Its Fed in the Tuesday slot – a treat in store
I always enjoy Fed’s cleverness and wit and appreciate the integrity of his cluing, along with his well-honed surfaces and neat anagrams – all in evidence here.
There were just a few interesting moments in the parsing department but I managed to tease them all out, satisfyingly, with no cries for help today: the penny at 24dn dropped just at the right moment. As one who cringes at the word ‘Spooner’, I was delighted (but not surprised, because Fed knows how to do them) with the brilliant FLOATING DOCKS. I won’t comment on any more favourites here: there are too many, so I’ve highlighted some of them on the way through.
Many thanks to Fed for a great start to the day.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 Almost all pie filling inside lacking energy and without flavour (7)
INSIPID
(Almost all of) PI[e] in INSID[e] minus e (energy)
5 Hoffman last to ad-lib lines – could be rubbish in it? (7)
DUSTBIN
DUSTIN (Hoffman) round (lines) ad-liB
9 Hear about conclusion of royal warrant (5)
LEARN
[roya]L + EARN (warrant, as a verb)
10 Working 11 – 1 whatever the consequences (2,3,4)
AT ANY COST
An anagram (working) of STAYCAT[i]ON (answer to the next clue, 11ac) – 1 (minus I – one)
11 Check case, Charlie brought forward – it’s not going away on holiday (10)
STAYCATION
STAY (check, as in stay of execution) + CATION (ACTION – legal case, with the C (Charlie, NATO phonetic alphabet) brought forward – a clever and amusing combination of clues
12 Film wanting new runner
SKI
SKI[n] (film) minus n (new)
14 Reverend Spooner’s adoring congregation means to raise packet? (8,4)
FLOATING DOCK
DOTING FLOCK (Spooner’s adoring congregation) – Hurrah for a Spoonerism that makes perfect sense and raises a chortle
18 Main earners pitching Brewer’s Inn ad (12)
BREADWINNERS
An anagram (pitching) of BREWER’S INN AD
21 Forensic evidence maybe dental occasionally (3)
DNA
Alternate letters of DeNtAl
22 Tempt to the wrong path, given strange delay around Vauxhall? (4,6)
LEAD ASTRAY
An anagram (strange) of DELAY round ASTRA (Vauxhall? – definition by example)
25 Previously mentioned in safe radio broadcast (9)
AFORESAID
An anagram (broadcast) of SAFE RADIO – lovely word
26 How’s your father holding in any pee – as discussed, it’s awkward (5)
INEPT
IT (‘How’s your father?’) round N E (any – ‘as discussed’ – cheeky!) P
27 Coming home in spring (7)
INBOUND
IN + BOUND (spring)
28 Light’s covering vertical walls in harbour (7)
SHELTER
SHEER (vertical) round (walls) L[igh]T – inserting ‘that’ after ‘covering’ clarifies the surface
Down
1 Least occupied hotel’s closing – that is assumed (6)
IDLEST
ID EST (that is) round [hote]L
2 Article undermining fake medicine man (6)
SHAMAN
SHAM (fake) + AN (article)
3 Parking in a company car to get drink (4,6)
PINA COLADA
P (parking) IN A CO (company) + LADA (car) – a simple and amusing charade
4 Plan using force to break into empty depot (5)
DRAFT
RAF (Royal Air Force) in D[epo]T
5 Dr. No about to ascend – meeting his maker? That’s harsh (9)
DRACONIAN
DR + a reversal (to ascend) of CA (about) and NO + IAN (Fleming – ‘maker’ of Dr No) – I enjoyed working this one out
6 Ultimately traces MacLintock family name to Hebridean island (4)
SKYE
Final letters of traceS maclintocK familY namE
7 Perhaps manual work supports quiet retail outlet (8)
BOOKSHOP
BOOK perhaps a manual) + SH (quiet) + OP (work)
8 Complains – horribly sick after dodgy pint (3-5)
NIT-PICKS
AN anagram (dodgy) of PINT + an anagram (horribly) of SICK – lovely surface
13 As ever, gig’s turning hostile (10)
AGGRESSIVE
An anagram (turning) of AS EVER GIG’S
15 A story about conservative bishop with lock-keeper? (5,4)
ALICE BAND
A LIE (a story) round C (Conservative) + B (bishop) + AND (with)
16 Adult shoot with backless dress in capital city (3,5)
ABU DHABI
A (adult) + BUD (shoot) + HABI[t] (backless dress)
17 Macbeth distraught describing Banquo’s end as great sacrifice (8)
HECATOMB
An anagram (distraught) of MACBETH round [banqu]O – wonderful surface: a classic clue and my top favourite
19 Content to bury man in grave (6)
URGENT
[b]UR[Y] + GENT (man)
20 Priests say God regularly turned up in Pearl’s place? (6)
OYSTER
An ingenious hidden reversal (turned up) of the alternate letters of pRiEsTs SaY gOd
23 Expected to swallow diamonds – initially stomach swells (5)
DUDES
DUE (expected) round D (diamonds) + S[tomach]
24 23 hours essentially to make list (4)
MENU
I thought I’d fallen at the very last hurdle but, just as I started to type that, the penny dropped: MEN (answer to 23dn) + [ho]U[rs] – another deft combination of adjacent clues
An entertaining puzzle, I particularly enjoyed the linked AT ANY COST and STAYCATION. Also ticks for AFORESAID, the funny INEPT, DRACONIAN, NIT-PICKS, ABU DHABI, HECATOMB, OYSTER and MENU. I wasn’t sure about the thrust of FLOATING DOCK, although I presumed packet was referring to a boat.
Ta Fed & Eileen.
Comment #2
Slight amendment to MENU, Eileen, should be U after rather than in MEN.
The rain’s stopped. The sun’s out and it’s Fed 🙂
Top ticks for the splendid FLOATING DOCKS, ALICE BAND & NIT PICKS – hopefully we won’t get many today
Ashamed to admit DUSTIN was the third HOFFMAN that sprang to mind after Phillip Seymour and the Hoffman personal development process!
Cheers E&F
Plenty to like from Fed today and those who were uncomfortable with his references to brands etc in the last puzzle have very little to discomfit them. Brewers Inn and the Vauxhall appear to be it. Rather like Eileen, I feel I have too many favourites to list them all. Doing my best to keep it brief: STAYCATION, FLOATING DOCK, INEPT, SHELTER, DRACONIAN, HECATOMB, URGENT and OYSTER.
Thanks both
AlanC @1 I agree that a packet must refer to boat, but I raised my eyebrows a little because generally it’s the tide that lifts a boat not the lock. I suppose it could refer to a floating dry dock. Near enough anyway.
Thanks for all the comments so far – glad that you seem to be enjoying it.
I took packet as a boat and the clue seems near enough to me.
I have to go out to a meeting very shortly and so I hope there will be no more typos etc pointed out before I’m INBOUND.
Thanks Fed and Eileen
I generally don’t like clues that cross reference other ones, but these were so well done (and amusing) that I actually enjoyed them!
Fed on form. Thanks for your customary splendid blog Eileen. I needed your help in parsing “shelter”, as is often the case obvious once explained!
A Tuesday treat, I especially liked the ‘radio broadcast’, the ‘company car’, the ‘dodgy pint’, the ‘lock-keeper’ and ‘Banquo’s end’.
Thanks Fed and Eileen
This went in very smoothly and pleasingly earlier today, though I was left at the very last puzzling over the Spoonerism at 14ac. Once the penny dropped this really floated my boat if I’m not mixing my metaphors there. Many thanks Fed and Eileen…
I always smile when I see Fed’s name .Good fun.
Could not finish this – I gave up on 26ac, 28ac and 19d.
Favourite: ALICE BAND.
New for me: Vauxhall ASTRA car (ugh, product placement).
Very much agree with Eileen’s summary.
Particularly liked the outrageous doting flock!.
Raised an eyebrow at grave for URGENT but I expect it’s somewhere in Chambers.
Many thanks, both.
First class puzzle with one quibble – 16D. Shoots may develop from buds, but so do flowers, so they are NOT the same thing.
Thanks Eileen.
RobAdelaide @15
Chambers has:
Bud: a rudimentary shoot of a plant
I filled the grid without having a precise understanding of what a Floating Dock is so relied on Chambers there also.
“floating structure that can be sunk by admitting water to its air chambers, and raised again carrying a vessel to be repaired”
Which I think makes “means to raise packet” fair. As you have surmised, a packet is a boat. Like hats, birds and fish, the variety of names for boats means that scrolling through a list of them is quite likely to yield something helpful in terms of a surface.
Thanks Eileen and Fed. Although I wrote in answers, I needed your help in parsing – which takes away a bit of the ‘aha’ pleasure. Here an Astra was a model of the Holden brand. And let me tell you from hard experience it’s not easy to find a word using the letters for the station code for Vauxhall (VHX). Looks like I’ll have to learn the names of car models as well as UK music bands. Thanks again.
Lots to like here, with some entertaining charades and anagrams and a good Spoonerism (no quibbles from me). Rather than list favourites I’ll just copy AlanC’s list, which is more or less my own, but HECATOMB was the standout for me.
Are Fed’s clues becoming less tortuous or have I just got used to his style? My LOI were the clever IDLEST and MENU.
Thanks to Fed and Eileen
Another delightful puzzle from Fed. It’s a sign of good setting to get Eileen to like a Spoonerism and me and muffin to appreciate a cross-reference.
Lovely stuff, no notes. A great first two days in the G this week!
Thanks Fed and Eileen.
Good fun and smooth surfaces as usual from Fed. The intersecting 1d and 9a held me up for a while but I got there in the end. Favorite was HECATOMB which I dredged up from somewhere deep in memory.
I think this is the first Fed puzzle I’ve ever finished. I usually find them too laboured and tortuous but this one was great. I even parsed most of it. Many brilliant clues, as noted by others.
I was not on Fed’s wavelength with the parsing, but it went in easy enough. Like Queenslander@17 I lacked the aha moments with the parsing. I got FLOATING DOCK quite easily having decided that congregation was flock.
Seeing Lada as a car brand reminded me of the Lada jokes of the 1970’s. I thought the brand was defunct, but I see that Lada cars are still made in large numbers in Russia.
Thanks to Fed and to Eileen for help with the parsing.
Great puzzle. Like some others, had to guess/assume what the packet was all about, but not a problem. Tx!
I think it’s been said before that for Fed’s clues you just need to do what it says on the tin. PINA COLADA was a classic example of this, and is beautiful in its simplicity. Brilliant.
HECATOMB is a word that I think I learned from crosswords many years ago. As Eileen says, the surface is excellent.
“Packet” as a ship in 14a reminded me of the pub name The Packet Inn 🙂
William @14: “grave” = URGENT as in describing a crisis or emergency.
A very enjoyable puzzle. Many thanks Fed and Eileen.
Fun puzzle with a good anagram for AFORESAID. I also liked the vertical walls of the SHELTER, the DRACONIAN Dr No meeting his maker, the bishop and lock-keeper’s ALICE BAND, the HECATOMB (I had to look it up) sacrifice of Banquo, and the URGENT buried man in grave.
Thanks Fed and Eileen.
No issues for me. I knew a packet was a boat and although I tried to find a lock-related solution (having spent many weeks on canals as a kid), I eventually realised what the spoonerism must be and vaguely remembered that a FLOATING DOCK did exactly what Fed suggested.
All good fun. As is becoming many people’s wont around here, I shall defer to AlanC’s likes @1.
Thanks Fed and Eileen.
Ref packet boats, those old enough will remember the blues band Steampacket formed in 1965 by Long John Baldry with Rod Stewart, Julie Driscoll, and organist Brian Auger. No idea why they used that name.
Delightful puzzle. Every parsing made perfect sense when the penny dropped. My clue of the day may be LOI 1D (after 1A was FOI!), for i.e. being spelled out for once! Thanks Fed and Eileen.
A packet was a boat that ran a regular service: there used to be a pub in West Drayton (sadly now gone) called the Paddington Packet Boat, commemorating a service that ran into London on the nearby Grand Union Canal. The Isle of Wight Packet was also a thing in the days before the ferries.
Thanks Fed for a master class in clue writing. Except for URGENT, the answers slipped in easily but parsing them was another matter. Thanks to Eileen, I now understand AT ANY COST, STAYCATION, INEPT, SHELTER, and OYSTER. My top picks were FLOATING DOCK, DNA, INBOUND, DRAFT, and NIT PICKS. Since we’ll no longer see Bluth in the Indy, Fed will be on my ‘must do’ list.
What fun, loved the doting flock.
The Vauxhall Astra appeared in a recent puzzle — I’d never heard of either word before then.
I’d heard of Dustin Hoffman, but didn’t think of him when I should’ve.
Eileen, the blog for AT ANY COST should refer to 11ac, not 11dn. And in DRACONIAN, it’s NO CA that are reversed together. (As a former San Franciscan, I’d read that as “Northern California.” but nobody else would.)
Thanks Fed and Eileen for a delightful evening and morning.
Valentine @32: I did a double take on DRACONIAN as well, but in fairness to Eileen, I then read it as a reversal of both CA and NO and then + IAN.
Gladys@30 loving that bit of history, thank you! Also loving this new more streamlined Fed, the puzzles haven’t lost any of their humour or misdirection in the process, thanks F&E
This was a delight from start to finish.
I must have been on Fed’s wavelength too, for a lot of the solutions leapt out at me, which doesn’t usually happen with his creations.
Thank you Eileen for the blog, especially your help completing the parsing for INEPT, and AT ANY COST.
Lots of ticks, with the rosette awarded equally to PINA COLADA, the parsing of which made me chuckle out loud, and to the glorious FLOATING DOCK. I share Eileen’s delight at a Spooner-clue that consists of two phrases that do genuinely get used – plus it’s something one could imagine the good Reverend actually saying.
The morning brought sun after days of rain and a crossword from my favourite setter and a blog from my favourite blogger! Things can only get worse.
Anyone else get shades of Ronnie Barker in solving 26a? F U N E X? No, I don’t have any eggs.
[I’m somewhat irritated to get squiggly red lines under “favourite” as I type. Let’s try some more…aluminium, colour, endeavour. Hmm. I knew it was going to get worse…but so soon?]
Valentine @32 – thanks for pointing out the careless typo in 10ac, which I’ve corrected.
As for DRACONIAN: I was aware of the possible ambiguity in the parsing and hoped that I had dealt with that with “a reversal (to ascend) of CA (about) and rather than + NO” + IAN.
Just a couple of days ago I said a spoonerism was a poor sort of clue. With Eileen on this one. Hurrah from the rooftops for FLOATING DOCK! Also loved HECATOMBS reminded me of a book I’d read long ago. Also many delights.
Thanks
My list of delightful clues would be lengthy and repetitive…thanks, Fed! I too was hung up by SHELTER, though Eileen’s suggested clarification certainly helps—even better might have been something like “covered by” instead of “covering,” which I had first read to mean the light was doing the surrounding of the vertical walls. Not one to PICK NITS, though! Really enjoyed this one.
Another excellent crossword by Dave Gorman. The Spoonerism took me a while, even when I realised it began FL…… and ended with _OCK.
Zed622 @ 39
But “lights covered by” doesn’t = LT and “light’s covering” does.
SHELTER was a cleverly worded clue with a hysteron proteron – a reversal of the usual word order (Yoda qv). It’s very unusual in prose but is a poet’s trick to fit the words into the metre of the line. For example, Thomas Gray wrote:
And all the air a solemn stillness holds
This is ambiguous: does the air hold a solemn stillness, or does a solemn stillness hold the air? But in this case it doesn’t really matter, because the meaning is much the same either way.
In the interest of clarity I feel emboldened to offer that SHELTER involves LT (‘Light’s covering’) being walled in by SHEER (‘vertical’).
I like Spoonerisms.
Thanks both.
Fed is of course correct—I suppose I could have offered “light covered by,” but I will concede to the setter that my own mental lapse should in no way imply that there was a problem with the clue as worded…
I went for Flogging Hock, hence raising a packet (money), although Hogging Flock jarred.
Like Eileen, I always love Fed’s puzzles for the reasons she outlined. Today the last four took some doing, but I eventually prevailed
In addition to Eileen’s editorial comments, all of which I agree with, I’ll single out 26a INEPT (“any pee – as discussed” = NEP), 27a INBOUND (beautifully concise clue, with perfect surface), 1d IDLEST (great word)
3a I was at the dentist today, and had PINA COLADA-flavoured tooth polish. I told the hygienist about today’s clue, and she was suitably impressed. Another favourite
Thanks Eileen and Fed — a great combination!
Lovely puzzle. Some really fun clues and devices. I really liked Inept.
Many thanks Fed and Eileen.
Thanks Fed & Eileen. Regarding ALICE BAND, I note that Sir John Tenniel went from the free-flowing to the bound look when he moved from the original to the sequel. Any significance?
I don’t think Fed is getting better – he has always been this good. It’s just that our appreciation of his skill and wit is increasing (although Eileen has been onside right from the start).
Thanks to the Fed Eileen Duo for the filling fun.
Mig@46, PINA COLADA tooth polish – hoodathunkit. At my next appointment I’ll ask for the Lagavulin polish.
Here at Balfour Towers I have been rather under siege from the medical profession today, hence my late appearance this evening. The ‘any pee’ trick in 26a did remind me of the novel by Mark Dunn, Ella Minnow Pea, which is in the end about the resilience and resourcefulness of the language under political constraints. Most of my family have now read it, and I imagine most cruciverbalists would appreciate it. My ex would love to be able to teach it, but needless to/ say it does not feature on the curricula of any exam board.