A straightforward unthemed (unless we’ve missed something) puzzle from Brummie for this week’s Prize challenge.
With a couple of possible exceptions (Sisyphus and “rede” at 20 down) there was nothing particularly obscure or recondite about this puzzle, but it still took us about an hour to complete it. We couldn’t initially parse POMP but it had to be correct; the fact that the letters M and O appear in it was misleading at first. Timon came up with BARGE at 26 across, which fitted both the definition and the wordplay, but was unfortunately wrong as we discovered eventually. I also entered SHOPLIFTER instead of SHOPAHOLIC originally, but that was perhaps less justifiable.
Thanks to Brummie.
| ACROSS | ||
| 9 | NEAR THING |
Zero protection for organ (not ball) – almost a disaster? (4,5)
|
| EAR (organ) inside N(o)THING (zero protection without ball, i.e. O). | ||
| 10 | VAUNT |
Relation following victory parade (5)
|
| V(ictory) AUNT. | ||
| 11 | ROYALTY |
Reward of author, King and his ilk? (7)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 12 | CAROUSE |
English river on right of coach party (7)
|
| CAR (coach) OUSE (English river). | ||
| 13 | POMP |
Male circle backed out of fancy ball ceremony (4)
|
| POMP(om). A pompom is a fancy ball; omit O and M (male circle, reversed). | ||
| 14 | SHOPAHOLIC |
One who might not, however, buy the idea they were compulsive? (10)
|
| An extended cryptic definition. | ||
| 16 | SINUOUS |
Curved air passage round centre of Slough (7)
|
| (sl)OU(gh) inside SINUS (air passage). | ||
| 17 | GIRAFFE |
Blunder, caging wingless bird as a zoo attraction? (7)
|
| (b)IR(d) (wingless bird) inside GAFFE (blunder). | ||
| 19 | EUROVISION |
Songfest combining money with fantasy (10)
|
| EURO (currency, or money) VISION (fantasy). | ||
| 22 | SNUB |
New York’s bottom, turning humble (4)
|
| BUNS (US slang for the buttocks, rev). | ||
| 24 | SECONDS |
Boxer supports another course? (7)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 25 | MARSALA |
Wine means the world to the French (7)
|
| MARS (a planet or world) A LA (French for “to the”). | ||
| 26 | NUDGE |
Elbow’s exposed outside gown’s opening (5)
|
| G(own) inside NUDE. We originally entered BARGE (G in BARE), which works just as well, except that it’s wrong! | ||
| 27 | MONOLOGUE |
Address of poor mug with one loo (9)
|
| *(MUG ONE LOO). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | UNPREPOSSESSING |
Plain stewed prune being like spirit? (15)
|
| *PRUNE, POSSESSING (being like a spirit). | ||
| 2 | LADY’S MAN |
He fancies his chances as a version of Dylan Thomas (tho’ lacking) (5,3)
|
| *(DYLAN (tho)MAS). | ||
| 3 | STOLE |
Lifted a garment (5)
|
| Another double definition. | ||
| 4 | SISYPHUS |
Offender of Zeus’s son is grimly pushy (8)
|
| *(S IS PUSHY). We got this from the wordplay; apparently Sisyphus incurred Zeus’s wrath by revealing his abduction of Aegina to the river god Asopus. | ||
| 5 | EGGCUP |
Say doctor’s confiscated copper breakfast container? (6)
|
| EG (say), CU (copper) inside GP (doctor). | ||
| 6 | OVERSHIRT |
Past Hirst works that might be put on (9)
|
| OVER (past) *HIRST. | ||
| 7 | MUTUAL |
Misuse of umlaut is common (6)
|
| *UMLAUT. | ||
| 8 | STRETCHER-BEARER |
One who exaggerates agent’s role in getting player off the pitch (9-6)
|
| STRETCHER (one who exaggerates) BEARER (agent). | ||
| 15 | CONVINCED |
Party competed to secure East Coast state? Sure (9)
|
| NC (North Carolina) inside CON(servative) (party) VIED (competed). | ||
| 17 | GLOAMING |
Look into playing online after sundown (8)
|
| LO(ok) inside GAMING (playing online). | ||
| 18 | FANDANGO |
Cooler and relaxed? Try dance (8)
|
| FAN (cooler) *AND, GO (try). “Relaxed” is the anagram indicator. | ||
| 20 | RECEDE |
Old advice about concealed earthworks entrances: ‘Get back!’ (6)
|
| CE (entrances or first letters of “concealed earthworks”) inside REDE (old word meaning advice). According to Chambers, “recede” can be a transitive verb, meaning “to cede again or back”. I still think that the definition is a little loose. But on reflection, I am persuaded that I have overthought this and that the explanation by Russthree @2 is correct. | ||
| 21 | SESAME |
Picture framing mother’s climbing plant (6)
|
| MA’S(mother’s) (climbing in a down clue, so reversed) inside SEE (picture). | ||
| 23 | KRILL |
Sailor finally is into top sea food (5)
|
| (sailo)R inside KILL (to top can mean to assassinate or kill). |
Thanks bridgesong. Put me down as another who had entered ‘barge’. By the same token I had ‘brill’ for 23d, a bit doubtful but a bill could be at the top of a bird. Otherwise I too had to look up ‘Sisyphus’ and ‘rede’ and spent about the same time on it as you, finding it enjoyable.
Re 20d, if you take the exclamation mark as part of the definition, you have the imperative. Canute ordering the tide about.
Bunged in choc when a holic emerged, until needing the p for eggcup. Good suggestion re recede, Russthree @2. And yes, a pretty cruisy job from the Brum, thx to him, Bridgesong and Timon.
I like the puzzle, an easy lunchtime solve, but I was annoyed at not being able to parse pomp. I saw that there was an O and an M in the answer, but the clue didn’t make sense. The next day, I looked again, and the parsing was immediately obvious.
NEAR THING, SHOPAHOLIC, MARSALA, SISYPHUS and SESAME: my picks.
SISYPHUS
It almost reads like an extended def (‘son’ excluded).
Thanks Brummie and Bridgesong.
Very enjoyable — thanks Brummie for another good one. Favourites 10a VAUNT (“victory parade”), 26a NUDGE (“Elbow”), 3d STOLE (concise), 7d MUTUAL (surface)
I couldn’t parse 13a POMP either, so thanks bridgesong and Timon for figuring it out!
Solved and parsed all of it, but wouldn’t say it was a cakewalk – all in all, a very enjoyable and challenging puzzle!
Thanks for the blog , neat set of clues . I am with Russthree@2 for RECEDE , a word I only really use in relation to tides , the clue is very fair with with the “old advice” . I liked the pushy bit for SISYPHUS and GLOAMING is a nice word . For a few years the students would add ” at the end of the day ” to every sentence so I would offer them about twenty alternatives , including gloaming .
I am not sure that we need English for CAROUSE .
I enjoyed this. And also did not parse POMP.
Favourites were: GIRAFFE, NUDGE, EGGCUP ( I think the first time I’ve seen doctor = GP), RECEDE, GLOAMING, FANDANGO
Thanks Brummie and bridgesong
Was confused by English river, rather than just river, so tried entering CAREURE until I realised there’s no such word
Thanks Brummie and bridgesong. Failed on 12A having also, like Crispy, entered CAREURE.
This was pleasant enough, the parts that I could do. Of those, I share Mig@6’s list, with MUTUAL probably being my fave.
But it seems like I wasn’t in form this week, despite having done well in the weekday puzzles. I do wonder how much the grid influences things. We’ve got sticklebrick at the top and bottom, and then the sides depend largely on just two clues, which even when I started using the Reveal button ended up being my last two in. I’m sure if I’d got them earlier I would have needed less help. I didn’t find either of those long ones easy; all five definitions needed for UNPREPOSSESSING and STRETCHER-BEARER were non-obvious to me and I wouldn’t have (indeed didn’t) get them without checkers, which I didn’t have because rather I was banking on them to provide checkers.
So, alas, SECONDS, MARSALA and several others remained out of reach. Then latter would have been a fave. I don’t understand the “boxer supports” in the former.
I was baffled when I revealed SHOP-H-L– . I get the (lovely) structure of course, but why wouldn’t a shopaholic admit they were compulsive? Is the idea that, like some other ‘holics, they’d be ashamed to admit it? That’s not my experience with shopaholics, who usually seem to be very open and almost proud of it! So that one too eluded me, since I was looking for something rather different.
To top it off, KRILL also eluded me although I had taken note of the (separated) “sea food” right from the start. I was looking for human food, though. It was the best clue of the lot IMO – kudos those who got it – but also a hard one which again had ungenerous checkers.
Thanks to Brunmie for the humbling, and to our bloggers for clearing up POMP among others.
Thanks Brummie and bridgesong
Why does “look” become LO in GLOAMING?
I’ve read that the old English king, Ethelred the Unready has been long traduced. “Unready” should be “unrede” – “badly advised”.
Russthree @2: your explanation of RECEDE is better than mine, so I have amended the blog.
AP @12: traditionally, a boxer would have a second in his corner, although nowadays it’s a trainer.
Muffin @13: lo for look is not just an abbreviation, but a synonym, albeit a somewhat archaic one.
I really liked UNPREPOSESSING and enjoyed SISYPHUS and GIRAFFE. Didn’t we have both KRILL and plankton dished up as seafood last week? One could have been in the FT.
I was, like Crispy @10 messing with the wrong river before sorting myself out for CAROUSE. I think SNUB was LOI.
(Pop fact: Stewart Copeland was in a band called Curved Air (16a) before joining The Police.)
I agree about Cnut and Ethelred.
Thanks Brummie, bridgesong et al
AP@12 maybe you’ve heard the announcement ‘Seconds out, Round x’ at the start of each round in boxing? This is ordering the ‘seconds’ to clear the ring and not, as I believed when I was younger, that time was up!
Thanks bridgesong @14
Muffin@13 think LO and behold , in Azed we also get LA meaning this .
AP@12 – Seconds out , Round 1 .
Oops too slow , sorry Pavement .
AP@12
SHOPAHOLIC
I think ‘might not’ and the ‘?’ at the end makes it a witty extended def
rather than a statement of fact.
Tough in parts and mildly enjoyable overall.
I could not parse 13ac and 24ac (the boxer supports bit) and was a bit unsure about 1d POSSESSING = being like spirit.
Favourite: SISYPHUS.
New for me: REDE = advice.
Like others, I was thinking of the river URE for 12ac before switching to OUSE.
Some confusion over the two meanings of RECEDE here, I think. Many of us chaps are familiar with its use in connection with hairlines.
Ophelia to Laertes in Act I scene iii of Hamlet:
… good my brother,
Do not as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
Whiles, like a puff’d and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads
And recks not his own rede.
Thanks B&B. Finished by Monday (with a bit of cheating for MARSALA), so that puts it into the “easier than normal” section for me. Couldn’t parse POMP either (neither?).
Pleasant Prize Puzzle; I was another at first putting in barge instead of NUDGE. I liked the POMPom ceremony, the apt surface for MARSALA, the LADY’S MAN emulating Dylan Thomas, Hirst with his OVERSHIRT, the CONVINCED party, and the cooler FANDANGO.
Thanks Brummie and bridgesong.
Despite the frequent use of the words “straightforward” and “easy” to describe this puzzle, many different difficulties have been well described, including by our blogger! I was another with BARGE, probably influenced by seeing a referee at Mansfield recently refuse a free kick after a Luton Town player was barged over, saying that it was a fair shoulder charge, but demonstrating this by throwing out an elbow!
I had got stuck on this with only a dozen solved last weeked, the two long down clues in particular requiring a wavelength thing that was out of my reach, and when I picked it up again it was the same day that Brummie had a midweek offering, with UNEARTHING one of the solutions. I couldn’t help noticing that the same word appears in the NW corner here. Coincidence? Probably.
Thanks to Brummie for a tricky solve, and Bridgesong for the illumination.
Lovely puzzle from one of my favourite setters with enough write-ins on the first run to give support to the trickier clues. Completed, apart from SNUB, though failed to parse POMP and NEAR THING. I too like GLOAMING as a word, and I’m old enough to remember a time when my parents, like many others, frequently used to sit in the gloaming, enjoying the last remnants of daylight. Thanks to Brummie and bridgesong
I’m another who initially had BARGE and, since it both fitted the wordplay and parsed, it was a while – a goodly long while – before it occurred to me that it might be wrong.
I also failed to parse POMP, so thank you bridgesong for explaining it, and for the rest of the blog.
First time commenting after almost two weeks with no internet!
Mutual doesn’t mean common. You and I may have a mutual admiration only if we admire each other, but not if we both admire somebody else. That would be common or shared, but not mutual.
I was sure that the songfest would be “hootenanny” until it didn’t fit even the first crosser. It did fit the grid, though.
Anybody else try to find a wine ending in -au or -aux that was short enough for the space?
I thought of CONVICTED for 15d with my own East Coast state in the middle till I realized that North Carolina is also on the East Coast and works better.
A good oboe player wrecks not his own reed.
Thanks, Brummie and bridgesong.
Thanks both. Thought EUROVISION SNUB was timely since this year will see the most countries (5) boycotting since 1970.
Good puzzle. I’ll also go for Mig’s list @7.
Valentine @28: Among the definitions for MUTUAL, Chambers gives:
Common, joint, shared by two or more (Shakespeare; now regarded by many as incorrect)
(of a financial institution, eg a building society or an insurance company) owned by its customers
If ‘jointly owned’ is an acceptable meaning in a financial context, it seems illogical to condemn it in other circumstances. It was good enough for Dickens: Our Mutual Friend
I don’t think ‘barge’ works instead of the intended NUDGE as the verb is intransitive – you can nudge someone but only barge INTO them.
Thanks to Brummie and bridgesong
4d I liked “grimly pushy” as part of the clue for Sisyphus whose grim punishment was to push a rock up a mountain only for it to roll down and him to have to start again.
Thanks to Brummie and bridgesong.
I found this quite hard with several unparsed – including POMP. My problem here is that I don’t think there is anything fancy about a pompom. My favourite was FANDANGO.
Valentine @28 Saxophonists neither.☺
Reasonably straightforward, I thought. Just a few incomplete explanations, 9ac, 13ac, 22ac. Happy enough now, courtesy of bridgesong. Liked SHOPAHOLIC, SECONDS, EGGCUP and GLOAMING.
Thanks to various commenters for offering and explaining “seconds out”. I detest boxing, and know precisely nothing about it.
Valentine@28, love the woodwind saying!
I got 13A from crossing letters & definition and was convinced the wordplay must be something to do with the word “prom” (being a fancy ball and having mostly the right letters) but couldn’t figure it out – I would have never thought of pompom!
AP, you must know something about boxing or you wouldn’t have a reason to detest it – as I do too.
I suppose that the Scots get far more GLOAMING in summer than the southerners do, and maybe it’s why the word’s still familiar there?