and the achievements of the Lionesses in football, the Red Roses in rugby, etc, etc? Netball I’ll concede on, but there is no other area that they cite that does not see significant participation and achievement by women.Do they think that women are in the armed forces just as typists? I really think NoryB needs to give their clearly binary view of the world a good shake].
[NoryN, 48, and of course Hedy Lamarr, who co-invented frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) during World War II. Originally designed to prevent enemies from jamming radio-controlled torpedoes, this “frequency agile” technology continuously switches radio signals across synchronized channels. Today, it forms the foundational backbone of modern Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS technologies. The word “engineer” comes from exactly the same root as “genius”, as I’m sure you know.]
For other fans of Arachne, who may not know, she appears rather more frequently (usually on Saturdays), in the FT, as Rosa Klebb. – most recently last weekend: https://www.ft.com/content/795bd128-821e-46a0-926e-f925f5c51b50
Matilda (Philistine / Goliath’s ) other half, also writes exceedingly good puzzles – again, rather too rarely, alas.
Carpathian as well , excellent puzzles for newer solvers , but very few published in the newspaper . Could help with the gender imbalance plus the tendency for most puzzles to be right in the middle of the range of difficulty .
Thank you Eileen 51, and finally a very belated “Hello” from me!
Balfour@49, my apologies for causing offence. Of course I acknowledge that women participate in the sports we have both mentioned (I question whether as many women follow these sports as men, however) but I would argue that gymnastics, ballet, swimming, netball and volleyball, for example, are more evenly represented by both sexes, and many crafts (lacemaking, needlepoint, and, yes, knitting to name a few ) are undertaken more often by women than men. Approximately 12% of the British armed forces are female, out of interest, and I can state categorically that military history sells far more to men than women. Around 2% of chess grand masters are women. I’m not talking absolutes here, but an impression, and please note that I was commenting, not complaining. I have learnt a lot of cricketing terminology on my crossword path(!) and am open to discussion/ contradiction.
[Balfour old chap, it was I who started this sub topic with a reference to traditional “ladies” provinces, and NoryN’s responses in that vein therefore don’t imply their having a “binary view” of the world at all – in my opinion.]
Roz @52
I forgot Carpathian. Yes, she sets consistently excellent puzzles, though more often in the Quiptic slot, as you say,
I managed to complete this, bu it was a multi-day task. I still don’t understand the parsing for 16A: Why does “Who Say” = EGOMANIACS? Unless it’s considered an &lit.
Thanks for all the much-needed explanations mc, and to Enigmatist for making a very chewy Prize Puzzle.
Muffin@56 , I never see the Quiptic , it is online only . She is occasionally in the paper and perfect puzzles for a Monday , we do not even get many of these now .
Nakamova @57 , the clue is saying only EGOMANIACS would want to go to a fancy dress party as themselves .
Thanks Roz, that confirms it is an %lit. 🙂
Balfour @49 I was surprised to see that “mansplaining” is not yet in Chambers.
Nakamova @59
….but exactly what percentage of a lit is it?
Thanks Roz@58. I had thought the setter was thinking of Daltrey, Townshend and Moon!
Eileen @51 and Rox at 52
As I wrote in my All Squared crossword book, I have championed female setters for many years when appointing new members to the Spectator and New Statesman compiling teams. Arachne, Carpathian, Nutmeg and Matilda and Ivy and Chalicea to name but nine!!!!
muffin @61, I’ll go with 76% &lit. And work on my typing skills. 🙂
Coloradan@62 , great idea , not Entwistle who was quite modest apparently .
Tom@63 , quite a line-up . The problem in the Guardian is so few puzzles from the female setters they have . Could be good reasons for this , maybe too busy with other things in life to set many crosswords .
Tsk. Of course. ORBY was a familiar address for one of the singers in The Travelling Wilburys.
Etu @66
Mmm – I remember him as “The Big O”.
Pretty difficult as usual with this setter, although I did find it fell into place quite nicely after a long initial slog. Had about 5 clues solved in the 1st 15 minutes, none of them crossing. Very hazy on several of the parsings. I prefer Paul, who is also difficult, but whose parsings are usually neater.
Belated reading of this analysis triggered a memory of a Julian Slade musical from the fifties: Free As Air. One of my favourite songs was the national anthem of the island: Testudo! (The island got its Latin name because it was shaped like a…….. yes you guessed it!) Each time Testudo was referred to in the song, it appeared in its correct Latin form (eg “So she left the island, Testudinem, Testudinem”)
I was so chuffed at getting LIKE SOMETHING THE CAT DRAGGED IN that it never occurred to me that it would be wrong. When the common phrase fits the definition, wordplay and enumeration, changing one of the words to a much less common term is, in my humble opinion, patently unfair.
That made the left side clues (ORBY, EGOMANIACS, HEGEL, NOTATOR) ungettable, and spoiled the much of the experience for me.
Enigmatist is hard enough without such chaotic pigfeed. 😉