i Cryptic Crossword 3102 by Phi
January 16, 2021
If you track down the columns of your completed grid you will see the 4-letter names of the composers BA/CH, LA/LO, IN/DY, NO/NO, PE/RI, RO/TA, and AR/NE; there’s also Ernst TO/CH in row 2. The pangram was just there to put you off the scent, reveals Phi in the comments to the puzzles blog from way back in May 2016 here.
Now that may or may not be a difficult and brilliant piece of grid filling, but the fact that it forced the setter to give us a few obscure or unlikely-seeming terms to find in our clue solving: Tenuto, Sunnites, Liner notes(?), Uniter(?), Quinella(?), and Rinderpest – shows that there were sacrifices made for a theme which once again almost no-one will have spotted unless they were helped to do so in conversation with the setter, as happened back in 2016. Contrast that with Donk’s wonderful puzzle yesterday – where the theme was clear to all, or Math’s Sherlock Holmes based puzzle on Tuesday – both were pure delight. Unfortunately this puzzle has been weakened in order to enable what turns out to be a joke almost no-one will get. For my money Phi is at his best when either he eschews themes altogether or at least makes them discoverable to the general solver; when he does his puzzles are excellent.
Rant over. Now for the clues. Well there were a mixture of easy, straightforward solves and then a bunch of straightforward constructions with either stretched synonyms to find or with those difficult answers already mentioned. One exception was the complex, Russian doll style clue for 6d KNITWEAR, which might have made it as COD if I’d felt that ‘our team’ could be ‘we’ as well as ‘us’. I also enjoyed the nicely deceptive definition ‘lose heart’ for ‘Fall in Love’ at 18ac, but my COD goes to the following clue which, simple though it was, has a nicely polished feel about it:
14d Plans to accept scripture lessons in cathedral (8)
Borodin
batarde
Saboteur
Denzo
flashling
jonofwales
Cornick
sprouthater
uiytjhgmj
willow1235
idothei 
The obscurities meant I needed electronic assistance – especially quinella and rinderpest. I felt these had to be the result of something thematic, but I was never going to spot that. ‘Fall in love’ was my LOI. I did like ‘legalese’.
Since the delightful Sherlock puzzle on Tuesday, it has a bad week for me crossword-wise. Seeing a puzzle by Phi with two musical clues at 7a and 8a, I was sure things were about to change, but again I turned to 225 with several clues unsolved. I believe, in this case, the theme, which, as usual, Phi needed to explain on 225, combined with his desire also to set a pangram got in the way of compiling a solver-friendly crossword. I am not about to alter my view because of one below-par crossword, but my esteem for Phi has taken a knock.👎
The eight answers I missed included two which I had rejected only to discover on 225 that they were right after all, three which I think would not have eluded me on a better day and three obscurities. Fortunately there were some brighter moments such as 11a and 26a, which along with Cornick’s CoD and a few others showed how good Phi can be.👍
I wrote most of the above before reading Cornick’s blog!
I enjoyed this very much. I realised early on that it would be a pangram, and that helped a lot. Some obscure answers, (for example, QUINELLA), were clearly clued. One of the activities I have been doing in lockdown(s) has been learning German, so I should perhaps have twigged that RIND (cattle) would make an appearance in RINDERPEST – I correctly assumed PEST would make up the end of the word, but I had never heard of the disease before and had to check in Chambers after trying to make an anagram from SKIN and PRESET.
Annoyingly, like others, I expected that the pangram would be enough for Phi and that it would replace the usual heavily disguised theme. Even after glancing through the completed grid, I (music teacher that I am …) failed to spot the composers. Never mind – it didn’t detract from the satisfaction of engaging with this puzzle, and makes me even more determined to spot the Phi theme next time round.
How odd. I hated yesterday’s, which was generally liked. I really enjoyed today’s, which was less well received: Agreeing with Willow, though.
Didn’t spot the pangram and would never have seen the theme. I’m not bothered.
I liked it because it was one of those where I thought I’d reached an impasse, only to puzzle out another answer just before giving up … again and again.
I had 3 unsolved (or rather I’d thought of the answers, but dismissed them! Hi, Denzo – same experience! ). Since they were all gettable, that didn’t detract for me. I did have to check the obscure words, but only after guessing them from the clues.
A few minor issues, but no real grumbles. My COD was SYNTAX. Brilliant!
How interesting that you liked the clue for syntax so much. For me points > tacks doesn’t seem like a fair synonym and got a nose-wrinkle, but you liked it!
Vive la difference, and all that!
👍. Indeed.
I enjoyed this crossword, but I don’t quite understand the wordplay in 12. I get that “comments with DVD” is the definition, but I don’t get how “suggesting you avoid Titanic” works. I’m pretty sure I’m missing something obvious, so any help would be much appreciated!
Sorry John, can’t help. Anyone else?
It’s a little weak, granted, but the LINER NOTES in question might suggest you avoid one particular liner.
Hmm, okay, I suppose it works, but it’s a bit of a stretch. Thanks.
Veronica, I know some German, learned before RINDERPEST was eliminated, but though it parses well, didn’t think it was a Phi-like clue and started a vain search for a synonym of flaky.
Cornick, If you sit on some tacks, you’ll feel the point of this clue!
John, Cornick’s blog gives a link to Fifteen Squared, where there are some ideas, but I don’t claim to understand them. IMO it’s an awful clue, especially by Phi’s standards.
Yes, tacks have points, as teapots have spouts or cups handles, but synecdoche is surely only permissible if it’s customary, no?
😊
Yeah I saw the Fifteensquared blog post, but it simply said the clue was a double definition, though I still don’t see how. Jonofwales gave a possible parsing above, but yes, I think it’s fair to say that this wasn’t one of Phi’s strongest clues.
If I were to write a clue for LINER NOTES, I’d go for something like “Titanic Records’ LP info (5,5)”.
I share your irritation at themes / ninas “forcing” obscurities into the grid, but I’m a little more relaxed about such obscurities on a Saturday when we have, in theory, got the luxury of a dictionary to hand and a little more time to burn. The bet I knew due to a long standing interest in such things, though I associate it more with American gambling than Australian. The rest I managed to get from wordplay without too much ado, and enjoyed the solve. Needless to say I missed Phi’s latest special, though I did guess there might be a pangram.
What Cornick said.
I put this down half-done after lunch and very nearly didn’t pick it up again. Completed it out of sheer blody-mindedness, and with no sense of satisfaction after checking all those odd words.
Spotted the pangram. Glanced for the theme / nina, but in no expectation of finding it.
I think the clue works as a double synonym plus double homonym, ie
wrong points > sin tacks > syn tax .
Cheeky, but I liked it.
Obviously! But the moot point (if you will) is points > tacks. Worth pursuing because just when synecdoche or metonym are or are not permissible is a recurrent issue in Crosswordland.
It was not my intention to insult your intelligence, Cornick, and I apologise if my post was interpreted by such. I did not wish to engage directly with your point because, if I interpreted it correctly (and I wasn’t sure that I did!), I did not understand its relevance.
If I now understand your argument, it is that point(s) and tack(s) are metonyms rather than synonyms, and therefore the clue has broken some rule (or might have).
In puzzles this week we have had the following definitions: strength = power, patio = inner courtyard and lock = hair. All three appear to be metonyms rather than synonyms to me.
Turning to the issue of relevance, I suspect you know the Ximenean “rules” far better than I do, but I believe (1) very few of the crosswords we get follow these rules to the letter and moreover (2) hardly anyone wants them to anyway.
Last week we had a crossword in which “unrequited” was given as a synonym for “unanswered”. Whether or not it is in any Thesaurus as a synonym, the two words are seldom, If ever interchangeable in real life. So one could argue it’s a bit of a stretch. Many definitions are a bit of a stretch, and in this case, I would not argue that it’s unfair because it’s too much of a stretch. But assume I did so argue – you might reply it’s in Chambers’ Thesaurus so OK and I might counter that it’s not in Roget so not OK.
My point is that not everyone agreed with Ximenes, I don’t believe that anyone has attempted to codify any post-Ximenean rules and if anyone did they would not be universally accepted. So, in the absence of an agreed code, it is a matter of individual opinion what goes and what doesn’t. In the case of the unrequited (pun intended!) argument above, in an ideal world I would accept that you are more experienced in crosswords than I, so I doff my cap and accept that it isn’t a stretch.
Have I missed anything?
Now, where’s this ideal world?
Saturday doesn’t seem right when the Inquisitor is considerably easier than the regular crossword, which has been my experience today
That parsing’s suddenly dawned on me in a penny-drop eureka flashnof inspiration……………..
LINER NOTE(ven)S(eaworthy) (nb DVDs not yet invented😁)
Du daaaah! 🚣♂️
Sorry, I’m being a bit slow today, but where does ‘not even seaworthy’ come from in the clue?
John – I too have been nonplussed twice today.
Just for giggles:
To my passengers, please do not panic.
I have telegraphed for a mechanic.
Till then, our bar’s nice –
And we’ve plenty of ice –
Yours, Edward Smith,
Captain,
Titanic.
Very good. 🙂
In case you haven’t heard, here are the tweets o Titanicf Captain Donald:
There is no iceberg.
No one knows icebergs better than I do.
The crew is spreading fake news about icebergs.
We won’t hit an iceberg.
I knew it was an iceberg before anyone else knew.
The Chinese brought the iceberg here.
No one could have predicted the iceberg
We will pour warm antiseptic on it
We cannot allow an iceberg to stop our ship.
some of you have to drown.
I’m the best captain, ask anyone.
So storm the Capitol. 😉
😀
Cripes – all those comments. Yesterday I made a concerted effort to polish off a Times Big Book so it could go in the recycling, consequently I was crossworded out and decided to leave this for Sunday breakfast. The gimmick passed me by, which is fine because it wasn’t put there for people like me – just Phi and his fan club on the other side. Cornick has voiced my settled opinion about all that jiggery pokery. A summat and nowt puzzle from an arrogant setter as far as I’m concerned.
Now, let’s have a crack at that “tacks” business, shall we? 🙂 Tacks have a point, clearly, but they also have a head, otherwise they’d be brads, pins or sprigs. As for “point” as a metonym, it can denote a sword or an arrow, but I can’t find any evidence for it meaning a tack or a nail. It’s an unfair definition and a rubbish clue.
<> Spot on.
Ooh, dunno what happened there. Meant to say spot on regarding you final sentence which I put in angle brackets but somehow it vanished.
I’m still confused.
A tack has a point and a head with a shaft between them. A sword has a blade and a handle; the latter is protected by a hilt and the former narrows to a point.
I do not understand why a point can be metonym for a sword but not for a tack
Because it’s a matter of established usage. You appear to be arguing that any part of any thing can be *understood* to represent the whole, a proposition I would respectfully describe as a non-starter. “Wheels” is an established metonym for a car; “distributor cap” is not. Sorry to resort to reductio ad absurdam, but we’re in dire peril of reaching that point anyway.
Quite so Batarde. I was trying to make that point with spout and teapot earlier, but you expressed it so much better!
Eccles, amongst others, talks about the need for definitions to be ‘tight’ and thesauruses are simply not reliable for tight definitions. Plus a certain crossword editor of my acquaintance calls a setter’s use of a thesaurus ‘the last resort of a scoundrel’!
Sorry Batarde, but you appear to have misrepresented my argument. A point is a prominent feature of both a tack and a sword. I agree entirely that your point about a distributor cap is absurd and it therefore does not help the argument at all. I suspect that wheels as a metonym for a car arose in common parlance long before any crossword setter so used it.
I don’t see why established usage is relevant – I believe that lawyers are the only profession who are bound by precedent, and we all know the law is an ass. Frequently I have noted a setter do something new, and it’s usually applauded on this blog. If setters were bound by precedent, they would run out of ideas and crosswords would be boring.
A common parlance metonym for sword (analogous to wheels/car) would probably be the blade rather than the point. If you’re saying that a point can be a sword in Crosswordland because it’s established, it can only be established because a setter has done it before. So was it a rubbish clue the first time it was done, which then became established?
So sorry to be a pedantic – not! But isn’t “wheels” for “car” an example of synecdoche, rather than a metonym?
Metonym – using one associated thing to stand in for another: “Downing Street has issued a statement…”
Synecdoche – the part standing for the whole: “I need a new set of wheels because my old car…”
I completely agree that established normal usage is definitive in both cases.
Agreed Saboteur!
If the comments section of a crossword blog isn’t the right place to be pedantic about such things, I’ll be darned if I know where is!
Goodness, what a lot of debate today – some interesting tacks made.
For my part, pretty much what dtw42 said, except my LOI was SUNNITES. Can’t say I enjoyed it much, and (not for the first time) a big thumbs down for the theme.
Just got round to this one. Still utterly confused as to why Notes is a warning not to board the Titanic, but have spotted that E and S are the first and last initials of the captain on her final voyage, so if the clue has been ‘Liner not ES’s’ I would give it a gold star. No, better make that a White Star.