Fed rounds off the weekday puzzles.
I had a lot of fun solving and working out the parsing in this puzzle – some very nice anagrams and ingenious constructions, with witty definitions and generally smooth surfaces, as usual with Fed. I’m afraid the heat’s been getting to me though: there are a couple of cases where the parsing has me beaten, although maddeningly close, so it’s over to you, with the usual thanks in advance. As often, I’m going to plead that I have too many ticks to list, so I’ll leave that to you, too.
Thanks to Fed for an enjoyable puzzle.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 Bill’s relative keeps Charlie company (7)
ACCOUNT
AUNT (relative) round C (Charlie) + CO (company)
5 Aussie rugby international’s fool to tackle All Blacks’ biggest units (7)
WALLABY
WALLY (fool) round All Blacks
9 Stretch and run, feel pain after cycling (5)
REACH
R (run) + ACHE (feel pain) with the letters ‘cycled’
10 Person getting break on QI? (4-5)
LIFE FORCE
LIFE (person) + FORCE (break?) – QI is not the TV show but a variation of ‘Chi’ (life force)
11 This could make Liam hide? (5,4)
PAPER OVER
A reversal (over) of MAIL (paper) – at first sight, I expected this to be a clue for ‘mail order’
12 Determined game was up (5)
RULED
Rugby Union (game) + LED (was up)
13 Suit (gent’s) regularly discounted in Marks (5)
SIGNS
Alternate letters of SuIt GeNtS
15 Stunned as Bambi became this grand deer with animation (9)
STAGGERED
STAG (Bambi became this) + G (grand) + an anagram (with animation) of DEER
18 90 got through on buzzer to go to the loo (2,7)
BE EXCUSED
BEE (buzzer) + XC (90) + USED (got through)
19 Edward VI possibly died thrashing about on reflection (5)
TUDOR
A reversal (on reflection) of ROUT (thrashing) round D (died))
21 News article on ambassador to add colour? (5)
HENNA
HE (His or Her Excellency (ambassador) + NN (news) + A (article)
23 Penny read about politician being prone to stalking (9)
PREDATORY
P (penny) + an anagram (about) of READ + TORY (politician)
25 Alan Turing’s beginning to comprehend Nazis’ smart tech he attacks (9)
ASSAILANT
ALAN + T[uring] round SS (Nazis) + AI (smart tech)
26 Hotel of inferior quality – not the first in Whitley Bay? (5)
HORSE
H (hotel) + [w]ORSE (of inferior quality) minus its initial letter
27 How’s your father’s leg strain initially? See how far you can push it? (3,2,2)
TRY IT ON
TRY (strain) + IT (‘How’s your father?’ – sex) + ON (leg – cricket)
28 Man cleared out space in resort and pitches tents (7)
ENCAMPS
An anagram (resort) of M[a]N + SPACE
Down
1 A very large rugby player breaks fitting (7)
APROPOS
A + PROP (rugby player) in OS (very large) – I don’t think three rugby references constitute a theme
2, 14 Rich red and variety of canapes might do inside (9,9)
CHAMPAGNE SOCIALIST
An anagram (variety) of CANAPES MIGHT with SOCIAL (‘do’) inside
3 You, me and that Girl Guide (5)
USHER
US (you and me) + HER (that girl)
4 Shows guys making American jeans (9)
TELEVISES
LEVIS are American jeans but I can’t see the rest, I’m afraid
5 Returning uncooked iron-enriched biscuit (5)
WAFER
A reversal (returning) of RAW (uncooked) round FE (iron)
6, 16 These parts of 26 will get her everywhere (4,5,3,6)
LEFT RIGHT AND CENTRE
The first (left), last (right) and middle (centre) letters of HoRsE (answer to 26ac) give HER – very clever
7 Case of protestor getting into trouble in days immediately following March (5)
APRIL
P[rotecto]R in AIL (trouble)
8 Bore seeing almost all eyelids sadly, drooping at the start (7)
YIELDED
An anagram (sadly) of EYELID[s] + D[rooping] – I can’t make much sense of this surface: I must be missing something – and I was: please see Adriaan’s comment @10
17 Player of music ultimately wanting in on Mardi Gras parties (9)
RADIOGRAM
I was sure this was going to be an anagram (parties) of MARDI GRAS – but it isn’t!
18 From memory, Spooner’s greeting a Simpson (2,5)
BY HEART
HI BART – not my favourite type of clue but Fed knows how to do them: this is a good one
20 Short song by Queen covered by extremely raucous rappers? (7)
RHYMERS
HYM[n] (short song) + ER (Queen) in R[aucou]S
22 Snooping on revolutionary agreed in retrospect (5)
NOSEY
A reversal (revolutionary) of ON + a reversal (in retrospect) of YES (agreed)
23 Discussed aircraft’s manifest (5)
PLAIN
Sounds like (discussed) ‘plane’ (aircraft)
24 For this special purpose, stir round hot and cold (2,3)
AD HOC
ADO (stir) round H (hot) + C (cold)
re: 17, i wanted “ultimately wanting” to apply to ON, MARDI and GRAS, but it only seems to be for ON and GRAS, giving (OMARDIGRA)*
so i thought maybe Fed had orginally italicised Mardi Gras to make it a phrase to remove the last letter from.
…or i’m missing something else 🙂
TELEVISES
guys=TEASES
A becomes LEVI
LIFE-FORCE
break=FORCE (verb)
RADIOGRAM
onmardigra(s) —without the end —anagrammed—See @7
Thanks Fed and Eileen.
Tough puzzle – I could not parse 10ac (but I guessed that QI might be a tv show?), 11ac, 19ac – why is Edward VI possibly a Tudor? Also 25ac; 27ac, 6/16d.
I was also unsure about 8d (why does bore = yielded), 15ac, and 2d/14 (guessed it was an anagram with something added), and 17d anagram of mardi gra[s] + O but where did the O come from?
Thanks Fed and Eileen
I enjoyed this. Favourite PAPER OVER, and I too liked this Spooner.
For TELEVISES I thought that TEES is a soundalike for TEASE (guy, though not plural), but I wasn’t convinced as there isn’t an indicator.
I don’t understand the parsing of LIFE FORCE, though I did see the definition.
I suspected RADIOGRAM was some sort of subtractive anagram, but I didn’t bother to work it out.
KVa @2
That works for TELEVISES.
michelle @3
Edward VI was the last Tudor king. Mary and Elizabeth were the last Tudor monarchs.
Anagram of I(N) O(N) MARD(I ) GRA(S) … all ultimately lacking.
17d in on mardı gras minus last letters mixed
in on mardi gras —-all lacking ends—Is it?
i gave FORCE a pass.
it’s a bit weak, but forcing a lock could be breaking it, say.
KVa @7 yup.
gotta include the IN
Thanks Eileen for the blog and Fed for a good workout. And thanks to KVa for TELEVISES, also couldn’t parse that. I feel like Fed does these large-scale substitutions regularly and I never see them…
I confidently entered CHAMPGNE SUPERNOVA (though I couldn’t parse it), probably affected by “Liam” in 11, thinking we would have an Oasis theme…
I read 17 as “ultimately wanting” applying to all of IN ON MARDI GRAS. I think that makes sense of the cryptic grammar and gets the right anagrist.
EDIT: soundly beaten to parsing of 17 by four people no less! I think the surface of 8 is saying that a boring person giving a speech sees everybody in the audience falling asleep right from the start, i.e. (s)he sees their eyelids drooping
8D bore as in yielded fruit?
My heart sank when I saw Fed’s name as I’ve had little success with his crosswords. To my surprise though I actually finished, after a great deal of guessing and checking. Loved BY HEART – Spoonerisms are great if you get then. Also HENNA which reminded me of the pre-grey times when I often slapped on messy henna paste to change my perfectly good natural hair colour. Parsing of some clues passed me by completely!
muffin@4 – thanks for explaining about Edward VI – I think I had a brain fart earlier and confused Edward VI for VIII and wondered why Edward VIII was possibly a Tudor!
Shirley@11 – thank you for bore = yielded [eg fruit]
I loved this as usual from Fed. On reflection, I hadn’t quite parsed everything. I thought I had, but then I didn’t have to write a blog about it. Thanks KVa @2 for sorting out TELEVISES, I was in a similar position to Eileen there.
LEFT, RIGHT AND CENTRE took me ages, the solve and parse being close together. What a beauty! PAPER OVER also took a long time, it looked like polar bear at one point, but had little more than a hide to recommend it. Other highlights include ASSAILANT, LIFE FORCE and BE EXCUSED but it was all good.
NB. This would have been a lot quicker if I’d spotted BY HEART quicker. This was an absolute sitter for me, so I’m not sure what happened there.
Thanks Fed and Eileen.
Lots here where the parsing came long after the answer, and sometimes not at all. I spotted the “Qi” but neither of the LIFE FORCE synonyms is very convincing (you FORCE a door if you break in?) Likewise mail=PAPER (yes, I was looking for a reverse anagram too). Defeated by the RADIOGRAM, and LEFT RIGHT AND CENTRE was too clever for me, but I like it now I know how it works.
Other likes: BY HEART, BE EXCUSED, the “rich Red”, USHER.
Thanks Fed and Eileen.
Many thanks, all, for the parsing of RADIOGRAM – so obvious now! 😉
And many thanks, KVa @2 for TELEVISES: I’m really mortified, as it’s one of my favourite types of clue!
Adriaan@10
YIELDED
Your reading of the surface works for me. A witty surface.
I was thinking, ‘it’s a bore (boring experience) watching people
doze off at the beginning itself. I like your explanation better.
I agree that is hard to think of the Mail as a (news)paper, rather than propaganda. I, too, read the surface of 8d as the effect of the bore. I wondered why Fed had on QI rather than in QI, which would have made a better synonym for FORCE with break in.
I had my post ready earlier but I was visiting a Soviet nuclear bunker in Lithuania, and couldn’t understand why I couldn’t get a signal in the silos😊
A great end to the weekdays with lots of interesting misdirections. I thought LRAC with HORSE was particularly clever and I also liked WALLABY, PAPER OVER, (I tried BACK at first), STAGGERED, BE EXCUSED, ASSAILANT, CHAMPAGNE SOCIALIST, YIELDED and BY HEART. Parsed RADIOGRAM as previous poster and only had a slight quibble about IT in clue and solution for TRY IT ON. Lovely stuff.
Ta Fed & Eileen.
Just the right level of difficulty for me, though, alas, I couldn’t see “her” in L R + C, and couldn’t parse a few others. I don’t think TELEVISES quite works, as the brand of jeans is LEVI’S not LEVI – but thanks KVa@2 for working it out. Thanks Fed and Eileen!
Challenging enough, though I did manage to complete, with last one in RHYMERS. But satisfaction levels rather muted as there were too many solutions I simply winged on the definition. So many thanks Eileen for explaining how the following parsed – LIFE FORCE, PAPER OVER, ASSAILANT, HORSE and LEFT RIGHT AND CENTRE. My own personal pick of the day was BE EXCUSED, which I thought very cute…
Also thought there might be a political theme with LRAC, SOCIALIST, TORY and ENCA(MP)S but not enough really.
Adriaan @10 and KVa @17- thanks: I’m amending my comment on 8d – I should have stared at it a little longer. Fed’s surfaces are always so good, which is why I was initially disappointed.
Thanks Eileen and Dave.
Thoroughly enjoyable. Only missed the antiquated RADIOGRAM but instantly got the parsing when I hit reveal. A lot of time spent looking at R-D-O-R-M thinking nothing could possibly fit that pattern and the anagram was agonisingly close.
…I find it remarkable that certain words in the English language have such totally different meanings. An example today with the “bore” part of the YIELDED clue. Took me ages to realise the definition here was from the verb to bear. With bore’s alternative meanings floating in my head of something tedious and then again drill. As I struggle through my Duolingo Italian daily I’m occasionally amused by words like influenza, which can mean either the ‘flu or influence. Or so I have been led to believe…
[@ronald #25 Does English have more homonymy than other languages? Certainly possible, given its historical evolution, but I would not be prepared to bet any big amount of money on it! Perhaps a linguist can chime in? BTW, there is a whole genre of short videos where people act out a dialogue of Person A asking the word for various unrelated things in a particular language, with Person B answering (almost) the same every time, with the payoff being a sentence in which all these words are used, consisting of essentially the same word over and over (I’m not doing it justice with my explanation). They exist for many, many languages]
Re. Ronald@25 and 8d: mmmmm… I’m not surprised it took you ages to realise that YIELDED came from a definition ‘bore’/’to bear’, because the sense of ‘yielded’ isn’t really the same as ‘bore’; the semantics of ‘bear’ and ‘yield’ are quite far apart, I think.
Another good one from Fed. I liked Bambi being STAGGERED, the rich red CHAMPAGNE SOCIALIST (I was trying to fit in some kind of wine), the guys showing American jeans for TELEVISES, LEFT RIGHT AND CENTRE parts of a HORSE (very clever), and the good Spoonerism of BY HEART.
Thanks Fed and Eileen.
Thanks for the blog , excellent set of clues and pleasing to see the split entries are still in clue order . CHAMPAGNE SOCIALIST is very neat , TELEVISES very clever and I love a replacement clue , LEFT R A C is just simply brilliant …. but not a single dud .
My only quibble for PAPER OVER , the Daily Heil has no claims to be a paper but I will take it as the Western Mail which my mother still reads .
Well done Fed .
Thank you Fed and Eileen.
My favourite was LEFT RIGHT AND CENTRE – but only after Eileen had explained what the HORSE was doing there. As she says, very clever!
RADIOGRAM was good – I think Aqualung@5 was the first to get the parsing exactly right.
TELEVISES was good too. KVa@2 got the parsing, although I think Layman@20 is right in suggesting that the clue doesn’t quite work.
I also liked, among others, the surface of the clue for APROPOS.
[ AlanC@19 , surely the Special Branch has the modern neutrino transceivers ? ]
Enjoyable Fed as usual. LEFT, RIGHT AND CENTRE a delightfully cunning construction and I was pleased to work out what was going on in RADIOGRAM. I think the device used in TELEVISES is a bit of a Fed speciality – I’m sure it has featured in more of his than of others.
Thanks both
Got in a muddle with 19a. If you read the clue backward you can possibly get dived. Held me up for ages. Also L R and C ! Some very clever cluing. Thanks for blog: needed it!!
[Roz @31: SB now as obsolete as the CCCP although now Romania in the news for a drone strike!]
Could TELEVISES have worked if there was a homophone indicator somewhere in there? TEES (tease) around LEVIS? Like Eileen I only parsed the LEVIS part, but a couple of extra steps later and I was over the line. Well done to Aqualung@5 – I worked RADIOGRAM out from crossers but what an absolute devil of a clue!
A fine Friday offer, and thanks to Eileen for helping me get there with some parsing! Best for the weekend, all!
Perfidious Albion @35
As I implied @4, it would need to be “guy” for “tease”; “guys” would need “teases”, which would give too many Ss.
Gosh, this was definitely harder than usual for Fed. There were several where I had the answer but struggled with the parsing. I think I just about got there except for RADIOGRAM, so thanks for the explanations of that.
I think APRIL could have been a little more misleading, and the surface better, if “March” had been “march”. I know some people like to say that misleading de-capitalisation is not allowed, but surely that “rule” is outdated now. (And in fact we do have an example of it in PAPER OVER, where strictly “Liam” should be “liaM”.)
STAGGERED was my favourite with the very clever surface.
Many thanks Fed and Eileen.
Fed goes from strength to strength; this was a tussle but a fair and very entertaining one: RADIOGRAM very clever, LEFT RIGHT AND CENTRE a stroke of genius but I loved USHER because of its surface. Thanks Fed and Eileen.
I am happy with LEVI for jeans , I would always say Levi jeans , Levi 501s etc . Only say Levi’s referring to the products collectively .
[ AlanC@34 yes of course stick to the cover story and what a fiendishly clever plot to implicate Russia in Romania . ]
I would never have gotten L R and C in a million years, glad I didn’t spend that long on it. What a devious devicre! Parsing CHAMPAGNE SOCIALIST beat me too, though I got it from the definition.
Why are jeans called Levis? The Levi Strauss company in San Francisco first produced these specially durable trousers, in a durable tough fabric and with rivets in strategic places. The company is still there and still making jeans.
Additional fun fact: denim, the universal blue fabric for jeans, came originally from France, where it was called “serge de Nimes.”
Thanks to Fed and Eileen.
Re Televises – it’s a bit of a stretch, but “guy” and “tee” can both be used in the sense of a “prop”.
Thank you Fed and Eileen. New here!! Blimey, that was tough. I’ve only just realised (today) that you can do these crosswords online, and there is a wonderful “check word” button! So a vague hunch can instantly be confirmed, and you can move on. Saves hours over pen and paper!
Well done everyone who managed today. I did use “reveal word” a couple of times… (eg. champagne socialist)… Is that disgraceful? Sorry!
Well done Nic@42 , all is fair in love and crosswords , do anything that helps you to progress . As you get better you can impose more restrictions on your methods but it is entirely your choice .
Lord Jim @ #37: Kudos for pointing out liaM. And the convention is that adding capitalization is allowed, but internally, as in QI? I was jut so proud of knowing the TV show, which most people in the US don’t, that I didn’t think of qi.
Thanks Roz@43. I usually spend a week doing the cryptic in my Guardian Weekly! You brilliant people have solved within minutes of the puzzle being published. I will keep trying… 😊
posterntoo@44, Qi is the most common Q-starting Scrabble word these days! Although I was thinking the TV show too, alas.
Nic @42: the problem with the check button is that your answer may be wrong but it may leave in some letters that are correct, so this feels like a bit of a cheat. To use a golfing term, I only use it if it’s KVC (known or virtually certain) but even then it might be wrong. As Roz says do what you like to help you progress.
I don’t know what happened @48. I’m not normally lost for words.
Welcome Nic @42. Coming here every day is the best way to progress. It’s surprising how often one can confidently enter a solution, having still missed some aspect of the parsing. The bloggers and commenters cover everything between them and have an incredible range of parsing skills and general knowledge. Of course, some mostly like to moan and some, like me, just share our experiences at a superficial level, but it all helps. I have progressed in the way Roz suggested and like Alan said, I only use the check button when it’s KVC, more for a superficial dopamine hit than anything. I agree though, it’s your puzzle, do it your way.
Good luck!
Fed is often above my pay grade. I did manage to complete everything but with several unparsed or retroactively parsed.
Thank you Eileen for the blog, previous posters for the additional explanations, and of course Fed for the challenge.
Very clever, too clever for me some of the time. I couldn’t parse several clues but I now know I’m in good company. Good fun but I’m very grateful to Eileen et al for the parsings of the ones I just bunged in. All correctly incidentally.
Thanks also to Fed for an elegant puzzle.
Nic@45 , I started with Everyman in the Observer , carry it around all week , do twenty minutes on my way home . We all started as beginners , most people on here have had a LOT of practise , I suspect that nobody finished this under 10 minutes .
[ FULL MOON on Sat/Sun night is a (monthly) blue moon and a micromoon , pretty rare coincidence , next one in 2053 . Apogean syzygy , don’t miss it . ]
Thanks, Roz @52. One never knows what one will learn in crosswordland!
Thanks Fed and Eileen. L, R, & C is brilliant.
Would anyone step through PAPER OVER? It seems as if the solution is providing the word play.
Thanks Fed for a puzzle with some really nice clues – and Eileen and other contributors for some parses. Amongst many good ones my favourite clue is – 20dn ” Short song by Queen covered by extremely raucous rappers?” because it suggest a potential need for a knowledge of both Queen songs and rappers – when it is simply a great crossword clue using only knowledge of language and the crossword staple ER for queen!
Of course many parses with Fed fall into place after the solution plus this excellent blog and sometimes escape me altogether. Today, I’m not persuaded that any of the attempts to parse TELEVISES quite work as legitimate clues. Also, I’m not keen on “bore” as synonym for “yielded”. I’ve been wracking my brains for any context where one is a direct substitute for the other.
Peter B @55. Bore fruit and yielded fruit are interchangeable, although when I Googled “it yielded fruit” I was unexpectedly confronted with Bible references, so maybe it’s not super current!
Martin #56. Thanks for this – obvious when you think of it, – a bit like Qi for QI today!
aemmmnostt @54
Have you come across a reverse anagram clue? (Where one of the words in the solution is the anagram indicator for the other – I looked back several weeks to try to find an example, but couldn’t!) This one is similar, except one of the words in the solution tells us to reverse the other one.
Thanks Fed, that was great with my favourites being ENCAMPS, CHAMPAGNE SOCIALIST, APRIL, BY HEART (it’s rare that I like a Spoonerism), and NOSEY. I’ll add TELEVISES to the list after KVA’s parsing. I did have a few parsing gaps in addition to TELEVISES — TRY IT ON, LIFE-FORCE, and RADIOGRAM so I’m grateful for Eileen and the blog.
Muffin@58 , try Wednesday from Matilda .
Heaps in poor condition ( 3 , 5 )
Boatman last month .
Clue for emigre in coup ( 6 , 6 )
Thanks Roz
Really enjoyed this, time well wasted with my Cappucino. thank you to the setter and blogger.
Say safe and travel safely.
This was difficult I felt. Some nice things and some that were obscure. Struggled through it with some guesses here and there. My biggest quibble, especially now I’ve read the comments here, is that I don’t see what tells me to substitute A for LEVI (which is just wrong in any case as it’s LEVI’S as the jeans brand). I think it works better as a sound-alike TEES for TEASE (guys) and insert LEVIS but still no indicators for homophone or insertion unless ‘making’ does some kind of double duty. So overall 4d is clunky IMO.
Thanks Eileen, and to Fed.
thecronester @63
…but, as I’ve said, “guys” would be “teases”, not “tease”. It’s “teases” with A(merican) replaced by Levi, though I agree that it should be Levi’s.
I think the parsing of 17d is an anagram of I[n] O[n] MARD[i] GRA[s] – ‘wanting the final letter of each of the words. *ONMARDIGRA[s] includes an N
I’d write “I wore my levis,” not “I wore my Levi’s.”
Valentine @66
But have you ever seen a Levi being worn?
Way too hard for me! I got maybe half way, then had to start revealing and trying to back-parse, but I still didn’t get many of them! So thanks to Eileen et al here!
One I still don’t get: why does GUYS = TEASES?
Richard @68
As verbs they are synonyms, though “guys” is rarer.
[Any football fans out there? I was amused that somewhere in the Guardian someone pointed out that LUIS ENRIQUE, who won the Champions League managing Paris St Germain last year and is looking to retain the trophy against Arsenal on Saturday, can be anagrammatised to I RUIN SEQUEL…]
muffin @69: I’ve just never come across “guys” used in that sense before (and I can’t find it any online Thesauri). “She was a guy to all the men” makes me think tomboy, not tease… One to file away for the future I guess!
Verb, Richard – “she guyed all the men”.
Muffin#64 That’s as maybe but what in the clue hints to me that I should substitute for A? I can’t see anything but I’m still a relative newbie so maybe I’m missing something? So as Elton would say I’m still standing on that the clue is clunky 😉, and no way should it be LEVI as even the clue has it as ‘American jeans’.
thecronester@73. You’re not alone!
I also found this clue impenetrable, but this is a device that this setter has used before. The key word is “making”. By which Fed means “transforming” A (American – you need to separate it from the jeans!) into JEANS (Levi’s). So TEASES becomes TE(LEVI)SES. The problem with this is that “jeans” are usually referred to as Levi’s, not LEVI. So even some of us who got the answer (in my case it was a drinking companion at my local who solved it for me) were struggling to parse it.
Blaise @ 70 The sequel to be ruined could be PSG’s retention of the trophy.
Not Arsenal’s failure to win two trophies in a fortnight.