A new name in the Cryptic slot today – welcome, Caius!
I have not taken time to search the archive to see how long the tradition of a fortnightly appearance from Vulcan on a Monday goes back but I’m sure it’s quite a long time. It was certainly a shock to the system not to find a Vulcan puzzle this morning but it turned out to be by no means an unpleasant one. I found this an intriguing solve, with some refreshing cluing, neat constructions and – important for me – smooth and meaningful surfaces.
My ticks were for 1ac MANOEUVRE, 9ac REGIMENTS, 17ac DAFTEST, 20ac DOCTRINE, 22ac SETTER, 2dn LOGICIAN, 6dn UNKNOWNS, 15dn BROKERED and 23dn ERRATA. I’m afraid two pieces of parsing (10ac and 5dn) were beyond me but I’m sure the customary help won’t be long in coming*. I’ll make my usual plea to you to resist simply repeating others’ suggestions, if you have no further comment to make. I’ll amend the blog as promptly as I can! (* It came in record time, I think – what a lovely community this is! 😉 )
Many thanks to Caius – I really enjoyed this and look forward to the next one.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
7 Island getting upset over EU operation (9)
MANOEUVRE
MAN (island) + an anagram (upset) of OVER EU
8 Bird in bamboo across river (5)
CRANE
CANE (bamboo) round R (river)
9 I’m welcomed by chaps following soldiers in big groups (9)
REGIMENTS
IM in GENTS (chaps) following RE (Royal Engineers – soldiers)
10 Senseless, not sharp in the head, unbalanced (5)
INANE
Help, please!
Of course, it’s IN[s]ANE (unbalanced) minus s[harp] – many thanks, all
12 Suited to perform services (6)
DUTIES
An anagram (to perform) of SUITED
13 Worries, as wife’s picked up tools (8)
FRETSAWS
FRETS (worries) + AS round W (wife)
14 Give up wearing a ring? (7)
ABANDON
A BAND ON (wearing a ring)
17 Most stupid to try bucking trend first (7)
DAFTEST
A reversal (bucking – clever!) of FAD (trend) + TEST (try)
20 Teaching medic to withhold oxygen in first sign of emergency (8)
DOCTRINE
DOCT[o]R (medic) minus o (oxygen) + IN + E[mergency]
22 Someone like me puts tester to use (6)
SETTER
An anagram (puts to use) of TESTER
24 ‘Kentish Spirit’ is thin, watery liquid (5)
SERUM
SE (South Eastern, so ‘Kentish’) + RUM (spirit)
25 Of course, they are spectators! (9)
RACEGOERS
Cryptic definition
26 Some soave in small vessels (5)
VEINS
Hidden in soaVE IN Small
27 Puts a new spin on horse-based air conditioning? (9)
REINVENTS
Not sure about this: REIN (horse based?) VENTS (air conditioning)
Down
1 Sweet treat dunked in senega tea, unusually (6)
GATEAU
Hidden in seneGA TEA Unusually
2 Following write-up, I am able to take on one person skilled at thought (8)
LOGICIAN
LOG (write-up) + I CAN (I am able) round I (one)
3 Those in charge crushing a surreal rebellion (6)
RULERS
An anagram (rebellion) of SURRE[a]L minus (crushing) a
4 Leader of group to sign and approve, please (7)
GRATIFY
G[roup] + RATIFY (sign and approve)
5 Leaves off career to retrain, and succeeds in the end (6)
FRONDS
… and another I should have seen: the final letters of ofF careeR tO retraiN anD succedS – thanks again
6 Sunk in snow-drifts – is getting out what might cause difficulty? (8)
UNKNOWNS
An anagram (drifts) of SUNK [i]N [s]NOW, minus (getting out) ‘is’
11 Really big game to play (4)
MEGA
An anagram (to play) of GAME
15 Facilitated purchase of very poor chianti? (8)
BROKERED
BROKE (very poor) + RED (chianti? – definition by example)
16 State how you might answer phone within two rings (4)
OHIO
HI (how you might answer phone) in O O (two rings)
18 Having an depiction that’s only skin-deep? (8)
TATTOOED
Cryptic definition, with a rogue ‘n’ in the clue, both online and in the print version
19 Angrily berated one making an argument (7)
DEBATER
An anagram (angrily) of BERATED
21 School leaver? (6)
TRUANT
Cryptic definition
22 Ms Hathaway is on the way up, Ms Miller (6)
SIENNA
A reversal (on the way up, in a down clue) of ANNE (Ms Hathaway) + IS – and here‘s a bang up to date picture of Ms Miller!
23 Slips on slips? (6)
ERRATA
A clever closely-linked double definition – errata (singular erratum): a list of errors and their corrections discovered in a published text, typically inserted on a separate page or slip of paper after printing to fix mistakes introduced during production
I could not parse 10ac, 5d, 23d and I was not convinced 27ac REIN = horse-based – maybe somebody will explain this…
The rogue N in the clue for 18d has now been corrected.
Eileen 10 a IN[s]ANE (unbalanced, not sharp)
My take on 10a was senseless = insane with the ‘s’ removed (not Sharp in the head); this leaves inane = unbalanced.
10a – I think it’s INSANE (unbalanced) less S (sharp in the head, i.e. first letter)
5d is the final letters (in the end) of ‘off career to retrain and succeeds’
5D is the last letters of Off Career To Retrain And Succeeds
Many thanks, chaps – I’ll amend the blog now!
Eileen – 5d is a last letters clue
re 27 maybe vents in rein to air-condition a horse?
Comment #10
I read it as if it’s horse-based air conditioning you might have vents in the reins, or rein vents.
10ac: IN(s)ANE
5d: ends ofF careeR tO retaiN anD succeedS
5d – last letters of off career to retrain, and succeeds – perhaps ‘end’ should be plural
Thanks to everyone – that’s enough now!
Not on this setter’s wavelength to be sure.
Using my arbitrary scrabble tile metric this crossword gets a very low approval rating – only three crossers that score more than one, adding in my opinion an unnecessary extra level of difficulty.
Still I couldn’t set to this standard so thanks Caius and Eileen
I have nothing to add to the comments on specific clues, but I’d like to stress just how good and entertaining the crossword was. One is always a bit cautious with a new setter, wondering if they are going to be too straightforward or go the other way and pitch the difficulty too high, but this was just right. Like Eileen, to whom many thanks for the numerous, excellent blogs, I look forward to seeing more of Caius.
Thanks both. This was a generally a good crossword, certainly defeated on a few, although a few I thought let the standard down. I was pleased I had 5d completely wrong as I was taking umbrage at what I thought was a clunky parse. I had prunes – as in to take leaves off, with run (career) in PE (retrain?) and s, kind of works but not quite.
Eileen, in your revised parsing of FRONDS you have omitted ‘restraiN’.
Thank you, Balfour @18.
I hope people have not misinterpreted my comment @14. I’d be interested in more reaction to the puzzle!
Eileen, I suspect that you will get more comments as more of the usual solvers shake off the effect of staying up watching the football until 5.00, even if they remained perfectly sober while doing so …
You’re probably right, Balfour: I had other preoccupations in the early hours!
Welcome Caius, enjoyable puzzle. This seemed a lot harder than what we have become used to on a Monday but maybe it’s just a new setter’s wavelength thing.
Enjoyed MANOEUVRE and SIENNA.
Thanks Caius and Eileen
A new setter with an unfamiliar style, but one I think I’m going to like. Several where I couldn’t spot the trick but kicked myself when I did: FRONDS, for one. The whimsical REIN VENTS for the modern air-conditioned horse made me laugh and I also liked A BAND ON, TRUANT, UNKNOWNS and OHIO. As Larry@3 says, INANE very nearly works the other way round, and looks as if it should – the actual parsing is rather contrived. But I’ll be happy to have another go at Caius.
I had the same struggles as you, Eileen, and one or two more. Not knowing Sienna Miller nor the Kentish reference slowed me down.
Nice to have a new setter, even if I don’t know how to pronounce it.
Geoff Down Under – Kent(ish) for SE used to be quite common (cf Newcastle for NE) – worth filing away.
Re pronunciation: depends whether we’re talking Roman names, (Caius / Gaius Julius Caesar – I would say Guyus) ) or Cambridge colleges (Gonville and Caius), in which case Keys! No way of knowing in this case – perhaps time will tell!
That was a nice Monday solve despite the unfriendly grid. Thanks to the posters who explained rein vents, a fun whimsical reading, like Eileen I’d read rein as a stretch for horse based. 5D was LOI and the parsing took me a while, well disguised.
Wasn’t too impressed by Kentish being represented by SE, and thought RACEGOERS was a bit loose for Spectators, nor did I think TATTOOED as being particularly precise.
Apart from that, some excellent clues, and like Eileen I had to be told how FRONDS worked…
I had exactly the same two caesurae in my parsing! I wonder if, being a Monday, I’d left my brain in a low gear (and would have had no problem if, say, Enigmatist had been the setter!)
Which leads me to think that this was perhaps not suited to the Monday slot
But I’m not complaining, I’m simply thinking of our learners. For myself – how refreshing to be faced with a slightly different style of clueing
I’m looking forward to the next ‘Caius’ (hopefully more Caius Augustus than Caius ‘Caesurae’ !)
Many thanks to this noble Roman – and our noble bloggess
Like many I was very slow to see FRONDS. Strange that an acrostic should be so elusive.
ronald @27 – I think perhaps I should have explained the ‘of course’ in 25ac, which I underlined as part of the definition: racegoers are spectators at a (horse) racing course. I think we quite often see ‘Ascot’, a specific racecourse, with clues including ‘of course’.