The original puzzle may be found here.
A puzzle that requires a certain amount of general knowledge, so my favourite kind of puzzle. I did have to Google Beria, as I had never heard of him, but BACTERIA was gettable from the crossers, so I had the answer if not the parsing. I have read the book in 2dn and the one featuring Ahab, so those were straightforward too. It took a while to see BILLY-O for some reason, but a good clue once I saw it. I was talking to my wife about sardines last night by coincidence, so that also helped with the long solution going down the middle.
Thanks, Imogen.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | EARNED |
Deserved relaxation eventually, being lugged around (6)
|
| EARED (“lugged”, as in having lugs) around (relaxatio)N [eventually] | ||
| 5 | SACRISTY |
Bag is in right end of busy dressing room (8)
|
| SAC (“bag”) + IS in Rt. (right) + [end of] (bus)Y | ||
| 9 | FIVE-STAR |
Really excellent ball game cheers king (4-4)
|
| FIVES (“ball game”) + TA (“cheers”) + R (Rex, so “king”) | ||
| 10 | NESTLE |
Food manufacturers are in protected position (6)
|
| Double definition, the first referring to Nestlé, the giant Swiss food company. | ||
| 11 | SHOT IN THE ARM |
Vaccination booster? (4,2,3,3)
|
| Double definition | ||
| 13 | BEAU |
Live with a socially superior admirer (4)
|
| BE (“live”) with A + U (“socially superior”) | ||
| 14 | EN POINTE |
Sacked, one inept dancer who is so unnaturally tall? (2,6)
|
| *(one inept) [anag:sacked] | ||
| 17 | BACTERIA |
Police chief overrides law for possibly harmful agents (8)
|
| (Lavrentiy) BERIA (a “police chief” under Stalin) overrides ACT (“law”) | ||
| 18 | TROT |
Astroturf is too much for left-winger (4)
|
| Hidden in [is too much for] “asTROTurf” | ||
| 20 | NOTHING DOING |
Love acting, without hope of success (7,5)
|
| NOTHING (“love”) + DOING (“acting”) | ||
| 23 | BILLY-O |
Boiler given oxygen going vigorously like this? (5-1)
|
| BILLY (can) (used for boiling, so a “boiler”) given O (oxygen) | ||
| 24 | IS THAT SO |
His toast wants a spread? I don’t believe you (2,4,2)
|
| *(his toast) [anag:wants a spread] | ||
| 25 | ELDRITCH |
Uncanny children almost messing with time (8)
|
| *(childre t) [anag:messing] where CHILDRE is [almost] CHILDREN(n) | ||
| 26 | OREGON |
Old district, not one part of America (6)
|
| O (old) + REG(i)ON (“district”, not I (one)) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | AMIS |
Money maker a failure? Not entirely (4)
|
| A + MIS(s) (“failure”, not entirely”)
Martin Amis wrote the book, Money, so is technically a “Money maker” |
||
| 3 | NEEDS MUST |
It is essential, born on earth, to accept some failing occasionally (5,4)
|
| NEE (“born”) on DUST (“earth”) accepting S(o)M(e) [failing occasionally] | ||
| 4 | DOTCOM |
Modern business caught up in catastrophe (6)
|
| Ct. (caught, up) in DOOM (“catastrophe”) | ||
| 5 | SARDINE SANDWICH |
Breaded fish women organised after children’s game and before church (7,8)
|
| WI (Womens Institute, so “women organised”) after (SARDINES (“children’s game”) + AND) before CH (“church”) | ||
| 6 | CENOTAPH |
Monument not cheap to sculpt (8)
|
| *(not cheap) [anag:to sculpt] | ||
| 7 | ISSUE |
A lot of lies not initially a problem (5)
|
| (t)ISSUE (“a lot of lies”, not initially) | ||
| 8 | TOLERATION |
Indulgence of endlessly pilfered allowance (10)
|
| [endlessly] (s)TOLE(n) (“pilfered”) + RATION (“allowance”) | ||
| 12 | SENATORIAL |
In a row preserving alliance is concerning high-ranking politician (10)
|
| SERIAL (“in a row”) preserving NATO (“alliance”) | ||
| 15 | INTEGRATE |
Become part of group felling giant tree (9)
|
| *(giant tree) [anag:felling] | ||
| 16 | BRING OUT |
Emphasise bell stops contest (5,3)
|
| RING (“bell”) stops BOUT (“contest”) | ||
| 19 | BISTRO |
Simple restaurant’s gravy overcomes resistance (6)
|
| BISTO (“gravy” granules) overcomes R (resistance) | ||
| 21 | HALER |
Captain Ahab for one losing weight gets fitter (5)
|
| (w)HALER (“Captain Ahab for one”, losing W (weight)) | ||
| 22 | OSLO |
Capital both sides lost in trade union’s protest (4)
|
| [both sides lost in] (g)O-SLO(w) (“trade union’e protest”) |
Got 3d relatively early on, but otherwise still had multiple blanks in the NW by the time my train ride came to an end. Took far too long to recall the game of fives. 1a, 2d and 4d were my LOI’s and all very clever clues. A nice change to have both ‘Rt’ and ‘Ct’ instead of the more common (I think?) R and C.
Quite pleased to finish as I didn’t have the reference for AMIS or SARDINES and ELDRITCH was a NHO. I was also nonplussed by DOTCOM for what now seems ridiculously long (LOI). NW in general a tricky area. COD EARNED.
NHO the book in 2D or the game in 9A. Why is 10 “Food manufacturers” when it’s generally regarded as a singular entity? OTOH 21D should hardly have required reading the book, given its permeation throughout popular culture, and of course any Aussie should know the boiler from our national song about the swagman named Andy i.e. “Andy sang as he watched, Andy waited till his billy boiled”…
Enjoyable, and less tricky than Imogen often seems to be.
In 8dn, I think it’s CH for church, not CE.
Thanks I and L.
My loi was 2d and I gave up. The definition seems obscure though I do recognise the surname (Kingsley comes to mind first though) and the wordplay is fair. I also guessed 1a but didn’t put it in until the end because I couldn’t see eared=lugged.
I can’t be the only person who tried the near anagram on tiptoe, but it wasn’t quite right and I had enough crossers to disprove it anyway.
Sardine sandwich raised my eyebrow slightly because it doesn’t seem like a distinct phrase, but cheese sandwich or cucumber sandwich wouldn’t have bothered me and if they are OK there’s no reason to say sardine isn’t.
I struggled with the last third of this, and I’m still unsure whether “sardine sandwich” feels fair to me. Can “en pointe” be used as a noun meaning a dancer in that position?
OSLO and OREGON both very lovely, and overall an enjoyable puzzle which I would have enjoyed more were I of better brain.
Thanks both!
MAC@3 I do hope you’ll come a-waltzing my tilde with me.
Always a pleasure to see Imogen’s name, in anticipation of great clueing and wonderful surfaces. Enjoyed this muchly, particularly AMIS (LOI), ELDRITCH, FIVE-STAR and SARDINE SANDWICH. Many thanks to I & L.
Tom@6: I think Imogen intended we read 14ac as “dancer who is so (i.e. en pointe) [is] unnaturally tall”.
“Fives” in its various forms is almost uniquely played at public schools (and, by extension, Oxford and Cambridge) in two main forms (“Rugby” in something like a squash court, and “Eton” in an open backed court with a step and a buttress). Those who did not go to such places need not beat themselves up about not having heard of it I reckon!
Lovely puzzle – thank you Imogen and loonapick.
Well constructed puzzle with a good variety of clue type and GK requirement. Favourite: ELDRITCH, because I particularly like the word. LOI AMIS – I wasn’t looking for a proper name. The sandwich filling is rather arbitrary, but that doesn’t make it wrong, though a phrase like ‘club sandwich’ is less debatable.
MAC089 @3: It is idiomatic in British English to treat company names as plurals, just as all English speakers do with the word ‘people’: Nestlé ARE launching a new chocolate bar.
Thanks to Imogen and loonapick
I had the same ticks as Drofle @8 and learned the lovely word ELDRITCH. Money is my favourite Martin Amis novel, so loved that one. I was surprised that the blogger hadn’t heard of Beria, (superb surface with the different use of agents), one of the cruellest villains of the 20th Century.
Ta Imogen & loonapick.
Martin Amis enjoyed crosswords. A favourite clue of his – Something wrong with Finnegan’s Wake? Perhaps too complicated (10). Thanks for the puzzle.
Enjoyed this challenge this morning, though wasn’t quite sure about AMIS, as I don’t know titles of the books he wrote. ELDRITCH was another one I had to look up. JOFT@9…I’m afraid I did go to “one of those places”, and (Rugby) Fives was a sport I briefly played. Though I never felt the gloves that you bashed the ball with quite had enough padding in them to cushion the blow.
I did not go to ‘one of those places’, but had still heard of fives. I had thought it was a perfectly normal ball game, and it is news to me that it is restricted to a couple of universities.
Jack@9 OK, I can get behind that reading. Thank you!
I needed both crossers to get AMIS. A good clue, with “Money” cleverly at the start to disguise the capital letter. I have fond memories of reading his first novel The Rachel Papers when I was a student.
I did think that the two definitions for SHOT IN THE ARM were a bit too close to each other, as one derives from the other, but apart from that there was lots to like. There were some nicely chosen anagram indicators, such as “His toast wants a spread” and “felling giant tree”.
Interesting that TROT came straight after BERIA. (I liked the former for the play on “left-winger”.)
Thanks Imogen and loonapick.
epop @12. I haven’t seen the clue before. Thats’ excellent!
Thanks to S&B
Where would one see CT for “caught”? (Box scores for cricket maybe?—would explain my ignorance of it.) I’ve certainly seen it for _Court_, but here (4d) I expected something would signal first-&-last-only. (RT for “right” in 5a has precedent, appearing in such abbreviated titles as _Rt Hon_ and _Rt Revd_.)
Thanks, Imogen and loonapick. This looked really tough at first but fell into place fairly briskly. AMIS last in, and thanks epop@12 for that clue, which is very clever. Just thinking about Beria makes me shudder, though.
Pleased to finish this as Imogen is amongst the setters I most struggle with. It seemed hard but slowly fell into place which is what I enjoy.
Liked SENATORIAL and DOTCOM
Thanks Loonapick and Imogen
I read Money when it first came out a zillion years ago, so it was fun when the parsing for AMIS emerged from the dusty recesses. MONEY is itself inspired by Orwell’s “Keep the Aspidistra Flying”, which I highly recommend. Both authors would make fine themes for cryptics. (I expect that Orwell already has.)
I read Money when it first came out a zillion years ago, so it was fun when the parsing for AMIS emerged from the dusty recesses. MONEY is itself inspired by Orwell’s “Keep the Aspidistra Flying”, which I highly recommend. Both authors would make fine themes for cryptics. (I expect that Orwell already has.)
Tough challenge, mildly enjoyable.
New for me: ELDRITCH; BERIA = Soviet police chief; BILLY-O = very much; FIVES = ball game.
Lots to like, though I missed the AMIS clue and NESTLE. I had heard of the awful BERIA, a true villain if ever there was one, but is DUST really equivalent to earth? Also, I think ‘breaded’ only ever means ‘coated in breadcrumbs’, so I find the definition in 5d unpersuasive..
Sorry for the double post above! Not sure why…
epop@12 That’s brilliant. I enjoyed the puzzle, too.
Thanks for the blog , steady solve in a pretty friendly grid , SARDINE SANDWICH a very neat construction .
Epop@12 , I am not sure if your clue works better with or without the answer .
Still no Brummie , THREE days and NIL return .
Good luck and safe journey for MMX , off to tangle with the demon moon .
Loved this, partly because the GK elements mapped to my own areas of interest.
I had some advantages as my school played the obscure game of fives, I knew what a billy was from Waltzing Matilda and I’ve studied Russian so I knew Beria) who would not be the first person to spring to mind as a police chief, I believe there was a squabble over who got to execute him). Otherwise, as Michelle at 23 says, tough and mildly enjoyable.
Stalin called Beria ‘my Himmler’ for context.
I’ve looked in Chambers, Collins, ODE and OED and I can’t find support for CT as an abbreviation for “caught”.
poc @24: I liked “breaded” in 5d for the same reason that you disliked it! The surface is trying to misdirect you to think of fish coated in breadcrumbs, but you have to read it as covered in bread. Sorry if this sounds like stating the obvious, but words in crosswords often don’t have their normal meanings — a flower is a river, a barman is a composer and so on.
Second day in a row with a single failure, in this case 2d where I was stymied thinking of tomatoes. Ah well.
Liked BERIA as a police chief, I suppose if we are still expected immediately to think of of CHER when we read ‘singer’ then it’s not too historically remote a connection.
Roz @27: I presume you’re playing guess the solver but not sure why Brummie is your pin-up?
A really good puzzle. Although I love eating fish, I make an exception for sardines, which I loathe. The idea of a sardine sandwich turns by stomach. ELDRITCH is a lovely word. PS anyone who has watched The Death of Stalin will not forget Simon Russell Beale’s superb portrayal of Beria…the embodiment of evil..
2D eluded me, not having heard of the book. I read some Amis when younger, but was not a huge admirer.
I have no objection to SARDINE SANDWICH, it seems like a common expression for an over-crowded situation such as an Underground carriage in rush hour.
As for the rest, I had all the requisite GK, but still a number of clues where the answer went in first and the parsing came after.
Jay @31. That’s interesting. I know many moons ago, on a cricket scorecard, caught was abbreviated as ct, but these days it’s just c.
I was going to mention The Death of Stalin but Nuntius@35 got there first. Great movie.
Put in AMIS from the crossers and wordplay but while I have read a little Martin and a lot of Kingsley, and remember Kingsley’s cousin John from My Music, I didn’t know why any of them would be regarded as a moneymaker, and wondered after checking if AMIS was an initialism for some entity like the mint.
I think a go-slow would be a slowdown or a work-to-rule on this side of the Atlantic so I couldn’t parse OSLO, another one I wrote in and checked, as was BILLY-O, which I had a vague feeling I had heard before.
[ AlanC@34 , I never play guess the solver , guess the setter is once a month but not in Vulcan weeks . You need to read my post carefully , I have even used capitals for you today . Perhaps you are trying to repress the memory . ]
Beria turns up fairly often , Imogen has used it before and I have seen it used for BACTERIA previously .
[Ah, got it, très drôle indeed😏 Guess the solver would be a good game though, I reckon I could identify quite a few😉].
Guess the setter is next week , I got 6/6 last time but I do know the answer to everything .
Like Nuntius @35 I knew Beria from The Death of Stalin. I read most of Money, before getting too bored, years later I found out about the massive plot twist that must have unfolded within about 3 pages of where I left off. It helped me solve today’s clue though, so there is that. The only knowledge that was fully new to me was ELDRITCH.
A good challenge, although eating a SARDINE SANDWICH would be a bigger one!
Thanks Imogen and loonapick.
As an old Trot myself, I wondered whether the juxtaposition with Beria (who’d very much have regarded Trot’s as harmful agents) was deliberate
Interesting crossword. It was somehow both easy and difficult at the same time. Some clues were simple and a few devilishly devious. Enjoyed learning something new and remembering something old!
Thanks both.
Good crossword though there were a few things I’d not heard of. Beria, Eldritch, and I was unaware of the Amis book ‘Money’.
22d – OSLO was nice. I was thinking of sTRIKe or something before I got to Go slow. 🙂
Agree with most there were a few words which required general knowledge. I did not know AMIS, SACRISTY or BERIA, but managed to get them from crossers, for example.
SARDINE SANDWICH – was great – I had SANDWICH pencilled in for a long time before the sardine part clicked.
I was crushed by the UK GK today. But enjoyably so; thanks Imogen and loonapick.
Very enjoyable but quite tough. Nothing much to add to the previous comments. Pleased to remember Amis but had to guess Beria. I remember my bird identification book describing the call of the barn owl as an eldritch screech. A bit literary for that kind of book.
Thanks Imogen and loonapick
Excellent crossword, one that needed 3 visits for me. I knew Eldritch because my adult son has a strategic cooperative game called Eldritch Horror. Its one of the H P Lovecraft genre games that take hours/days to play!
Regarding the fine word ELDRITCH: I knew this from reading H P Lovecraft as a teenager – wonderful stuff (if you like that sort of thing).
And although Lavrenti B was a definite monster, he was brighter and more open to modernity than most of his colleagues.
Thanks to setter and blogger for nice puzzle and perceptive commentary. 😊
Excellent crossword, one that needed 3 visits for me. I knew Eldritch because my adult son has a relatively old strategic game (2013) called Eldritch Horror . It’s one of the H P Lovecraft genre games that take hours/days to play! It’s a cooperative game for 1-8 players.
AMIS (LOI) and ELDRITCH were jorums for me. BERIA, on the other hand, I knew having grown up in the USSR, although I was surprised at his characterisation as “police chief” – he was much more than that. Favourites NEEDS MUST, DOTCOM and SACRISTRY. Thanks Imogen and loonapick!
Nice puzzle.
I’d have had no hope ever of solving SARDINE SANDWICH or OSLO. I’d heard of both Amises but not of Money, so no hope there.either.
Protase@10 I understand the plural verbs for companies, but why a plural noun? Why is the Nestle company “manufacturers”?
Roz — I hope you’ll reveal the answer to your clue, which baffles me.
Thanks, Imogen and loonapick.
[Roz@27: I’d say better WITH, Finnegans (Fenians), Wake! being Joyce’s rejoinder to Deutschland, Erwacht!]
Martin@43, if you’ve never had one you have missed a treat especially toasted with said filling in tomato sauce.
I do accept though that this might be just me
Lovely puzzle only missing out on Amis. Not one of my favourite writers but again this is probably just me.
As always thanks to setter and blogger.
Coloradan@55 , with the apostrophe , as in the clue , it simply becomes the ballad so there is nothing wrong with it .
Valentine@54 , I have not shown a clue today ?? I was just tormenting AlanC .
Good chewy puzzle. Like many others, I missed 2d AMIS, which was one of my guesses, but not entered. 9a FIVES, 23a BILLY-O and 25a ELDRITCH were also nho’s
Lots of great clues, especially 5d SARDINE SANDWICH for the “Breaded fish” definition, and 6d CENOTAPH for the surface
[Thanks Roz for nudging me into my Base 14 spot]
I’m among those who struggled a bit with some of the more UK GK, though persevering in the end, albeit with fewer full parsings than I might prefer to have found on my own (like doesn’t “in protected position” imply the need for the answer to be NESTLEd? Oh well.)
I also recalled ELDRITCH from Lovecraft—it seems to me that hie was the most frequent user of the term of all the authors I’ve read.
Ticks include SACRISTY, INTEGRATE and TOLERATION among others. I’m also enjoying the ongoing, highly deictic banter between Roz and AlanC!
Finally, I note that those who may be flummoxed to find their posts appearing twice might take note of a time delay when hitting the post button before you see the screen change, such that you might hit it a second time to make sure. Not sure why this happens(?)
Zed @ 59: the definition is “are in protected position”, as per the blog, so the clue is fine.
It always helps to look at what the blogger has underlined.
Nice puzzle, but like Jim #16 – isn’t Shot in the arm literally derived from vaccination?
Simon S@60: well, I have no argument with the clue, but since the blogger has underlined all of it, to me I read an implied past participle in “protected,” which suggests that “nestled” might be a more accurate form of a similar construction where “nestle” is the root. Not worth arguing about—as noted in “oh well,” I’ve moved on.
19d, BISTRO: you can (though I wouldn’t) use Bisto to make gravy, but I’m not convinced that Bisto and gravy are synonyms. Yes, I remember the adverts in which someone says “Ah, Bisto” as gravy is poured, but I never took that to imply equivalence of the ingredient and what was being poured.
I puzzled about 19d for a while and then thought…Aaah!
2d was my LOI; I’d more or less figured out how it worked but spent a long time trying to think of words for “failure” that might fit. When MIS(s) came to me I looked up Kingsley before Martin … the only thing I’ve read by either is the latter’s _Time’s Arrow_. Don’t know where I’d heard of FIVES at 9a (maybe _Tom Brown’s School Days_?), but it did pop out of some recess.
Thanks to Jay @31 & Crispy @37 regarding CT for “caught”. Even an obsolete usage would justify the absence of a wordplay signal.