The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/30082.
Anto on his best behaviour for a fun puzzle.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | FOOT FAULT |
Splitting payslip results in bad service? (4,5)
|
| ‘Splitting payslip’ gives FOOT (‘pay’-) plus FAULT (-‘slip’). ‘Results in’ might be regarded as part of the definition, or as connective tissue. | ||
| 6 | BEES |
Occasional brewers who will deliver honey? (4)
|
| Alternate letters (‘occasionally’) of ‘BrEwErS‘. | ||
| 10 | BLUFF |
Deceive friendly bank (5)
|
| Triple definition. | ||
| 11 | YOUNGSTER |
Gutsy Nero wrestled child (9)
|
| An anagram (‘wrestled’) of ‘gutsy Nero’. | ||
| 12 | LEECHES |
Suckers taking shelter before short game (7)
|
| A charade of LEE (‘shelter’) plus CHES[s] (‘game’) minus its last letter (‘short’). | ||
| 13 | INTROIT |
Sacred music at heart of saintly shroud rite (7)
|
| Interior letters (‘at heart of’) of ‘asINTly shROud rITe’. The actual letters are chosen to give the required result. | ||
| 14 | SERIOUS DAMAGE |
Acute harm horrible images aroused (7,6)
|
| An anagram (‘horrible’) of ‘images aroused’. | ||
| 17 | FRUIT MACHINES |
For example, Apple devices providing gambling opportunities (5,8)
|
| A charade of FRUIT (‘for example, apple’) plus MACHINES (‘devices’). | ||
| 21 | PARSNIP |
Assigns blame when returning vegetarian food (7)
|
| A reversal (‘when returning’) of PINS (‘assigns’) plus RAP (‘blame’). | ||
| 22 | PRIAPIC |
Chap so excited as couple make comeback in film (7)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of RIAP, a reversal (‘make comeback’) of PAIR (‘couple’) in PIC (‘film’). I think that Anto can be forgiven the adjectival answer (with extended definition?). | ||
| 24 | HANDS DOWN |
Passes on instruction to tellers when bank heist’s over (5,4)
|
| The instruction during a bank heist wiuld be HANDS UP, so that when the heist is over that command would be cancelled, although I doubt that the tellers would need explicit instructions. | ||
| 25 | TUTTI |
All together now – express disappointment at what comes before do (5)
|
| A charade of TUT (‘express disappointment’) plus TI (‘what comes before do’ -the full solfa do-re-mi-fa-so-la-TI-‘do’) | ||
| 26 | TWEE |
Sentimental short message made even shorter (4)
|
| A subtraction: TWEE[t] (‘short message’ – the burning question is whether one still tweets {if one does} now Twitter is X) minus its last letter (‘made even shorter’). | ||
| 27 | LISTENS IN |
Catalogue standard no good bugs (7,2)
|
| A charade of LIST (‘catalogue’) plus ENSI[g]N (‘standard’ – military colours) minus the G (‘no good’). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | FABULIST |
One telling stories featuring fantastic, very minor celebrities (8)
|
| A charade of FAB (‘fantastic’) plus U LIST (‘very minor celebrities’ – way down from the A-list, with perhaps a hint of the German prefix U) | ||
| 2 | OF USE |
Beneficial to add oxygen to blend (2,3)
|
| A charade of O (chemical symbol, ‘oxygen’) plus FUSE (‘blend’). | ||
| 3 | FIFTH COLUMNIST |
Internal enemy in appropriate position here? (5,9)
|
| Indeed, 3D occupies the FIFTH COLUMN of the crossword grid. | ||
| 4 | ULYSSES |
Element of July’s session is something hard to understand? (7)
|
| A hidden answer (‘element of’) in ‘jULYS SESsion’; the definition must be a reference to the James Joyce novel, which perhaps some find difficult to understand in parts. | ||
| 5 | TOURIGA |
Travel around Wigan central to find Portuguese wine (7)
|
| A charade of TOUR (‘travel around’) plus IGA (‘wIGAn central’). Touriga Nacional, to give its full name, is a grape varietal much used in Port, and also vinified on its own, and maybe so labelled. | ||
| 7 | EAT NO LEAN |
Mrs Sprat’s dietary requirement processed at lane one (3,2,4)
|
| An anagram (‘processed’) of ‘at lane one’. | ||
| 8 | SCROTA |
Gutted scientific programme providing containers for seed producers (6)
|
| A charade of SC (‘gutted ScientifiC‘) plus ROTA (‘programme’). | ||
| 9 | AGATHA CHRISTIE |
She made crime novels airtight as each evolved (6,8)
|
| An anagram (‘evolved’) of ‘airtight as each’., with an extended definition. | ||
| 15 | REFERENCE |
Endorsement after president would indicate top choice (9)
|
| With a P (‘president’) in front, the answer becomes PREFERENCE (‘top choice’). | ||
| 16 | C-SECTION |
Conservative faction working to gather information for delivery option (1-7)
|
| An envelope (‘to gather’) of I (‘information’) in C (‘Conservative’) plus SECT (‘faction’) plus ON (‘working’). | ||
| 18 | TOPSOIL |
Labour adopts works creating best medium for growth (7)
|
| AN envelope (‘adopts’) of OPS (‘woks’) in TOIL (‘labour’). | ||
| 19 | ALPINES |
In Scotland all large trees produce small flowers (7)
|
| A charade of A’ (‘in Scotland all’ – “a man’s a man for a’ that”) plus L (‘large’) plus PINES (‘trees’). | ||
| 20 | UPSHOT |
Trophies stolen, clubs eliminated – it’s a result! (6)
|
| A charade of [c]UPS (‘trophies’) minus the C (‘clubs eliminated’) plus HOT (‘stolen’). | ||
| 23 | PATES |
Heads or livers chopped up? Depends how you say it (5)
|
| Double definition, with the second using the French pronunciation (and spelling) PATÉS. |
Good fun. I was not familiar enough with Scottish to fully parse ALPINES, and the wordplay for FOOT FAULT eluded me. New to me: FIFTH COLUMNIST FRUIT MACHINES, TOURIGA, PRIAPIC.
Okay, that’s a full quota of SCROTA for this year and a second FIFTH COLUMNIST for the month.
I shouldn’t be solving these in the middle of the night but I really enjoyed this and it was as close to a write in as I ever get.
Thanks PeterO for parsing slightly more thoroughly than me; I didn’t stop to think about the 5th column device, which is neat.
I liked OF USE, HANDS DOWN, FRUIT MACHINES and C SECTION among others.
Thanks Anto.
A minor Pauline theme here? (SCROTA PRIAPIC PARSNIP).
A steady, enjoyable solve today. I had to guess the NHO TOUERIGA
Thanks PeterO and Anto
Another who guessed TOURIGA. Solved without aids which is rare for me. This slid down like a good red wine, Portugese or otherwise, a moment of happiness. No quibbles this time with the clueing.
Excellent puzzle, with many favourites. Let’s narrow it down to 1a FOOT FAULT (“payslip” fission), 14a SERIOUS DAMAGE (good anagram and surface), 17a FRUIT MACHINES (“Apple devices”), 21a PARSNIP (good clue, though I hate the vegetable), 24a HANDS DOWN (funny), 1d FABULIST (just how many lists are there??), 16d C-SECTION (surface and “delivery option” definition), and others
Much of it solved between shows at our local Fringe Festival
Thanks Anto and PeterO
“The James Joyce novel, which perhaps some find difficult to understand in parts” – that’s an understatement!
i solved 27a and 19d differently (but think yours are better)
i had 27a as LIST-EN-SIN with en being the much loved standard printers’ measure
And 19d as A-L-PINES with A and L short for All Large and Pines as trees in Scotland
but as i say i prefer yours!
Never tackled ULYSSES and the warning in the clue has not encouraged me to do so!
Thoroughly enjoyable crossword, over disappointingly quickly.
Didn’t know the friendly meaning of BLUFF.
Many thanks both.
Re PRIAPIC for “Chap so excited” being an adjectival answer – is it not rather an adverbial (“so”) answer, and therefore ok?
Favourite: ULYSSES.
New for me: TOURIGA port wine, INTROIT, FIFTH COLUMNIST, and SCROTA (never had to think about the plural of scrotum before today 😉
I could not parse 19d apart from PINES, and wrongly guessed that AL = all in Scotland. I’ll need to locate a decent Scottish dictionary online!
I hope William@8 and others are not put off one of the great novels of the 20th century by 4. Well worth a little effort, and SCROTA and PRIAPIC would be perfectly at home in it. The device in FOOT FAULT took me a while to see after guessing the answer, but I’m always slow to see it. Philistine uses it a lot. I confess I found this puzzle a little unexciting on the whole, but that’s probably just me. Thanks to Anto and PeterO.
Michelle @10 – I can recommend the Dictionaries of the Scots Language (dsl.ac.uk), otherwise known as “Dictionars o the Scots Leid”. I’ve used it a lot in my work, which includes understanding 17th-century Scots.
Great Tuesday morning puzzle – thanks to Anto and PeterO.
Anto used to be one of the more innovative setters but I wonder if too many Quiptics and too much neophobic feedback have cramped his style somewhat? I thought REFERENCE was a good example of the kind of clue Anto used to specialise in. I read the SO as “very” hence PRIAPIC seemed okay to me
Still, all good fun and I was disappointed when it was over
Cheers P&A
Lots to like. FIFTH COLUMNIST especially made me chuckle. Not sure about 4D; perhaps Anto was thinking of Finnegan’s Wake? I couldn’t parse LISTENS IN; like frinton@7 I had list, en and sin, but wasn’t convinced that it worked. Thanks PeterO for the correct explanation and Anto for the fun.
ULYSSES is a wonderful novel, which is admittedly hard, but worth the perseverance and the film version with Milo O’Shea is marvellous. Another great puzzle from Anto, with FIFTH COLUMNIST and FRUIT MACHINES being particularly clever. I wish people would refrain from mentioning Paul when other setters produce FRUIT(Y) clues, they’re just as capable as him.
Ta Anto & PeterO.
Very heartening to know that if a crossword setter were to carry out a bank robbery he/she would have the courtesy to let the terrified staff know they could put their hands down before leaving.
Michelle@10:
There’s a good Scots dictionary here: https://dsl.ac.uk/
I used to use it a bit when the great Caledoniocentric AZED was freely available on the Guardian site.
Thanks, Anto and PeterO; this was fun and quirky enough to be interesting. FIFTH COLUMNIST my favourite, perhaps, and it might not be coincidence that in ULYSSES the sea is described as ‘scrotumtightening’.
Thanks Anto for a fun crossword and PeterO for the excellent blog. TOURIGA and INTROÏT were new for me but both fairly clued. Like others I also liked FIFTH COLUMN and was impressed by the anagram for AGATHA CHRISTIE.
Simonc @16: 🤣
Can’t quite decide between Chap very excited (bodycheetah @13) and Chap thus excited (Elefantgans @4).
The anagram and extended def for AGATHA CHRISTIE were impressive – but unfortunately the answer was all too obvious, so it was rather wasted. I like some of Anto’s slightly unusual clues – his habitual central-letters one, the clever FIFTH COLUMNIST and the definitely-not-a-homophone clue for PATES. I missed the triple def for BLUFF and the ensign in LISTENS IN, and TOURIGA was a new one. HANDS DOWN and the U-LIST celebs made me laugh. Thanks Anto and PeterO.
ULYSSES really isn’t that hard to understand, and is a wonderful book. The ‘difficult’ trope has probably put off a lot of people who would have enjoyed it enormously.
Great stuff even if I couldn’t work out the parse for FOOT FAULT.
I share the sentiment that ULYSSES isn’t that difficult to understand. A bit like ‘A Brief History of Time’ I think it’s been given that tag by people who have never read it.
Favourite today FIFTH COLUMNIST
Really think Anto has massively improved as a setter over the last year going from near the bottom to near the top of my favourite Guardian setters.
Thanks Anto and PeterO
Thanks for the blog , very enjoyable set of clues with many nice touches , FIFTH COLUMNIST , REFERENCE , LISTENS IN and many more . I would prefer not to be told about the splitting for FOOT FAULT .
Very entertaining with lots of great clues. Just to pick a couple, “very minor celebrities” for U-LIST in 1d, and HANDS DOWN as the instruction to tellers, both produced smiles.
I was expecting someone to comment that, in INTROIT, “heart of” should really be “hearts of” — but it’s a minor point.
I always thought that that the term FIFTH COLUMNIST originated in the Spanish Civil War, when a Fascist general stated that four columns of troops were approaching Madrid, and that the fifth column was already there. But according to the Wikipedia article the origin seems less clear.
Many thanks Anto and PeterO.
[ The Perseid meteor shower should be very good tonight and even better tomorrow . No skills , knowledge or equipment required . Just use your eyes , dark adapted for 20 minutes and do not look at your phone . Will appear all over the sky but radiate from the NE roughly , free to everyone who can be bothered to just look . ]
I had several laughs along the way, like the U-lister, the bank tellers and the appropriate fifth column. I totally agree with Alan@15 that mentions of Paul below another setter’s crossword are both off topic and disrespectful.
Thanks to Anto for the entertainment, and to PeterO, especially for reminding me of the Scots word for ‘all’!
PS a few years ago on a previous Anto puzzle (28,618) we had a major spat about whether “information” could reasonably indicate I, as it does today in C-SECTION. Personally I’m absolutely fine with it, but it’s interesting how something can sometimes be controversial and other times pass without comment.
Just as the sea in ULYSSES is described as ‘scrotumtightening’, as pointed out by brian-with-an eye @18, so in the Tridentine Latin mass, the INTROIT, which accompanies the celebrant’s processional arrival to the altar, is followed by the first words of the mass, from Psalm 42, introibo ad altare Dei, which is parodied by Buck Mulligan in the very first lines of Joyce’s novel:
Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:
—Introibo ad altare Dei.
Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely:
—Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit.
Again, it might just be coincidence.
Nho TOURIGA.
As others have said, ULYSSES is not that difficult, though it is long and intricate. I’ve enjoyed the superb Audible reading by Jim Norton. Perhaps the setter was thinking of Finnegans Wake, a whole other ballgame.
Thanks for the scholarship Balfour @30 (alas I was among the non-readers on the Bloom walking tour).
Agree, Roz @25, the Playtex instruction is superfluous …
Only got as far as the first 50 pages on my first attempt at reading the book. But I do clearly remember images such as the scrotum tightening sea and shirts “crucified” as they dried on a washing line. Thereafter found it much easier to get through it all when I tried the Kindle version much later on.
Re today’s puzzle, made good steady progress until rather ground to a halt in the SE corner, LISTENS IN being the last one in…
Agree with Roz @25 that ‘Splitting’ ruined a good clue.
IMHO Ulysses is a walk in the park compared with Joyce’s last novel:
Ken, a few gins and an absurdly incomprehensible story (9,4).
I enjoyed this. Quite hard but no quibbles about the clueing.
Nho touriga but clearly clued.
Enjoyed FIFTH COLUMNISTS, PARSNIP and HANDS DOWN, but actually there wasn’t a dud clue anywhere, and I managed to parse them all.
Ta Anto and PeterO
Jonathan Golfcourse@35…very nice, is that your very own constructed Joycean clue, or is it lifted from somewhere else? I also now remember another image of the snotgreen sea from those opening pages of Ulysses too…
Jack Sprat and his wife again. There also seems to have been a lot of tennis related clues lately. Fun puzzle. Thanks
ronald@35 Thanks. It’s my own, constructed with some help from Internet Anagram Solver. I have a copy of FW gathering dust on my bookshelf. One day ….
Great quote Balfour@30 , I like seeing links between answers . I did reply to your “mock” quotes but too late/early .
I once wrote to the Joyce estate asking them to correct the manuscript for Finnegans Wake , to read – Six quarks for Muster Mark ! – but they refused . Philistines .
AlanC@34 , I really like fission clues but prefer to spot it myself . Philistine/Goliath the master of these .
Roz and others: I agree that “splitting” makes the FOOT FAULT clue too obvious to those who like that sort of thing (I do), but there is another group of solvers who don’t like fission clues at all, no matter how gently they are introduced, so Anto can’t win.
gladys @41 … I’m (usually) in that ‘other group’, as I think the real skill of the setter is to truly ‘say what you mean’ – omitting (or introducing) things that alter what’s *really* being said is a bit of a ‘trick’, which can be fun but isn’t as smart/satisfying as still being able to deceive the solver *without* resorting to any tricks. (As for PRIAPIC, the “so” *has* to be ‘thus’ rather than ‘very’, for the definition to work)
Good puzzle with some interesting clues. I liked FOOT FAULT, despite the splitting, the scientific programme for SCROTA, and the (p)REFERENCE.
Thanks Anto and PeterO.
Fun puzzle, helped by the fact that I possessed almost all the necessary GK. ALPINES my last one in, alluding once again to my blind spot for botany, but knowing a’ for all and getting pines from the crossers led me there.
The parsing of REFERENCE eluded me, and is very clever in hindsight.
Thank you Anto and PeterO.
Pleasant puzzle.
I know the Burns line but never would have got “a'” = “all.”
PeterO, you have “woks” for “works” in the blog for 18d.
The Ensign = flag = standard was fetched too far for me.
Thanks, Anto and PeterO
If you’d lived with my mother, you would find Ulysses a doddle.
Roz@40 supposedly Gell-Mann was taken by the fact that three quarks make up protons and neutrons, so perhaps we can allow it?
Elefantgans @4
I cannot trace any adverbial use of 22A PRIAPIC.
To clarify my point about the clue, although chaps are clearly involved, the placing of ‘chap’ in the clue suggests that the answer is a noun (so, ignoring the little matters of wordplay and answer length, the definition would obviously lead to SATYR). To get an adjective, the definition has to be stretched to something like “pertaining to a chap’s excitement”.
PeterO @48
The reading is, I think, “A chap that is like this [“so”] would be excited” … a terse way of expressing that, but I think accurate and correctly leads to an adjective for the answer? (I do think it’d be better without the linking “as”, though)
As well as an accent aigu, the French spelling of pâtés has a circonflexe to indicate its descent from paste
Liked this a lot. Could parse/post parse nearly all of them. Surprised myself – it must hame been easy. But when I looked at the parsings they seemed quite hard. Also enjoyed PeterO’s somewhat sly “ the James Joyce novel, which perhaps some find difficult to understand in parts.” 🙂 Thanks both
Chap so/very excited [is] priapic
Chap so/thus excited [is] priapic
Priapic chap [is] so excited
Priapic chap [is] thus excited
Oh bugger it, whatev …
Joseph@47 , the original Gell-Mann model needed three distinct quarks to account for the strange particles ; up , down and strange . Protons and neutrons do have three quarks but uud and ddu , so nothing to do with the quotation leading to the name .
Later discoveries of my quark plus bottom then top means six quarks for the Standard Model , hence the quotation should be updated .
By complete coincidence the wordplay for PRIAPIC is a type I annotate as doggie in my crossword diary , but I will not explain further .
I was slow to get INTROIT, as it does not ( or did not in the days when I was involved) have to be sung. I was looking for a musical form. ( Yes, I know what Chambers says.)
Zoot@55 I originally had 13a INTROIT listed as one of my favourites @5 because the answer was an unexpected (pleasant) surprise, and because I’ve done many of them over the years. My list was too long, though, so it became one of the expendable crew members…
27a. the EN (Euro Norm) is a series of widely used technical standards. They’re used to ensure quality is maintained, especially in engineering projects.
PeterO @48
Yes, thank you, you are certainly right. Adverbial (does one also say “adverbial” when the adjective qualifies another adjective and not a verb?) would be “priapically excited”. I was just thinking that “so” (or “thus” as grantinfreo suggested) and also cranberryfez seemed to consider could point to an adjective. But yes, probably not 100% clean.
Very enjoyable, and barely any cheating required at all (relatively).
I also parsed 27a. as LIST(catalogue)+EN(standard)+SIN(no good), but wasn’t super happy about the sin bit. I thought of ‘ensign’ minus the ‘g’, but had forgotten the flag definition, and just thought it a rank. I had also parsed 3d. as just referring to the Guardian having columnists. Your way is much more clever and satisfying. Thanks very much for the blog for clearing those up. And thanks Anto for the puzzle.
I’ve tried to read Ulysses, and got perhaps 50-100 pages in before giving up when I realised I understood very little, and was gaining nothing from the attempt. Perhaps it would be an easier read for UK readers, but I found it took five times as long to read as any other book, and wasn’t memorable at all.
Thanks Anto and PeterO. I learnt a few more devices for next time, and way too much male anatomy before my third coffee.