After a tough workout with an Enigmatist last time out, a relatively gentle impaling by Vlad…
…with a leading contender for COTY (clue of the year) at 24A. ‘Dead soldiers ultimately losers’ – Mr President regularly awful (7) – EMPTIES
There are some US Presidents who lend themselves to nice cosy cryptic clues – like Abe Lincoln in ABED; Herbert Hoover with some sort of domestic appliance; either of the Bushes with a botanical bush/shrub; Clinton from Little Rock, or something more Cyclops-ean; and then there is Ronald T Dump, with his millionaire father convenient ‘bone spurs’ preventing him from going to Vietnam, describing dead soldiers as ‘losers’…WEASEL WORDs indeed, and yet the American people still re-elected him…
Chapeau to Vlad for that one. Worth its weight in gold…
Lots of other wonderful stuff – the POPULAR FRONT at 1A juxtaposed with Jeremy CORB-LIME-Y(N) at 10A; the expert fisherman (ROD ACE) in ECUADOR; a PUERILE TESTIS at 20D; the &lit(-ish?) PLACE NAME involving Nepal and Malta at 1D; and the juxtaposition of music (rap) and Liverpool (port) for RAPPORT. I could go on…
It took a couple of visits to finish this off, and I had to check WRIST-DROP and PORCH PIRATES (not in Chambers or Collins, but findable online), as I wasn’t familiar with either term, but I got there eventually.
My thanks, and aforementioned chapeau, to Vlad for this one – hope to see you at the York shindig in October, as usual.
[As is often the case, I will be attempting to control a small piece of gutta percha with a brassie and a niblick on Saturday morning when this gets published – I will keep an occasional eye on proceedings, whilst hoping the usual moderation and answering of queries and quibbles takes place…]
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
| 1A | POPULAR FRONT | Left in van (7,5)
POPULAR (in) + FRONT (van, in the vanguard, towards the front) [reminiscent of Robert Lindsay in Citizen Smith; or the Life of Brian sketch with the PFJ, JPF, etc…!] |
| 9A | AGAIN | With Adams’ header, win a second time (5)
A (first letter, or header, of Adams) + GAIN (win) |
| 10A | COR BLIMEY | Wow! Old political leader pointlessly filmed Harry entering (3.6)
COR_B_Y( [who were the first two?!] |
| 11A | PUERILE | Trivial Pursuit’s first two getting egghead upset (7)
PU (first two of Pursuit) + E (head of Egg) + RILE (upset) |
| 12A | ECUADOR | Expert fisherman, one might say, takes you round country (7)
an expert fisherman might be a ROD A_CE, around (taking) U (you, txt spk) and turned around = ECUADOR! |
| 13A | WEASEL WORD | Wives receiving ‘support’? No way, it’s a misleading term (6,4)
W_W (wives) around (receiving) EASEL (support), plus ORD (no way could be zero roads, or O + RD) |
| 15A | ABED | President departs, lying (4)
ABE (Abraham Lincoln, President) + D (departs) |
| 18A | SEEK | Try to get religious believer talking (4)
homophone, i.e. talking – SEEK (try to get) can sound like SIKH (religious believer) |
| 19A | HIGHTAIL IT | Run up to end something special (8,2)
HIGH (up) + TAIL (end) + IT (something special) |
| 22A | RAPPORT | Music and Liverpool? It’s a good relationship (7)
RAP (music) + PORT (e.g. Liverpool) |
| 24A | EMPTIES | ‘Dead soldiers ultimately losers’ – Mr President regularly awful (7)
anag, i.e. awful, of S (ultimate letter of loserS) + MPEIET (regular letters of Mr PrEsIdEnT) [‘dead soldiers’ being a slang/informal term for empty alcohol bottles, but ‘Mr President regularly awful’ just says it all!] |
| 25A | BLADDERED | Wasted chance to go higher when retired? (9)
LADDER (chance to go higher, e.g. in snakes and ladders!) in B_ED (retired) = BLADDERED |
| 26A | ICENI | Old people’s home rejected jewellery originally (5)
ICE (diamonds, jewellery) plus NI (in, at home, rejected) |
| 27A | PORCH PIRATES | Thieves disposed of mostly property and cash around island (5,7)
PORCH P_RATES (anag, i.e. disposed of, of PROPERT( [a modern term for people who steal parcels off other people’s porches – often caught on video doorbells and posted on ‘social’ media] |
| Down | ||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
| 1D | PLACE NAME | Could be Nepal one accepted – also separately Malta? (5,4)
&lit(-ish?) – whole clue is definition, and wordplay – PL_NA_E (anag, could be, of NEPAL) separately around (accepting) ACE (one) and M (Malta) [Malta and Nepal both being place names] |
| 2D | PANTILES | ‘They’re on the house’ – worker comes in a lot (8)
P_ILES (a lot) around ANT (worker) |
| 3D | LUCRE | Decoy pocketing Charlie’s money (5)
LU_RE (decoy) around (pocketing) C (Charlie, phonetic alphabet) |
| 4D | RARE EARTH | Element from Red Planet (4,5)
RARE (red, as in steak) + EARTH (planet) |
| 5D | ROLL UP | Arrive in drag – men bowled over (4,2)
PU_LL (drag) + OR (Other Ranks, men, not officers), all bowled over to give ROLL UP! |
| 6D | NAMED | Titled gent upset by journalist (5)
NAM (man, gent, upset) + ED (editor, journalist) |
| 7D | PAWPAW | Greedily handles fruit (6)
to PAW can be to handle greedily, so pluralised = PAW PAW |
| 8D | HYBRID | Through Henry about to get free modern car (6)
HYB (BY, through plus H, henry, SI unit, all about) + RID (free) |
| 14D | WRIST-DROP | Powder, not drug – it’s right for treating medical condition (5-4)
anag, i.e. for treating, of POWD( [wrist-drop being the inability to extend the hand, often caused by lead poisoning] |
| 16D | BALMINESS | Playful lambs in SE showing soft and gentle nature (9)
anag, i.e. playful, of LAMBS IN SE |
| 17D | WARPAINT | Cunning hiding effect of injury – won leading decoration in battle (8)
W (won) + AR_T (cunning) around (hiding) PAIN (effect of injury) |
| 18D | SCRIBE | Writer’s copy almost ready for wrapping (6)
S_E( |
| 20D | TESTIS | Iceland ordeal over, having a ball (6)
TEST (ordeal) before (over, in a Down clue) IS (Iceland, IVR) |
| 21D | NORDIC | Against describing one medic standing as blue-eyed boy (6)
C_ON (against) around (describing) IDR (I, one, DR, doctor, medic) = CIDRON, all standing up, for a Down clue, to give NORDIC! |
| 23D | PRADO | Where to see pictures causing trouble with publicists? (5)
PR (Public Relations, publicists) + ADO (trouble) |
| 24D | ELDER | The bilingual church official (5)
EL + DER (two definite articles, Spanish & German, i.e. ‘the’ bilingual!) |
Made fairly steady progress on this – especially considering it’s a Vlad and a Prize – but ground to a halt with PLACE NAME. I couldn’t see how to handle MT, the code for Malta. Still can’t.
I was also slowed down with NORDIC, which it seems is only an adjective, yet “blue-eyed boy” is a noun phrase.
EMPTIES was great.
Tx!
Dr W…Chambers has M as the IVR (International Vehicle Registration) for Malta. .mt is the internet domain, so understandable if some confusion…
And it also has NORDIC as a noun, as an example of someone of a Nordic race, stereotypically maybe a blue-eyed boy…
Thanks mc-rapper67. I enjoyed your comments but found this hard, relatively gentle is not quite how I’d describe it. It took me some time to make a dent in it and I never did quite understand PLACE NAME or ECUADOR so thanks for those, they’re so obvious now. Must remember the IVR code for Iceland, couldn’t account for the second S.
I was quite proud of myself for remembering Harry Lime but who the other two were defeats me I’m afraid.
I made extensive use of a crossword dictionary to get this done, and find Vlad heavy going at the best of times.
Here we used to call the old brown 26oz ones dead marines — close enough. Other dnks were ‘is’ for Iceland, and porch pirates, but then, on cue, it turned up on the telly in a cop show! So, 19, 20 and 26 in the SE took long stares, but otherwise not too bad, thx Vlad and Rapper.
A fun challenge — thank you Vlad. Some entries were delayed by tricky parsing, like 10a COR BLIMEY, which I didn’t see until I took the plunge and wrote it in. The SW took a few days. NHO 25a BLADDERED = “Wasted”, couldn’t figure out why AIRPORT was “a good relationship” — ohhh, RAPPORT, and didn’t know the 23d PRADO museum
Lots to enjoy. My top favourite was 1a POPULAR FRONT (good surface, amazingly concise — clue shorter than solution). Also 11a PUERILE (“Trivial Pursuit”, invented by two Montrealers when I lived there), 13a WEASEL WORD (fun wordplay), 19a HIGHTAIL IT (efficient), 4d RARE EARTH (“Red Planet”), 16d BALMINESS (cool word)
Thanks mc_rapper67 for a great blog
My top picks: POPULAR FRONT, EMPTIES, PLACE NAME (took it as an &lit as the blogger. “Also separately” justifies the singular solution,I think. No ish), WRIST-DROP and WARPAINT.
WEASEL WORD
Took “a misleading term” as the def
and “it’s” as a link.
Some might say it makes no difference.
Thanks Vlad and MC.
Agree. Relatively gentle. My kind of Vlad. Smooth as silk. Three ticks for ROLL UP, TESTIS (singular) and NORDIC (lovely reversal). Didn’t feel impaled this time. Felt pretty good. Thanks MC and Vlad.
Thanks mc, an entertaining introduction to a very enjoyable offering from Vlad, particularly the presidential clues, EMPTIES being a quite splendid piece of commentary. I also ticked the concise POPULAR FRONT clue, RAPPORT, ECUADOR and others. But it wasn’t a quick solve: BLADDERED took a while to work out, I couldn’t parse PLACE NAMES properly, and for no obvious reason I just kept staring at _I_H_A_L without thinking of HIGHTAIL. I spotted early on that ‘Withnail’ fitted, but while that film reference clearly didn’t work, it stuck in my mind until my wife suggested ‘fishtail’ and somehow that led to the right answer. However, I did remember Harry Lime, so all that time watching films did help. (No, I can’t remember the other two either.)
A bit more research suggests the first two were Harry himself and his alleged killer.
Thanks for the blog , brilliant puzzle and just right for a Saturday . Have to agree for EMPTIES , BLADDERED a great construction and misleading definition , same for WARPAINT . The PRADO my favourite museum , the BOSCH and BRUEGEL rooms are spectacular .
Minor quibble for men=OR , not wrong but very demeaning , use soldiers or troops .
Harry Lime was the third man reported by the porter . The other two were carrying his (fake) dead body .
Comment #13
Defeated by PLACE NAME and BLADDERED – devious! (plus “ace” = “one” and “in bed” = “retired” do not spring to my mind immediately, but fair of course). I agree with the blogger there’s lots of wonderful stuff; also lots of words I NHO (eg HIGHTAIL IT, WRIST-DROP, PANTILES). My favourites PORCH PIRATES and POPULAR FRONT. Was glad to see PRADO, which I like a lot and it has so much. Thanks Vlad and mc_rapper67!
My only complaint was that it was over too soon. LOL.
Took an awful lot of picking away at, during the week – but it was an enjoyable task. Faves were PAWPAW for the pluralisation trick; ECUADOR for overall neatness and for being hard to conjure up even with some checkers; BLADDERED for the “in bed” trick; PLACE NAME for the great, hard &lit; and of course EMPTIES.
Re Dr. WhatsOn@1, the def for NORDIC is “as blue-eyed boy”, I think.
Thanks to Vlad for the stretching (and for the chuckles at the Life of Brian sketch), and to our blogger for explaining it all so clearly.
Thanks Vlad and mc_rapper67
Pantiles reminded me of the famous radio interview with an elderly inhabitant, the interviewer trying to get him to talk about the town. I’ve found references to it online, but unfortunately haven’t been able to find the actual interview.
Took the whole weekend but got there in the end with every bit of assistance going. I ended up bunging in PLACE NAME after toying with two word solutions with plane the first word but now I have the parsing I think it’s a bit convoluted but fair.
Otherwise got the parsing more or less. Many thanks to mc_rapper67 for clarification.
WRIST DROP and PORCH PIRATES took internet confirmation but both were gettable.
Went recently to the Prado and realised just how good Goya was (but not for me his black wall paintings).
Lots of lovely clues in particular COR BLIMEY, EMPTIES, RARE EARTH and ECUADOR.
Thanks to Vlad and mc_rapper67.
Sorry MC and KenMac , I am so upset and angry but should not have posted@13 . Can you please edit or remove ?
Muffin@16 , it used to get repeated quite a lot on Radio 4 , it was in Tonbridge Wells . Probably from Down Your Way .
I didn’t find it easy but it was a good challenge. A few more “need to know” words like van were nailed down in my conscious. Despite being BLADDERED on numerous occasions, I’d never heard of that meaning of “dead soldiers.”
I liked POPULAR FRONT once I got it.
Thanks Vlad and mc_rapper67
Roz @19
Yes, along with “the fleet’s all lit up”.
btw is Tonbridge, but Tunbridge Wells. The pantiles are in the latter.
Being somewhat hors de combat due to house guests I was intrigued to know whether this was actually difficult. I found it tough and needed a couple of sessions to complete it
Roz I take your point about OR and frankly it belongs in the cliche cupboard but wouldn’t soldiers be a bit obvious?
PLACE NAME seemed such a disconcertingly underwhelming definition that despite understanding the wordplay I held of putting it in until the bitter end
Cheers MC&V
Thanks to Vlad and MC, enjoyed this.
The link may or may not work, but this might be the famous T/Wells interview:
https://x.com/cfbclips/status/1052483367302770689?lang=en
Too hard for me. Made steady progress and enjoyed the ones I got. But I simply couldn’t break through to the SW of the grid. Nothing yielded.
Getting SEEK and SCRIBE would happen have made the difference. Was delighted getting EMPTIES. Had sketched _ _ _ PORT but somehow missed the excellent RAPPORT. ELDER was one of many really neat clues.
Still, thanks to Vlad for the challenge … from one of the losers.
Re the T/Wells interview:
AI says it was never actually broadcast as a normal BBC programme. The recording was used in BBC radio training and later became something of a broadcasting classic.
Laurie Taylor, the BBC Radio 4 broadcaster and sociologist, says the recording was made in 1955, and that the interviewee, Alfred Cronwell, was about to celebrate his 103rd birthday.
“What’s the nicest thing about Tunbridge Wells?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you know anything nice about it?”
“No.”
“I know nothing about Tunbridge Wells.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say but if I can say anything to please you…”
AI then goes into detail about how the “bad interview” was of course the fault of the interviewer and not of the interviewee. Poor, abstract questions leading to circular nonsense, and failure to follow up on the bits and pieces that the man did offer up.
It sounds fun but alas I don’t have the apparently necessary X app to play it. Anybody know another platform?
Thanks jkb_ing, but I can’t access X either.
Ah that’s a shame Muffin. I tracked it down some years ago and saved it. It still works for me, although I’m not an X user. The clip lasts about a minute or two, but might be incomplete as the Pantiles doesn’t seem to feature. Apparently the interviewer was Monica Sims, possibly on Woman’s Hour?? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monica_Sims
https://groups.io/g/UK-Radio-Listeners/topic/another_sort_of_radio_memory/71508123
[ Thanks Muffin@21 , never knew about two towns , just looked on the map now , Kent a bit far South for me ,
Thanks to JKB and AP for all the extras ]
Bodycheetah@22 not complaining in crossword terms , just the idea of – Officers and Other Ranks = OR = men , so demeaning . Soldiers/troops have many synonyms plus regiments with two letters , perhaps slightly less obvious than men .
And right on cue …..
Not so “gentle” for me, but a great puzzle. Does anybody still say Cor Blimey? And why did people say “God blind me” in the first place?
I only finished this puzzle at the last minute even using a lot of online help so found the comments here very comforting. I too filled in some with no complete understanding of why vis PLACE NAME, WEASEL WORD, SCRIBE. Kept going by some lovely solutions like POPULAR FRONT. This is quite usual for me when tacking a Vlad puzzle so I have decided I simply think in different way to him and end up overthinking so it’s a deep breath and relax next time round!
I’m with Choldunk@24. Too hard for me too. I had only six solutions in the bottom half of the grid, but three of those were answers that other commenters struggled with. Taking some comfort from that thought. The top half might have been the work of a completely different setter.
Thanks to Vlad (and whoever your co-setter was!) and mc_golfer (“relatively gentle” indeed 😉 ).
[Roz @28
It had never occurred to me to research the different spellings until now, but AI tells me that Tunbridge was changed to Tonbridge in the 19th century by the General Post Office to reduce confusion.]
The other two men were Baron Kurtz and a Romanian called Popescu, Lime’s partners in crime. In the book the latter character is an American called Cooler. Presumably the change was made to ensure greater success for the film in the US.
Thanks Vlad and mc.
Thoroughly beaten by Vlad (again). Top half went in quite quickly, then hit a brick wall, dismantled gingerly with some acceptable cheating, only to be completely brain-freezed in the SW corner. 7 left unsolved. Not helped (though I don’t think it would have made a difference) by inserting POENI for 26a (some vague reference to POE=PEARLS in Chambers). Enjoyed every hour!
Another failure here, despite many attempts only managed about half. But enjoyed the challenge as always.
I also had the top half filled in and the bottom half almost empty, Needed mc and a few buttons to fill all in.
Since when does “it” mean “something special”?
Thanks, Vlad and mc_rappper67.
Valentine@36 You either have it or you don’t.
Valentine@36. It could be as in the phrase “this is it!”, as in the lyrics of the Michael Jackson song:
This is it, here I stand I’m the light of the world I feel grand (or special?)
Yeah, not one of my favourite clues of all time.
Valentine @36 , IT = SA but generally means something special . I asked the Film Studies people about this . 1927 film “It” starring Clara Bow , who became the It Girl . Much later from Bugsy Malone – You might as well quit , if you haven’t got it .
MC said relatively gentle comparing this to his last Saturday blog , a very tough Enigmatist . I found it a tough Saturday solve .
Muffin@32 , I presume you move to Tunbridge Wells if you are disgusted and write in green ink .
[Roz @39
Why green ink? When I was teaching, I was advised always to mark with a green pen, as red was too aggressive.]
Definitely not gentle for me: took three or four goes before I finally sorted out PRADO and realised that ?O?C? PIRATES was an expression I hadn’t met (along with WRIST DROP, but luckily both were anagrams.) I didn’t help myself by trying the famously blue-eyed James CORDEN (who very nearly parses) for NORDIC. No complaints: it was a fair fight.
Letters to the Editor from cranks and obsessives are traditionally written in green ink. No, I don’t know why, either.
Yes Gladys @42 and signed – disgusted of Tunbridge Wells .
Muffin@40 all our assessments and exams that count towards grading have to be double-marked , red and green .
Thanks for all the comments and feedback so far – much appreciated, as usual…and golf today was forgettable!
As per Roz at #39, the ‘gentleness’ of the impaling was relative to the Enigmatist Saturday puzzle I blogged previous to this one. There is a wide spectrum here from DNFers to those that found it a breeze…I think I fall somewhere between the two.
Lots of interesting – if tangential – stuff about Tonbridge/Tunbridge, and background on the first and second men (or persons (;+>).
I don’t think there is anything too controversial in terms of parsings or quibbles. I like APs suggestion at #15 that the definition for NORDIC could include the ‘as’, to make it adjectival – makes the clue neater as otherwise ‘as’ is a link word…if I have the bandwidth I will update my parsing to reflect this.
I (almost) finished solving this last Saturday morning before going away for a few days, took it with me to finish – then thoughtlessly put it in the bin before leaving, so I don’t have my notes and can’t comment further. I just know I really enjoyed it, so wanted to say thanks, as always, to Vlad and to mcr for another of his entertaining blogs.
[Did you have a good time at Scargill House, Eileen? What sorts of things did you do?]
14D. Wrist-drop – lead poisoning is fortunately very rare nowadays! Most commonly due to radial nerve damage (Google AI suggests that “Saturday night palsy” – falling asleep with arm in awkward position – is the commonest cause).
muffin @46
[The short answer is, ‘Yes, thank you’!
An action-packed four days – I’m still recovering! You need to look at their Website but I don’t think there are details there any more for ‘Summerfest’, the family holiday event they run for three separate weeks every August – because it’s over now! This was the eighth time for my friend and me and we’ve enjoyed every one.]
Thanks to mc for a wonderful blog and to others who commented.
And extra thanks to AP @15 for confirming the correct definition of NORDIC
I realise that this blog is rather late and will not be read by many contributors, but we have been very busy over the last few days. We succeeded almost fully with the puzzle, thought it hard but entertaining, and had similar experiences to many contributors.
We were struggling with the lower half, when I suggested EMPTIES for 24a, a term with which we were unfamiliar, but did not enter into the grid since we felt it was a rather disrespectful term, not mitigated by the apparent satirical reference to Trump. We have researched the term via google and particularly noted the comment on its usage under ‘DEAD SOLDIER Definition & Meaning’. In general, we would hardly be considered prudish, but are surprised that many others have lauded this clue, even suggesting it as COTY! Sorry, we do not agree, but still thank V and mc.