A fabulous anniversary puzzle.
This was quite a feat. Io has very skilfully woven together the characters (and other thematic elements) in a worthy celebration of a book that celebrates 100 years since its original publication on this very day! Thoroughly lovely and enjoyable.
(OIL WELL)* (*running), TT (dry, teetotal) primes
COR[o]NER (official, forgoing O (old))
(WE SONS will get BY)* (*working round) – &lit
M1 (motorway) + L[a]NE (A (acceleration) cuts)
AA Milne is of course the author of Winnie-the-Pooh (i.e. 6 down)
RECTOR (cleric) opens DIY (flatpack)
CH[e]R (acting she, do Es without) + I STOP HER (she’s checked by me)
I realise my parsing here is lacking, so let me know if you have a better solution! Check the comments, and also, I will come back and update the blog if something better is suggested. I have exhausted all possibilities I can think of…
(HUGE STEP)* (*busted) recruiting O[riginal] (leader for)
Cryptic definition
A play on the two meanings of ‘teddy bear’
‘Arctophilia’ being the love of teddy bears
(OAK (furniture maker) catching (ON; keeps RAG (joke)))< (<about)
(W (women) + U (united) in ALTO (voice))< (<backing)
‘A certain Robin’ (from 22 down) referring to Mr Hood of course
HATER (one resents) apprehending ON + EYE (sight)
(HARDLY with CIA)* (*needing to get involved)
AT (touring) + AN (one) + INCH (Scottish island)
‘Bard’s’ indicating a poetic way of saying something
BAR< (counter, <raised) + BIT (cut)
Jaw/rabbit both mean to chat/gossip/natter
I (international) + CONIC (section, mathematical)
(WHETHE[r] OPINION)* (*is wrong, [o]R (ultimately) misplaced)
It is indeed 100 years to the day that Winnie-the-Pooh was originally published
[r]E[m]E[d]Y [w]O[r]R[i]E[s] (undergoing measured withdrawal)
W (with) + HELPS (staff lending a hand)
T[r]IGGER (the one starting trouble, [Arche]R (‘s latest) to be dropped)
EYES TALK (others not present know about it)
HE (guy) stabs CAPO (Mafia boss)
[b]EDWARD (heading for retirement perhaps, putting B (billion) aside)
AA Milne’s son, Christopher Robin Milne, originally named his teddy Edward Bear, but later renamed it Winnie.
LEG* (*fractured) digging PIT (hole)
[p]ROBIN[g] (examining, unfledged)
CHRISTOPHER
acting=A
She does=CHAR
CHAR without a=CHR
She’s checked by me=I STOP HER
Def: Man
EYESTALK
of course=YES
And others=ET AL
Not present know=know-now=K
ET ALK about YES
Thanks for the blog , impressive use of the theme but it does tend to give too much away for later clues .
I had the same as KVa @1 and well done for spotting CHAR “She does” is very much an old-fashioned UK term for CHAR .
AT AN INCH – not adding much but Bard refers to Shakespeare , it is in Chambers93 as one of his phrases .
What a splendid celebration of 6d’s anniversary. Mind you, any crossword with 8d in it has to be a good one
The theme certainly helped to make the crossword less difficult than previous Io puzzles
Many thanks to him and Oriel
Thanks KVa, lazily bunged in Christopher once the theme emerged (again! A centenary worthy of two esteemed setters). And thanks Roz, did wonder if the Bard said it. And thanks Io and Oriel, most enjoyable!
Ouch! Difficult and fun-free.
KVa, @1, bravo, I the two got the answers, then took an eternity to work out what the heck IO was getting at.
When it comes down to the level of “MAN” = Christopher, I’m not much impressed.
TEDDY BEARS (21/2) equally meh, “secreted” past tense for “bears”? Love of teddy bears = well, apparently, teddy bears.
“TRIGGER”, 14(d)…do they specifically start “trouble”? Don’t they start a myriad of things?
AT AN INCH, (1d): I got it, but I’d rather send it back. Does the wordplay even work – notwithstanding the awful solution.
Sadly, too clever by half, for me….which doesn’t equate to clever.
Thanks, Oriel, rather you than me.
My researches tell me that “at an inch” occurs in Henry VI, Part II, Act 1, Scene 4:
I hope I’m not giving too much away by saying that Io is not the only setter to have noticed today’s anniversary.
I agree with KVa@1 on EYESTALK. I could not figure out the CHR part of CHRISTOPHER, and I am still not sure the grammar quite works. I found all the rest surprisingly accessible.
Very much fun-free as ENBoll& says.
This was totally opaque to me. I wonder just how many FT readers enjoy this level of difficulty. The publishers certainly won’t find crossword-solving buyers of the paper in anything more than a trickle when IO is the setter.
I really hope we see him/her as a rarity, if ever.
It seems everyone is on this theme this week with this being the third puzzle I have done touching upon it. It helped a huge amount as I just went around filling in the characters where the definition kind of matched and then looked if I could parse or partially parse it (which is usually my standard for leaving an answer in for IO)
This gave the bones for a quicker than usual solve for this setter.
Liked HONEY EATER, CHEAPO and CHAIRLADY
Thanks IO and Oriel
I always want to try IO when I see him come up. I can’t always solve them but someone has to be top of the difficulty pyramid and you know what you’re in for. Guy just won’t give you an inch. Today I struggled with HONEYEATER and NEWSBOYS although I can’t say they were unfair.
As often with Io, I spent more than my self-defined “par” solving time with some (but not all) completed and then several shorter visits through the day have allowed me to complete the grid. I think I had them all parsed, although I had to take the definition of 1dn on trust. I agree with KVa@1 regarding 15ac and 16dn.
21/2: I am not sure that this has been fully covered in earlier comments , but, further to ENB@5, I took it as:
(1) “Arctophilia” meaning collection or love of teddy bears, which is an uncomfortably large step away from defining teddy bears themselves;
(2) “secreted in undergarment” referring to teddy² “a one-piece undergarment for a woman, combining panties and chemise” (Chambers 2016 p 1600), but, while I agree that “teddy bears something” is saying the same as “something is secreted by a teddy”, that still leaves a gap between “teddy bears” and “secreted by undergarment”.
The question mark on the end of this clue seems to be doing a lot of work.
Huge thanks Oriel.
During my first pass, I only got TIGGER (and was pleased to get that). Then I got WINNIE-THE-POOH and then, all of a sudden (around an hour), most of the rest fell (didn’t see OUTLAW & EYESTALK). As often with this setter, there is at least one clue which just doesn’t seem to work (and he never seems to comment here to defend). Here it is TEDDY BEARS.
TEDDY BEARS: ‘X [that] Y carries’, and ‘X carried by Y’ seem reasonable cryptic equivalents to me. It’s easier to see if you don’t try to separate the wordplay part from the definition part – ‘Teddy bears teddy bears’. That just leaves the difficulty with the definition.
‘… acting she does without …’ is so far from giving CH[a]R that I want there to be another explanation.
It’s nice that Google has joined in with the celebrations.
James @13. Should have been clearer that I was only objecting to the definition.
Thanks Io and Oriel. Commenting for the first time in a while. Difficult and didn’t finish, yet fun.
My favorite cryptics are themed ones, especially Gaff and the monthly World and News puzzles. I have never finished an Io puzzle and usually don’t even come close. But it was evident from a few clues that there was a theme – 6d was my first one in – so I took it on and got most of the themed answers. Parsed them all except 15a. Non-theme answers largely stumped me still.