My third blog out of the four most recent Kite Prize puzzles …
… and I’ve rather got my comeuppance this time, I think. The last puzzle was published on the US National Day, July 1st and I rather suggested that the obvious theme of the DECLARATION of INDEPENDENCE had left me slightly underwhelmed (after the clever timely one on the Artemis Moon Mission.) This time, I wasn’t initially even thinking about a theme, but, as I worked through the puzzle and then the first draft of the blog, bells started at least tinkling (the combination of COTTAGE CHEESE soon proved a red herring but not, as it turned out, entirely irrelevant) and realisation gradually dawned that an impressive number of entries (sometimes in combinations – ARMY KNIFE, CHEESE Plant!) could be prefaced by SWISS. It was only at the last moment that I remembered the date significance of the previous puzzle and thought to look up August 1st – to find (the icing on the cake and the key to the whole thing) that it was the SWISS National Day.
Chapeau to Kite!
I’ve highlighted the theme entries I spotted but would welcome any more suggestions.
Quite apart from the theme, it was an enjoyable solve. There seemed to be quite a number of subtraction and substitution clues but that is an observation, not a complaint: they seem to be becoming increasingly common and I enjoy them. I also noted several instances of Kite’s slightly unusual use of words (addle as an adjective, blemish as a verb …) and sometimes poetic word order, contributing to some ingenious constructions but that added to the interest. I had ticks for CHOCOLATE, KNIFE, COTTAGE, OWNERSHIP, CAVIAR, GLASNOST, SHOWER and ROLL. (Whisper it, I even quite liked the Spoonerism.)
Many thanks to Kite for an interesting and enjoyable puzzle.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
9 Vegetable patch ardently covered (5)
CHARD
Hidden in patCH ARDently
10 Sweet coke, hot drinks in cafe with espresso at first (9)
CHOCOLATE
HOT, from the clue, round (drinks) COLA (coke) in C[afe] E[spresso]
11 Confirmed fronts of service uniforms dirty (9)
SUSTAINED
Initial letters of Service Uniforms + STAINED (dirty)
12 Drunk Nelson at last provided English cutter (5)
KNIFE
Last letters of drunK nelsoN + IF (provided) + E (English) – kudos for ‘drunk’ not being an anagram indicator
13 Extravagant Co-op surrounds home (7)
COTTAGE
CAGE (coop) round OTT (extravagant)
coop = Co-op reminded me inevitably of the classic Two Ronnies crossword sketch – you don’t have to watch it (again) but someone expressed surprise that I didn’t cite it, as usual, when the opportunity arose in a recent blog – and there may yet be some who’ve never seen it 😉
15 Sufferer I treated internally in a state (7)
ERITREA
Hidden in sufferER I TREAted
17 View sample that is trimmed at the front (5)
WATCH
[s]watch (sample)
18 Sink in which neon reflected? (3)
SAG
A reversal (reflected) of GAS (neon – definition by example, hence the question mark)
20 17, you say, in type of carriage coming back (5)
GUARD
U (you say) in DRAG (type of carriage – Chambers: ‘a large open carriage with transverse or side seats’) – the answer to 17 ac is WATCH
22 Peer from jet, disregarding old ship (7)
DUCHESS
D[o]UCHE (jet, minus o – old) + SS (ship)
25 Sky-high price of cockney’s locks sounds reasonable (7)
AIRFARE
‘AIR (cockney’s locks) + FARE (sounds like fair, reasonable)
26 Directions with extra finally given after short arm bowl (5)
ARENA
AR[m] + E N (directions) + [extr]A
27 Possession of pier shown to be condemned (9)
OWNERSHIP
An anagram (to be condemned) of PIER SHOWN
30 One packing essential cape that’s showing mould (9)
MUSTINESS
I (one) in (packing) MUST (essential) + NESS (cape)
31 Colour in retrospective Tarantino melodrama (5)
LEMON
Reversed hidden in TarantiNO MELodrama
Down
1 Court serves claims, primarily making sound lawsuits with these (4)
ACES
ACES sounds like ases, which, if put after the first letter of Claims, gives ‘cases’ (lawsuits) – I think
2 Blemish on this wobbly bottom of frequent flyer (5,3)
MARSH TIT
MAR (blemish) + an anagram (wobbly) of THIS + [frequen]T – I don’t think I’ve met ‘blemish’ as a verb but it’s in both Collins and Chambers
3 Ignoring the last perfect theory (4)
IDEA
IDEA[l] (perfect)
4 First of cantilever bridges crossed having no parking inspectors (8)
SCANNERS
C[antilever] + S[p]ANNERS (bridges) minus p (parking)
Edit: careless slip – C[antilever] in S[p]anners (bridges) minus p; thank you KVa @5
5 Pet Labrador’s initially absent after eating posh food (6)
FONDUE
FOND[l]E (pet) minus initial letter of labrador round U (posh)
6 Plant maybe in Spooner’s garment dryer (4,6)
ROCK SINGER
Spooner’s garment dryer might be a sock wringer – here‘s the rock singer
7 Troops I fed left yankee wanting eggs (6)
CAVIAR
I from the clue in (fed) CAVA[l]R[y] (troops) minus (wanting) l (left) and y (yankee – NATO alphabet)
8 Nice summer, fine at the beginning for festival (4)
FÊTE
The usual trick, which I always enjoy, of ‘Nice’ indicating French: F (fine) + ÉTÉ (French for summer)
13 Join firm, starts scared (5)
COWED
CO (firm) + WED (join) -‘starts’ indicates the word order
14 Jews ask him a Zen problem (10)
ASHKENAZIM
Clever anagram (problem) of ASK HIM A ZEN
16 Bad religious scholar opens beer (5)
ADDLE
DD (Doctor of Divinity – religious scholar) in ALE – again, I don’t think I’ve met ‘addle’ as an adjective but it’s in my dictionaries
19 Last song performed in Moscow, it shows sincerity (8)
GLASNOST
An anagram (performed) of LAST SONG
21 Three articles by mother providing curse (8)
ANATHEMA
AN A THE (three articles) + MA (mother) – not the first time I’ve seen this but it’s a good one
23 Bad luck if it’s hard (6)
CHEESE
Cryptic definition
24 One that displays useless lot (6)
SHOWER
Double definition, with different pronunciations, the second being army slang, whose use I always enjoy
26 Adams entertaining republican soldiers (4)
ARMY
R (republican) in AMY (Adams) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Adams – I’m afraid I had to google this actress
28 A bit funny Penny’s missing something needed for toilet (4)
ROLL
[d]ROLL (a bit funny) minus d (old penny)
29 Yearn to stick close to fiancée (4)
PINE
PIN (stick) + [fiancé]E
I could not parse 20a GUARD. I satisfied myself by thinking of it as the GUARD VAN, which “comes at the back”. Thanks for ironing out that wrinkle. Great puzzle and blog!
Thanks Eileen. I enjoyed this, about the first half of answers came up quite readily but the rest were more of a challenge and I needed Google for Amy Adams and Robert Plant. Never discerned any theme but that’s not unusual for me. I also was a bit perplexed by the slightly unusual use of words.
I made it harder by happily entering ‘vista’ for 17a, taking the first letters of most of the words in the clue and had to wait until the 14d anagram emerged before thinking again.
I found this very difficult – took several goes and didn’t parse a few including FONDUE where I just put in an unparsed “fondle” and ACES where I couldn’t decide between “aces” and “acts” as I couldn’t parse either.
Liked: ARENA, COWED, CHEESE (which made me laugh), MUSTINESS
Thanks Kite and Eileen
I found this to be a pleasant puzzle, but I needed Eileen’s help for the clever and rather convoluted parsing of CHOCOLATE and ACES (I”m another who first considered “acts” before plumping for the more cryptic-seeming definition).
COWED took an unreasonably long time, but it finally unlocked my last handful – save for the Jews, which I still had to look up because the fodder was too heterogeneous to give clues as to the word structure.
FETE and ROCK SINGER were my faves, and I also very much enjoyed COTTAGE – one of my later ones in – for the sly hyphen trick. I guess that provided the hyphen appears at a plausible hyphenation point of a suitable word then it’s fair game; I’m surprised it doesn’t get used more!
I also vicariously enjoyed the theme, although I neither looked for it not saw it. I would have fancied neither the cheese nor the chocolate in this heat in any case.
Thanks both
My picks: CHOCOLATE, COTTAGE, AIRFARE, ROCK SINGER,
GLASNOST and ROLL.
A couple of minor points:
ACES
I had C+ACES should result in a soundalike of cases…
Eileen’s parsing makes more sense (C+ases).
(One of those ‘poetic word order’ cases, I think).
SCANNERS
S(p)ANNERS crossed C minus p
GLASNOST
I thought the def was
“in Moscow it shows sincerity”
Thanks Kite and Eileen.
Solved everything except 13a COTTAGE — done in by the hyphen! 14d ASHKENAZIM was the top pick for me — concise, great anagram and surface. 23a was funny — “Hard CHEESE” a phrase learned from Asterix. 26d ARMY — Amy Adams a favourite (try Julie & Julia)
Thanks Kite, and Eileen for the engaging and enlightening blog!
KVa @ – many thanks. I am mortified that the vital underlining in GLASNOST went awry: it was clear in my notes!
(I’m going back to bed now: I’ll deal with any more howlers later on.)
I got ADDLE, purely through parsing, and figured it must mean bad. Understand it is in the dictionaries (as you have mentioned), but I am having a hard time putting it into a sentence as an adjective!
I also found 1D a bit confusing in its construction, but rationalized it the same way you did.
Thanks for the blog and all the theme words which I totally missed . Pretty tough which is just right for a Saturday . ROCK SINGER excellent in many ways , needs a capital but hidden at the front so we are not thinking proper noun . CAVIAR a very neat addition and subtraction , good use of fusion for COTTAGE . CHOCOLATE is a good construction , it should never be sweet but I suppose it can be a sweet .
I don’t like the way the parsing for CHOCOLATE works. It goes way beyond clever and enters the realms of viciousness. (I of course was trying to use H for ‘hot’, never thinking that the setter was using the whole word straight from the clue!)
I had many potential answers for 5d: POODLE, DOODLE (as in Labradoodle), NOODLE (‘food’?), and FONDUE, which I plumped for not because of any potential theme (was there one?) but because of the U (from ‘posh’). If I looked for themes I would have done so after writing that answer in.
I enjoyed SHOWER (‘useless lot’) and AIRFARE for its seeming difficulty followed quickly by being very clearly correct.
Thanks to Kite, and to Eileen for help with the parsing.
Tough but fair with enough easy clues to get me started. I missed the theme as always but I’m not sure it would have helped much. A steady and enjoyable solve.
Liked ROCK SINGER, COTTAGE for the co-op trick, CAVIAR and MARSH TIT.
Nho addle as an adjective so a bit of a head scratch there, and needed to look up the spelling of ASHKENAZIM.
Thanks to Kite and Eileen.
I found this tough, mainly for the reasons Eileen lists – some quite intricate word manipulations and enough idiosyncratic grammar to ADDLE an already addle brain. I’m afraid I didn’t realise it was Swiss National Day, and never noticed the theme, but that’s not unusual.
I had CAVIAR in mind for the posh food at 5d but couldn’t get it to work, so was surprised to finally see it fitting the crossers at 7d two clues over – but even then it took me quite a while to realise you had to start with ‘cavalry’ and play with it a bit. My parsing for ACES was the same as KVa @5. I remember liking FETE, SHOWER, the Jewish anagram, ROCK SINGER and GLASNOST. Thanks to both Kite and Eileen, for the workout and the blog.
Great crossword. Kicked myself when I saw the solution to 6d.
There is a great joke in Brooklyn 9-9 where Captain Holt hears actress Amy Adams being referred to and immediately goes “who’s that!?”
Seeing the parsing and some of the comments similarly made me chuckle
Thanks for the lovely blog as ever, Eileen and to Kite for an appropriately challenging Saturday Prize. The theme completely passed me by (not for the first time) so another layer of complexity to admire. I must remember to look for a theme..
Like sh@10 I found CHOCOLATE a little over-intricate.
[James B@14: qué?: am I missing something? I am sure I’m being a bit daft]
Thanks, Kite and Eileen. Unusually I can’t see the completed grid with themed answers highlighted. Is that just me?
BigMaz @16 – no, it’s not you, it’s me: I’m one of the very few bloggers who don’t have the technical skill to produce a completed grid. 🙁
So sorry! I realise now the highlighted themed answers are in the list. Absolutely no need for a completed grid!
Thanks Eileen. The clue for 20/GUARD isn’t formatted, it’s not in blue and ‘17’ isn’t underlined as the definition.
I didn’t see the theme as I didn’t have much trouble filling the grid, just CAVIAR holding out a while.
Rich @19
Profuse apologies: that slipped through the net – amended now. (I confess to having left the finalising of the blog rather late yesterday evening, after tending my Fed blog all day and tiredness crept in: I only just made the posting deadline!)
I enjoyed this a lot, though of course completely missed the theme.
Thanks Kite and Eileen. All done bar CAVIAR, for which I gave up and cheated. Great clue! Missed the theme of course.
Many thanks to Eileen for a super blog. I don’t think there are any more Swiss references. Thanks also for the encouraging comments. Some on the (last Friday) Guardian comments site didn’t seem to like the Co-op trick so it’s good to see that the more experienced solvers here appreciated it. I got the inspiration for the crossword one day when I was looking at a gifted box of Swiss chocolates.
Glad to see I wasn’t the only one who could decide between ACES and acts, and couldn’t parse either! Otherwise a lot of fun, especially the Spoonerism.
I struggled with this because there were so many “poetic” word order and complicated subtraction clues. My problem, not Kite’s.
LOI 7d because I was slow to pick up the definition. I doubt if anyone, even with the crossers, worked it out from the wordplay starting with “cavalry” for “troops”.
I doubt if I would have got 6d if Robert Plant hadn’t turned up in Brockwell’s Prize on 27 June.
NHO Amy Adams but she had to exist.
Thanks to Kite and Eileen.
This was a nice meaty challenge but made it through. The NE corner held out the longest but when the penny dropped for ROCK SINGER the rest came. That clue still makes me smile. Thanks Eileen and Kite.
I look forward to more like this from Kite.
Thanks all.
Completely missed the theme even though I knew about the day. You can see the fireworks from where we are in fact! (In France but right by Geneva.) They didn’t allow them this year apparently because of the fire hazard.
Thanks for the blog and to Kite for the puzzle. I’d not have noticed the theme in a month of Sundays but liked the puzzle a lot. Caviar our last one in, and it detained us longer than perhaps it should. I liked chocolate very much.
[I really like the Swiss flag.
Might not quite be my favourite thing about Switzerland.
But it’s certainly a big plus]
Thanks to Kite, and to Eileen for the brilliant theme-spot. Regarding 2D, I see that, conversely, Collins and Webster’s (and I think the OED) have “mar” as a noun in the appropriate sense. (In your preamble, are you anticipating Kite’s next themed puzzle, for Canada’s national day?)
Many thanks to all for the comments , especially to Kite for dropping in – much appreciated as always. I’m glad the puzzle went down so well. I’ve very recently arrived in the Yorkshire Dales for a few days, hence the delay.
Coloradan @30 – as I said, my arrival at this theme was sheer Serendipity – at the eleventh hour! 😉
[Craven Arms at Appletreewick again, Eileen? Have a good time, anyway. Are you at that retreat near Kettlewell?]
Coloradan@30 , I think it is just a typo for July 4th . We had Jamaica recently but no Canada Day , last year we had spiders on July 1st .
muffin @32 – if you’re still there
[We enjoyed the Craven Arms two years ago – thank you- but it isn’t our ‘day off’ (!) until Tuesday and we tend not to go back to the same place. Yes, it’s Scargill House, Kettlewell – but they do more than retreats; we’re there for Summerfest and it coincides (again) with the Kettlewell Scarecrow Festival.]
Roz @33 – Thank you: yes, of course, July 1st was a typo and my hasty reply to Coloradan @31 was nonsense. Yesterday was, obviously, not one of my best days.
Roz@33 I can always dream that one day there’ll be a Canada Day theme puzzle! 🙂
Eileen@34 we all make typing mistakes , me especially , and you have such a lot to type .
Mig@35 , maybe next July . There could have been a Canada Day theme but I missed the theme , which is common , so I do not remember it . I will look through my diaries when I have a bit of time , maybe if I finish Gemelo quickly today .
Kite@23 , unfortunately the Swiss invented milk chocolate , they should have renamed their version , perhaps mockolate .
I found this much harder than Paul the week before, especially the top half. Did anyone else have CAVIAR cross their mind for posh food at 5D only for it to appear at 7D? Spooky, huh?
I used KIF for drunk with the N and E. KIF is stoned more than drunk but it was obviously the right answer, so I left it at that and didn’trevisitthe parsing. I liked ROCK SINGER, I went up a couple of blind alleys with that one.
MARSH TIT was LOI after me having the right idea the whole time.
Thanks Eileen and Kite.
Roz@36 Don’t look too hard. The only result I found on fifteensquared is CANADA DAY as a solution to 8d in Guardian 26,836, Picaroon, 26 March 2026
Might an old man always holiday across the Atlantic? (6,3)
Yes, dark chocolate best…
We completed the puzzle on Thursday, appreciating Kite’s ofttimes quirky clues but did not spot the theme! Unfortunately, I have been unable to add to the blog until this rather late hour, since we have been at a weekend party celebrating our daughter’s wedding, at which there were many Marshes. Alas no marsh tits here, but many kites!
Many thanks to Kite for a challenging test and to Eileen for her usual comprehensive solution and comments. I can’t remember Scargill House, Kettlewell, but have fond memories of the excellent ale from the cellar at the Falcon Inn, Arncliffe!
Is ACES a triple defintiion? “Court serves”, “claims, primarily making sound law” and “suits with these”?
Okay Mig@38 , I have checked back to 2010 and nothing , my earlier diaries are in the loft . It was only one page per year to check . Maybe next year .
Roz@41 Thanks for checking. I’m curious, what do you put in the diary? Do you list all the clues?
I paste in the grid and clues , A4 diary , one page per day . Score out of 10 for difficulty and for quality , they can be very different . Annotate briefly for anything interesting . I have my own shorthand , fission and fusion and SPS you probably know . Quite a few terms I do not share on here , like doggie .
I also have a swim diary and stargazing diary , much smaller and briefer .
Cool! Thanks Roz
Eileen, nobody will see this but you, I’m sure, so I’ll leave out the many nho’s (though I will remark that I had no idea of any connection with Swiss-ness of many of the answers) and just put in the chat.
Do wringers still exist? I remember them from days when nobody had driers, and they did wring out a lot of water, but surely they’re extinct now. (My own drier is solar-powered and cost about $4 at the hardware store. I have to disentangle it now from a tree.)
Mustiness reminds me of when a newspaper listed everything in the President’s Thanksgiving dinner, including “molded jelly,” and my little brother was appalled.
Who wants moldy jelly?
Having never heard of a drag as a vehicle, I looked it up, and learned that they used to be popular during the coaching revival, which I’d also never heard of. Apparently after trains replaced intercity coaches, some people got sentimental about them and put on coaching events. Who knew?
I’d never heard of a Swiss cheese plant, but on looking it up found it looks like what we call elephant ears. I had one for years that I picked up off the street after Chinese New Year in San Francisco, when many people apparently buy them and then throw them away. Somebody who lived back-to-back from my house a street over admired it and came by to tell me so.
One thing I learned about in my googling rambles is the “everything shower” which apparently Is a Thing. You do all sorts of self-care steps, including washing your hair and exfoliating, whatever that is. Some kind of new ritual.
I wondered if “Drunk Nelson” was anybody I should know about — apparently not. But I found a story about a martial-arts-trained male nurse named Nelson, who subdued a potentalily dangerous drunk.
Thanks as ever for a delightful blog. I don’t say this in the comments others will see, because it seems mean to the other bloggers, but you’re my favorite blogger, and I always light up when I see your name.