25A looks to be the key to this Brockwell Prize Puzzle, with several cross-references to it amongst the other clues…
…and luckily for me I seemed to get on the wavelength of this pretty quickly, with 25A BATS going in straight away, and CRICKET and SOBER(S) following soon after. Given these, and some of the surface reads, I did initially wonder if the theme would be cricket generally, but it soon became clear that there were several other variations on BATS coming home to roost, so to speak.
Of the mammalian kind, we have: their order – CHIROPTERA; collective noun – CLOUD; examples – NOCTULE and FRUIT; resting place – BELFRY; and navigation method – ECHO (location).
And on the informal/slang (and maybe not particularly PC!) side, we have a number of variations on mental derangement*: BATS, LUNATIC, INSANE, MAD(der), plus ‘fruitcake’ and ‘nuts’ appearing in the clues. NOT AT HOME might also be included in this list? And a tangential ‘bats in the belfry‘…
As a bit of a cricket fan I enjoyed all the references (and have probably missed a few) – Thom Yorke of Radiohead scoring a hundred in NOT AT HOME; Strauss’s ‘score’ bemusing a fielder in DIE FLEDERMAUS; Curtly Ambrose stealing an Eagle annual from a young fan in the crowd; the UNDERARM bowling controversy of 1981; and of course one of the greatest, Sir Garfield SOBER(S).
Two of the cross-references to 25 were well disguised in a time and a date, with the Sally Army entering a pub before 9.25 for INSANE, and an abstemious employer in 1825 being SOBER. And the surface read of 9A ECHO raised an eyebrow!
All in all, an entertaining and enjoyable solve, with lots packed in to keep the eye flitting around the clues and grid. My thanks to Brockwell for the challenge, and I trust all is clear below…
[*I have to say that in this day and age I am always a bit surprised that setters/editors seem happy to use such terms – obviously some of them are useful as anagram indicators, and they are not always as widely used as they are here. And I can’t say that I am aware of many solvers getting particularly exercised about their use. So maybe I am being a bit over-analytical, and will exit this train of thought like a ‘bat out of hell’…]
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
| 1A | NICELY | No.1 from Neil Diamond literally emptied well (6)
N (first letter, No 1, from Neil) + ICE (diamond) + LY (LiterallY, emptied of inner letters) |
| 4A | BARNES | Part of SW London where 25 may roost reportedly (6)
homophone, i.e. reportedly – bats (25A) often roost in BARNS, which can sound like BARNES, in SW London |
| 9A | ECHO | Italian writer embracing hot nymph (4)
EC_O (Umberto Eco, Italian author) around (embracing) H (hot) [bats use echo location to find their way] |
| 10A | CHIROPTERA | Hector and Paris almost lost 25 (10)
subtractive anagram, i.e. lost, of HECTOR and almost all of PARI( [Chiroptera (Greek for ‘hand’ + ‘wing’) being the order of 25A bats] |
| 11A | PUNDIT | Authority inspector boarding boat (6)
PUN_T (boat) around (boarded by) DI (Detective Inspector) |
| 12A | FRUITIER | Is that aubergine emoji rude or ultimately more salacious? (8)
FRUIT (of which aubergine is an example) + IER (ultimate letters of ’emojI rudE oR’) [aubergine is technically a fruit but predominantly used as a vegetable] |
| 13A | PEN-PUSHER | Enclose page to guide bureaucrat (3-6)
PEN (enclose) + P (page) + USHER (to guide) |
| 15A | JOEL | Book stars to return on 1st of January (4)
J (first of January) + OEL (Leo, constellation, stars, returning) [book of the Old Testament] |
| 16A | FAME | Celebrity lover’s out of line (4)
F( |
| 17A | TEACHERLY | Drink with pop star Lola Young primarily educational (9)
TEA (drink) + CHER (pop star) + LY (primary letters of ‘Lola Young’) |
| 21A | UNDERARM | Member following EU articles for controversial delivery method? (8)
UN + DER (French indefinite and German definite articles, so EU articles) + ARM (bodily member) [an underarm delivery was controversially used by Trevor Chappell (under instruction from his captain and brother Ian) in a 1981 One Day International to prevent a 6 being scored off the last ball] |
| 22A | INSANE | Salvation Army entering pub before 9.25 (6)
IN_N (pub) around (entered by) SA (Salvation Army), plus E (9A, echo, Phonetic alphabet) [25A, bats, being informal for crazy, insane] |
| 24A | BLIND DRUNK | Swedish opera singer with doctor in bed getting slaughtered (5,5)
B_UNK (bed) around LIND (Jenny Lind, Swedish opera singer) + DR (doctor) |
| 25A | BATS | Super Furry Animals attempt to make a comeback (4)
STAB, attempt, making a comeback = BATS! [the thematic word…’Super Furry Animals’ being a Welsh popular beat combo, m’lud] |
| 26A | BELFRY | Outspoken Beauty liberated in part of tower (6)
homophone, i.e. outspoken – the BELFRY, part of a tower, could sound like BELLE (beauty) + FREE (liberated) [where bats are often found] |
| 27A | STERIC | Sadly, the eminent Royal Institution chemist starts applying to atomic organisation (6)
starting letters of ‘Sadly The Eminent Royal Institution Chemist’ |
| Down | ||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
| 1D | NOCTULE | Clue not designed for 1 in 10 (7)
anag, i.e. designed, of CLUE NOT [the noctule, largest British bat species, being of the order Chiroptera, so ‘one in 10A’] |
| 2D | CLOUD | Obscure collective noun for 25? (5)
double defn – to CLOUD can be to obscure; and a CLOUD is a collective noun for 25A – bats! |
| 3D | LOCATES | Nurse endlessly upset about the start of Trading Places (7)
LOCA_ES (Mary Seacole, Jamaican nurse of Crimean War renown, endlessly, and upset) around T (start of Trading) |
| 5D | AEOLUS | Soul mate occasionally abandoned God (6)
anag, i.e. abandoned, of SOUL + AE (occasional letters of mAtE) [Greek god of the wind] |
| 6D | NOT AT HOME | A hundred up before Thom Yorke finally gets out (3,2,4)
NOT A (a ton, or hundred, in cricket, up) + T_HOM + E (final letter of yorkE) [cricketing surface read!] |
| 7D | SURVEIL | Watch on for Canal+ live broadcast (7)
SUR (French, so on Canal+, a French TV station, for ‘on’) + VEIL (anag, i.e. broadcast, of LIVE) |
| 8D | DIE FLEDERMAUS | Amused fielder corrected Strauss’s score (3,10)
anag, i.e. corrected, of AMUSED FIELDER [another cricketing surface read] |
| 14D | PIMPERNEL | Curtly spotted pinching Eagle Annual (9)
PIMP_L( [Sir Curtly Ambrose, Antiguan cricketer referenced here] |
| 16D | FAN CLUB | Stick with cool group of admirers (3,4)
FAN (cool) + CLUB (stick) |
| 18D | CRICKET | Lord’s speciality jumper (7)
double defn. – CRICKET is played at Lords; and a CRICKET is a jumping insect |
| 19D | LUNATIC | Captain regularly tucking into brief meal and fruitcake (7)
LUN_C( [lunatic/fruitcake being synonyms for crazy/bats] |
| 20D | MADDER | Month before summer yielding more nuts (6)
M (month) + ADDER (summer, one who sums, or adds!) [if nuts = mad, more nuts = madder] |
| 23D | SOBER | One of the greatest employers of 1825 almost entirely abstemious (5)
almost all of Sir Garfield SOBER( |
One of my favourite setters, I really enjoyed the various takes on the obvious theme. With the trademark use of real people, NICELY was a great start and I also liked CHIROPTERA, FRUITIER, PEN PUSHER, BLIND DRUNK, NOT AT HOME, PIMPERNEL and SOBER. Finished in one sitting, which is very unusual for me.
Ta Brockwell & mc_rapper67 for the colourful grid.
And an aubergine 🍆 is indeed used as a rude emoji, very good.
Thanks to setter and blogger. Enjoyed that.
And of course DIE FLEDERMAUS is The Bat!
Had the wrong god for a while at 5D – TLOMUS. Wrong occasionals.
A tough but doable challenge today. Fortunately, I got the batty theme early (a rarity for me), and it helped confirm NOCTULE and CHIROPTERA. I could figure out/dredge up the rest of the GK (e.g. Gary SOBERs), but that’s quite different from them coming easily to mind!
Tx.
Blind as a bat & Joel Bats!
There are also JOEL Garner and two Sidney BARNES, the great English bowler and tha Aussie batsman.
SOBER is something the great Garry frequently wasn’t, though famously able to hold his drink.
Being ignorant of London geography, I had BARNET for 4ac, which I thought was a good joke, although I am lacking in tonsorial adornment myself.
You do a disservice to Ian, mc! It was middle brother Greg who was the captain who told Trevor to bowl underarm! I loved this BATTY crossie – far too many great clues to pick them out. And jkb@3 near me to the Opera reference… Thanks, Brockwell and mc_rapper67.
Me@8: actually, I realise I DNF, having crossing ADONIS, SURREAL and FLIRTIER in the NE corner, each of which sort of, maybe, almost parses… And doesn’t 3d count as an indirect anagram?
I so much enjoyed the theme!
Thank you, Brockwell and mc_rapper67!
Great theme, and great blog – thanks, mc, and thanks, Brockwell. Unfortunately, I was another with a FLIRTIER ADONIS combination – I couldn’t parse either, but I’d not been able to parse PIMPERNEL and LOCATES either, so I didn’t feel that ruled out their being right. TT@8: since it was reversed, but not actually jumbled, I’m not sure3d was an indirect anagram, but I did think it was somewhat obscure (in the usual sense that ‘obscure’ means something I didn’t know – unlike the Sobers reference in 23d, for example, or the German for ‘bat’ / Strauss title in 8d).
Spot on!
Thought this was a lovely puzzle.
My favourite was LOCATES
Also liked: PUNDIT, UNDERARM, BLIND DRUNK, PIMPERNEL
Thanks Brockwell and mc_rapper67
Thanks for the blog and the coloured grid , I did notice DIE FLEDERMAUS like Jkb@3 but not the two from Antonknee@5 .
Very good set of clues and I love bats ( not the ones from silly-boys rounders ) . PIMPERNEL was very neat and good to see Mary in LOCATES , her work is now taught in schools so she will become better known . Keith@11 rightly notes that there is no anagram .
It is actually very easy to see BATS , I take the students on star-gazing walks and they are always amazed the first time they see them . This week is the best chance this year to see Uranus and the Andromeda Galaxy .
Thanks mc_rapper67. Got there after two or three sittings and had to seek Google confirmation for nhos Canal+ and Mary Seacole but I never mind learning something from the experience. I continue to be surprised when after staring at something to no avail for ages I go away, come back and the answer leaps out.
Good stuff.
I was looking for some Bruce Wayne references but not to worry.
I know the Super Furry Animals band but I can’t see how Super works in the definition for 25 Across i.e. shouldn’t it just be Furry Animals even though the clue wouldn’t be as good?
Thanks both.
I liked this. Even I couldn’t miss the theme, but where on Halloween was the vampire bat? I did this in the middle of solving Paul’s Friday puzzle of 8 days ago which I thought was a lot harder.
Nho STERIC but clearly clued, and I had to dredge the memory banks for JOEL. Otherwise not easy but went in OK after a bit of thought. Not being a fan I missed the cricket reference in DIE FLEDERMAUS.
Favourites: CHIROPTERA, BELFRY, DIE FLEDERMAUS, and PIMPERNEL.
Thanks Brockwell and mc_rapper67.
Bats are Super Furry Animals , the only mammals that can fly ( not glide ) .
A very enjoyable puzzle. Having been born near Richmond Park, I immediately thought of BARNES at 4, which led me to BATS (some Londoners are so rich they sell their houses, preferring to live in Barn(e)s). 8d is a very clever pun on score and Strauss, and should be highlighted in red in the grid. I suggest LOCATES is another link to ECHO and therefore BATS.
Thanks Brockwell and mc_r.
Such a rich, informative and entertaining composition. Many thanks, Brockwell.
Enjoyed this puzzle and, unusually for me, spotted the themes early on and definitely found that helpful. On 3D I had missed the Mary Seacole reference and had convinced myself that ‘nurse’ was an anagram of SOLACE then plus T! Particularly enjoyed NICELY, FRUITIER, BLIND DRUNK and NOT AT HOME. Learnt something new about the meaning of numbers in clues i.e. 1825, 9.25 which I had struggled with.
Thank you Brockwell & mc_rapper67
Silly me wrong use of word anagram #21 but only just woken up! Meant to say nurse defined as SOLACE and then add T for 3D LOCATES.
Thanks for all the comments and feedback so far – much appreciated, as usual…
And how could I have missed Joel Garner (cricketer) ?!. Joel BATS, a French goalkeeper, maybe a bit more obscure…and the German ‘fledermaus’ for ‘bat’…glad you are all paying attention and finding my mistakes and omissions…there wouldn’t be so many comments if I had spotted/mentioned them all (;+>)
I saw the ‘upset’ in 3D as a direction indicator – set upwards, for a Down clue – rather than an anagram indicator…
TassieTim at #8 – you are right, Ian was commentating at the time – will tidy that up later, if I remember…
Anyway, keep ’em coming, but I’m off to play golf in some pretty cold fog – I must be BATS!…will check in later…
Excellent puzzle. Thanks mc_rapper67, I think you may have missed a few more bat references in your highlighting, most notably 8D, but also LOCATES when combined with ECHO, and of course the BLIND from 25AC. JOEL Bats was a French goalkeeper, and there is a famous bat cave called the AEOLUS cave.
Sorry just saw some of these addressed @23
Another very cleverly constructed puzzle from one of my favourite setters.
I saw the theme pretty early on and immediately thought of this classic clue from Rosa Klebb (Arachne):
‘I back Mrs Batty for Chancellor, (8)’.
I didn’t understand quite all of the cricket references but there’s no shame in that, although I do know enough to be chuffed at realising there was more to the Strauss clue than the opera. I particularly enjoyed the two numerical clues, once I realised what was going on. CLOUD was one of the collective nouns that we didn’t have on our 11 Plus list!
Mary Seacole is now rightly becoming more well-known: I attended a lecture on her a couple of weeks ago and only yesterday she appeared in a quiz show.
There are very few clues in my paper without a tick beside them, so I’ll stop there.
Many thanks to Brockwell for a puzzle which just kept on giving and to mc_rapper67 for the very lively blog.
Another splendid Brockwell theme. He sets the bar high – and continues to clear it every time. Nice to have found a theme that has several angles to it allowing for a pretty dense grid fill. FRUITIER, BLIND DRUNK and DIE FLEDERMAUS make my podium but, like Eileen, I ticked many more.
Thanks both
Ah yes Eileen at #25 I Otto remembered that classic clue.
Thanks to S & B
Some achievement to create such a densely thematic crossword without any of the clues feeling forced.
Thanks Brockwell and mc. Another BARNET here but fixed that later on. Enjoyed all the flying mice. Would it have been so terrible if 3d was an anagram instead of simply a reversal?
If you’re going to do themes, do them like this. A very good blog too 👍🏼
Cricket knowledge was a catalyst to the solve, but I remember some kind of typo being an inhibitor to what should have been the obvious DIE FLEDERMAUS. Oh well, it all worked out in the end and didn’t take too long.
Thanks all.
A real treat, perfectly judged for the prize slot on a Saturday. Bridgesong & I managed it in one sitting but even after the theme was realised it didnt make remaining clues obvious, just revelations of variations on the theme. As Eileen @25 put it , it just kept on giving (delight).
Big thanks to Brockwell and MC.
Good for a Prize Crossword. I liked the TEACHERLY drink with Lola Young, SURVEIL of Canal+ broadcast, and PIMPERNEL Curtly pinching the Eagle annual.
Thanks Brockwell and MCR
I, too, had ECHO LOCATES as theme words – but I would, I have a bat detector and have surveyed, hand-raised baby pipistrelles and helped fly recovering bats in a flight cage. (I do have some of the training courses, needed to do more to be a licensed bat handler, and would also need rabies jabs).
I really enjoyed this, but I have a quibble, whatever folklore says, BATS don’t usually like a BELFRY, they find them a bit draughty, preferring warm cosy hidey holes, BARN[E]S are more likely (we surveyed the Cressing Temple barns one year, and they found roosting spots in the gaps around the beams).
Thank you to mc_rapper and Brockwell.
Many thanks to mc_rapper67 for another delightful blog and to everyone else, for some lovely comments. I think all of the themers have been identified, apart from (FAN) CLUB. I did hesitate over the references to madness, but given that I frequently use these terms to describe the “leader of the free world”, it kind of felt ok. As Roz says, BATS are the only flying mammals and the fact that they also ECHO-LOCATE(s) justifies the SUPERfluous word in the clue for 25, I think. All the best, B 🦇
Nho the nurse (seems pretty obscure to be honest), so 3d went in unparsed. Otherwise doable once I worked out the key answer.
A very enjoyable solve, held up only by a couple of self-deceptions. I very briefly had NUTS instead of BATS, immediately realising it didn’t work, but writing in LOCALES after spotting Mary Seacole reversed and not re-reading the clue left me struggling with _U_D_L at 11a. Doh!
I enjoyed MADDER with its deliberately misleading ‘month before summer’, and SOBER(S) for the reminder of the great cricketer.
Thanks to Brockwell and mc_rapper.
poc @35 – Mary Seacole is very much of same period as Florence Nightingale and was involved in the Crimean Wars too, just one of many things she was involved in. She wrote the first autobiography by a black woman. She’s taught in British schools now as part of forgotten black history, so there’s a lot more recognition of her now.
[Shanne@37 – unfortunately it feels like a zero-sum game with Florence Nightingale becoming less well known. This is a shame, she should be celebrated not so much as the twee ‘lady with the lamp’ but as a pioneer of statistical analysis.]
What on earth has Pimpernel got to do with Curtly Ambrose? Curtly being used to shorten pimply, and annual (flower) being the answer.
Super crossword which we, fortunately, started at the south-east corner, swiftly seeing the bats and cricket themes. We worked through slowly but enjoyed the many fine clues with, like Eileen, too many ticks.
Due to a delay in parsing, LOCATES was our loi, when we realised that Mary Seacole was a nurse and Mrs M commented that we had only just visited her memorial outside St.Thomas’ Hospital (near The London Eye) a few days earlier.
Incidentally, I was thinking that Nurse in the clue was going to refer to Seymour Nurse, a WI batsman in the 60’s, who made his highest score of 258 in his final Test innings, a record which still stands to this day!
Many thanks to Brockwell and, of course, to golf legend, mc_rapper67!
Good fun indeed, a very clever crossword.
Perfect timing . A surprising number of land mammals echo-locate , perhaps linked to the earliest shrew-like ancestors .
Got the bat reference (Fledermaus) early on, but I didn’t know CHIROPTERA and didn’t find it with a wordfitter, and I didn’t solve the anagram SOULAE. Didn’t get 3 other clues in top LH corner. Finally surrendered to mc_rapper this morning. Nice blog, but I was a bit miffed to realise that the remaining clues were all doable with a bit more thought and/or research. I had pencilled in LOCATES, and knew about Mary Seacole, but hadn’t realised that she was the nurse in question. Anyway, the main thing is that I enjoyed tackling the puzzle on and off during the week. Good clue construction, variety and theme. Favourite clue 22d.
Found this stretching as I was on the outer limit of my GK a lot of the time. NHO STERIC, NOCTULE, CLOUD (like that) or CHIROPTERA so had to just trust the excellent word-play. The more I learn about this puzzle the more I like it. I am quite proud to have finished it. I have adopted a new approach which is to do last week’s prize so that I can enjoy the blog more quickly. Tx to all.
GrahamC@29: It comes down to permutation density. For a 7-letter word there’s one reversal, but 7! = 5040 anagrams.
Sorry. Meant 23d. Needed my reading specs. I liked 7d as well.
I found this a most enjoyable and satisfying puzzle, and the themes worked brilliantly. Much as I love autumn, I miss the cricket season, so it was a good moment to be reminded of the summer game.
As for the variations on mental derangement*: BATS, LUNATIC, INSANE, MAD(der)… ‘fruitcake’ and ‘nuts’…. I think they’re brilliant and colourful words for the general idea of being, behaving or feeling unhinged; having an over-stimulated appetite for risk; discombobulated. If anyone were to use them as terms to describe actual mental ill-health, then I would give them the full Guardian Reader Correction & Clarification.
No-one seems to have mentioned it yet, but I think the definition for 25ac: “super furry animals” might be a nod to the superhero Batman, as well as the Welsh band!
Very late to the party today, so all the praise is already passed around, and rightly so.
As for me, I nho Mary Seacole, though I’m glad to now, as well as any of the cricketers (don’t care) or STERIC, NOCTULE or a CLOUD of bats. Don’t know why a noctule would be more nocturnal than any of its chiropteric cousins.
Agreeing with Shanne@33 (kudos to you for your work with bats) that bats aren’t particularly fond of belfries — that’s all the more reason to place this clue in the group of “crazy” solutions rather than that of the super flying mice.
Eileen — what does Mrs Batty have to do with all this? I’ve looked her up and found The Last of the Summer Wind, but beyond that it’s a dead end.
Surveil is a fake word, a non-word. It’s a backformation from the French word “surveillance,” and “surveiller” really is a word in French, but “surveil” has no right to call itself a word in any language.
Thanks to Brockwell and mc_rapper67.
I echo the praise for the nicely done bats theme which I located early on, but not for the cricket theme which left me cold sober. (Although silly mid-off would have fit the bats theme.)
We aren’t taught Crimean War history here, so Mary Seacole will remain an unknown to most of us in North America, notwithstanding her revival in the UK. Not a complaint, as the clue was gettable from the crossers and the rest of the wordplay.
Thanks B & mc for the fun and education. There’s lots to learn from these crosswords and blogs.
Valentine @49
Just caught your comment on my way to bed.
So you found Mrs Batty, the wrinkly-stockinged stalwart of ‘Last of the Summer Wine’. The original clue was intended to make you think of Nora https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nora_Batty but, true to the theme here, ‘batty’ is an anagram indicator, so I BACK MRS gives you BISMARCK (Chancellor).
It’s a beautiful clue Eileen. Thanks for the reminder.
This one took a few days, but all fell into place NICELY. The theme of 25a BATS was unmissable and well executed. Missed the cricket references, though, unsurprisingly. Needed the dictionary to confirm some solutions. Many clues were very concise
Favourites 9a ECHO (surface), 11a PUNDIT (concise), 17a TEACHERLY (neat word), 22a INSANE (clever construction), 8d DIE FLEDERMAUS (amusing anagram), 20d MADDER (fun)
Re 3D – I thought there was a protocol that only words in the clue could be anagrammed?