A new setter?
I’ve never come across Arrietty before. If this is a debut puzzle, it’s a corker, full of clever clues. I started very slowly, but started to make headway after I’d solved the longer clues, giving me enough crossers to make educated guesses at some solutions and working backwards to get the parsing. I had FBI in at 11 across, as that seemed to be the logical answer from the wordplay, so it took a while to get my LOI (PHOBIA). I also learned a new word – BRECCIA.
Welcome to the FT club, Arrietty.
| ACROSS | ||
| 9 | OTHERWISE |
Harry: “I see worth differently” (9)
|
| *(I see worth) [anag:harry] | ||
| 10 | ARENA |
Odd bits of airbed near field (5)
|
| [odd bits of] A(i)R(b)E(d) N(e)A(r) | ||
| 11 | FIB |
Kid’s book put back in bureau (3)
|
| FBI, the Federal “Bureau” of Investigation, with B (book) put back becomes FI(B) | ||
| 12 | SCREEN TESTS |
Diesel’s performance might be judged during such trials? (6,5)
|
| The Diesel in the clue is Vin Diesel, an actor in action movies, most notably the Fast & Furious series. | ||
| 13 | TEACAKE |
Critical view expressed by Spooner that’s often toasted? (7)
|
| had Spooner tried to say KEY TAKE (“critical view”) it may have come out as TEA CAKE | ||
| 14 | NAMIBIA |
Amphibian missing skin of pouch set free in the country (7)
|
| *(amibian) [anag:set free] where AMIBIAN is AM(ph)IBIAN missing [skin of] P(ouc)H | ||
| 16 | INDUSTRIOUSNESS |
Time to split two rivers — American head making application (15)
|
| T (time) to split INDUS + RIO (“two rivers”) + US (American) + NESS (“head”) | ||
| 20 | TAVERNA |
Article on tax showing turnover for restaurant (7)
|
| <=(AN (“article”) + RE (“on”) + VAT (value added “tax”), showing turnover) | ||
| 21 | BRECCIA |
Acerbic alternative rock (7)
|
| *(acerbic) [anag:alternative]
Breccia is a rock with sharp angular bits composed of pieces of rocks and minerals fused together. |
||
| 23 | BEAUTY SLEEP |
Stewed eel at pub? Yes, it’s good for the complexion! (6,5)
|
| *(eel at pub yes) [anag:stewed] | ||
| 25 | UKE |
No pressure to throw up musical instrument (3)
|
| (p)UKE (“throw up”) with no P (pressure) | ||
| 26 | OCCUR |
Happen to send a copy to our hosts (5)
|
| OUR hosts CC (originally carbon copy, but nowadays “to send a copy to”) | ||
| 27 | DISMANTLE |
Take down tips for Newmarket in gloomy base (9)
|
| [tips for] N(ewmarke)T in DISMAL (“gloomy”) + E (the “base” of the natural system of logarithms in mathematic) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | CONFETTI |
Paper trail left after partnership formalised? (8)
|
| Cryptic definition | ||
| 2 | PHOBIA |
Greek character drinking Sprite heading for architectural complex (6)
|
| PI (“Greek character”) drinking HOB (“sprite”) + [heading for] A(rchitectural) | ||
| 3 | TRESPASSER |
Nancy’s really dated Republican? He’s unwelcome (10)
|
| TRES (French for very, and Nancy is a French city, so “Nancy’s really”) + PASSÉ (“dated”) + R (Republican) | ||
| 4 | FIERCE |
Lance quietly falling for female savage (6)
|
| (p)IERCE (“lance”) with P (piano, so “quietly”) falling for F (female), becomes (F)IERCE | ||
| 5 | HEREUNTO |
Southerner endlessly jumping to this matter in formal document (8)
|
| *(outherne) [anag:jumping] where OUTHERNE is (s)OUTHERNE(r) [endlessly] | ||
| 6 | GAIT |
Caught opening carriage (4)
|
| Homophone/pun/aural wordplay of GATE (“opening”) | ||
| 7 | REUSABLE |
Regret promoting English fur as ecofriendly (8)
|
| RUE (“regret”) promoting E becomes R(E)U + SABLE (“fur”) | ||
| 8 | CASSIA |
Aromatic spice in classy shiraz — wanting seconds! (6)
|
| C(l)A(s)S(y) S(h)I(r)A(z) wanting (i.e. lacking) seconds | ||
| 15 | MASTER PLAN |
Strategy mother has to house son held up by unfinished flat (6,4)
|
| MATER (“mother”) has to house S (son) held up by [unfinished] PLAN(e) (“flat”) | ||
| 17 | DEVIANCY |
Grotesque vice and depravity ultimately? (8)
|
| *(vice and y) [anag:grotesque] where Y is (depravit)Y [ultimately] | ||
| 18 | ROADSIDE |
Verbal attack — not the first, by the way (8)
|
| (b)ROADSIDE (“verbal attack”, not the first (letter)) | ||
| 19 | STAGE SET |
Feature in mounting Pirates, e.g. at Savoy? (5,3)
|
| Hidden backwards in [in mounting] “piraTES EG AT Savoy” and &lit. | ||
| 20 | TO BOOT |
Canine perhaps mostly picking up smell as well (2,4)
|
| TOOT(h) (“canine perhaps”, mostly) picking up BO (body odour, so “smell”) | ||
| 21 | BREAST |
Baster ruined part of turkey (6)
|
| *(baster) [anag:ruined] | ||
| 22 | CRUETS |
Vessels and sailors, it’s heard (6)
|
| Homophone/pun/aural wordplay [it’s heard] of CREW (“sailors”) and IT’S | ||
| 24 | TERN |
Some keen retirees rearing bird (4)
|
| Hidden backwards in [some…rearing] “keeN RETirees” |
A new setter to brighten our day. And a thumbs up from me. My favourites were ROADSIDE & CONFETTI. BRECCIA was new to me.
Thanks for the blog , very enjoyable set of clues with many neat touches and a lot of variety . The capital of Diesel and Nancy cleverly disguised at the front . Even the cryptic definition was interesting . I could mention more but the wordplay is so good everywhere .
BRECCIA is used for fancy floor tiles .
FIB , has to be this as the B is put back ( slight underlining issue here ) .
Time to play guess the setter , I suspect Arrietty sets in other papers . Maybe a Borrowers connection .
Pretty much à la loona re FIB, phobia, and the Italian gravelly stuff. The word cruet, now, rings a long bell — at one time here it was one of the slang terms for head, haven’t heard it for many a decade. Anyway, welcome Arrietty if you are indeed new, very nice puzzle.
Enjoyed this but had to look up BRECCIA.
Hugely enjoyable, and tricky in parts.
Many thanks to Arrietty & loonapick
OTHERWISE, BEAUTY SLEEP, TRESPASSER, REUSABLE and BROADSIDE all earned ticks from me!
Always interesting when we have a new (?) setter as the solve is something of a mystery tour. It’s fun to see how a setter’s signature style emerges over time.
Add my voice to the welcoming committee and l Iook forward to ARRIETTY’s next outing.
Thanks also to Loonapick.
Thanks Arrietty and Loonapick. Certainly a most welcome addition to the FT’s band of setters. I have nothing else to say that has not already been said.
In 11ac, isn’t KID the definition rather than BUREAU?
Good puzzle. On many clues, I found myself guessing the solutions and then working out the parsing, sometimes with quite some effort.
Thanks Arrietty for a suitably challenging crossword full of good clues. I couldn’t come up with HEREUNTO but I managed all else with my favourites being TAVERNA, BEAUTY SLEEP, REUSABLE, ROADSIDE, and BREAST. Thanks loonapick for the blog.
Further to vannucci@9.
If you accept bureau as the definition how do you parse kid?
A good challenge and we got most of it. Failed on 3dn – we couldn’t get past ‘vrai(ment)’ as French for ‘really’ – and 5dn where we couldn’t see the definition. Plenty to enjoy, though, such as TAVERNA, BRECCIA (which we did know) and CRUETS.
Thanks (and welcome) Arrietta; and thanks, too, to loonapick.
11ac: Loonapick his stated in his opening remarks that he originally thought that the answer would be FBI, as indeed I did. He must have underlined “bureau” in the blog before realising his error, and has not (yet) adjusted the underlining. This is what Roz was suggesting at the end of comment 2. The definition must be the meaning given in Chambers 2016 p 840 as kid², and you can more or less take your pick from “vt and vi to hoax; to pretend, esp as a joke; to tease, delude, deceive as a joke. n a deception”.
11ac continued: Incidentally, I would argue that only the word “in”, interpreted precisely, prevents the clue from being ambiguous. As here, “put back” means towards the end of a word (or, in this case, the initialism FBI), but if you think or reading from left to right, then “forwards” means “to the right” and back means “to the left”. As the clue says “put back in bureau”, that should be telling us the “bureau” is defining the “wrong” answer.
I forgot to welcome Arrietty and thank for a superb puzzle and also thank loonapick for a characteristically clear blog.
Quite a lot of this above my pay grade… definite wavelength issue, for me, thus needed the blog for a lot of parsing explanation.
Thanks Arrietty and loonapick
I found this difficult in parts. I found it challenging to identify the definition of several clues and I was guessing the answer then parsing others. So saying, a few of my failed parsings turned out to be pretty obvious, so I take responsibility for some of the struggle. Overall, I agree with the positive comments about this well-constructed puzzle.
I particularly liked the surface of BEAUTY SLEEP, and DEVIANCY, while STAGE SET is a nice reverse hidden clue.
The most important question is: who toasts TEACAKE? I have never encountered such a thing.
Thanks Arrietty and loonapick
Martyn@18 , I suspect most people in the UK will toast a teacake . It is basically a flavoured bread roll with sultanas , cinnamon etc . A hot-cross bun is just a poshed up teacake .
Martyn@ 18: From Chambers — tea’cake noun
A glazed currant bun, usu eaten toasted
Welcome ARRIETTY. A tough but fair grid. The only one I really struggled with was HEREUNTO, I just couldn’t get on the wavelength of that one! Many thanks.
Ah, British teacake is very different to the teacake of my youth (basically a dense sponge cake with a lot of butter in the mix). I am an enthusiastic fan of hot cross buns, so this bears further investigation.
Thanks Roz@19 and Tony@20.