Saturday, September 24, 2022 — Down on the Farm (NP 220924)

Introduction

Perhaps today's National Post Cryptic Crossword from Cox & Rathvon (NP 220924) pays homage to the fall agricultural fairs which are being held at this time of year.

It has been quite a while since I have posted a review on the day of publication. The seasons change. Sadly, the camping season has come to an end for another year. Hockey season has begun and we came close to having a frost last night in Ottawa.

The puzzle will be posted on the blog on Saturday, October 1, 2022.

I invite you to leave a comment to let us know how you fared with the puzzle.

Solution to Today's Puzzle

Falcon's experience ┌────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┐ ███████████████████████████████████ └────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┘ Legend: █ - solved without assistance █ - incorrect prior to use of puzzle solving tools █ - solved with assistance from puzzle solving tools █ - solved with aid of checking letters provided by puzzle solving tools █ - solved but without fully parsing the clue █ - yet to be solved

Symbols and Markup Conventions
"*" - anagram "~" - sounds like "<" - indicates the preceding letters are reversed "( )" - encloses contained letters "_" - replaces letters that have been deleted  "†" - indicates that the word is present in the clue	"//" - marks the boundary between wordplay and definition when no link word or link phrase is present "/[link word or phrase]/" - marks the boundary between wordplay and definition when a link word or link phrase is present "solid underline" - precise definition "dotted underline" - cryptic definition "dashed underline" - wordplay "wavy underline" - whimsical and inferred definitions
Click here for further explanation and usage examples of the symbols and markup conventions used on this blog.

Across

1a	Rodent, // gobbler, and sheep coming back (6)

{MAR|MOT}< — reversal of (coming back) {TOM (gobbler; turkey) + (and) RAM (sheep)}

5a	In conversation, someone good at explaining // historian (8)

ANNALIST~ — sounds like (in conversation) ANALYST (someone good at explaining)

9a	Indian city // was familiar with food store by hearsay (3,5)

{NEW DELHI}~ — sounds like (by hearsay) {KNEW (was familiar with) + DELI (food store)}

10a	Season // total calculator (6)

SUMMER — double definition

11a	Straightened out damn odd local // farmer (3,9)

{OLD MACDONALD}* — anagram of (straightened out) DAMN ODD LOCAL

"Old MacDonald Had a Farm"^[7] (sometimes shortened to Old MacDonald) is a traditional children's song and nursery rhyme about a farmer and the various animals he keeps.

13a	Prohibition including restricted // cereal product (4)

B(R)AN — BAN (prohibition) containing (including) R (restricted; film classification)

14a	Freak // breaking each vow about answer (4,1,3)

{HAVE (A) COW}* — anagram of (breaking) EACH VOW containing (about) A(nswer)

17a	Actress Arthur pens // critters (8)

BEA|STIES — BEA (actress Arthur; American actress Beatrice Arthur^[7]) + STIES (pens)}

18a	Only // 50 + 1 (4)

L|ONE — L ([Roman numeral] 50) + (†) one (1)

20a	Making deals, // bum ignored trash (5-7)

{HORSE TRADING}* — anagram of (bum) IGNORED TRASH

23a	Tax // ancestral line (6)

STRAIN — double definition

24a	Make country // voluntary gift (8)

DO|NATION — DO (make) + NATION (country)

25a	Dickens’s Barnaby in plain // monotonous work (8)

D(RUDGE)RY — RUDGE (Dickens's Barnaby) contained in (in) DRY (plain)

Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty^[7] (commonly known as Barnaby Rudge) is a historical novel by English writer Charles Dickens (1812–1870).

26a	Caught in squeeze, I // work for an electrician (6)

W(I)RING — I (†) contained in (caught in) WARING (squeeze)

Down

2d	Last word, // one about yours truly (4)

A(ME)N — AN (one) containing (about) ME (yours truly)

3d	Halfway spots // strange pod in mist (9)

MIDPOINTS* — anagram of (strange) POD IN MIST

4d	Spanish city // also getting presided over (6)

TO(LED)O — TOO (also) containing (getting) LED (presided over)

5d	Raising livestock // in a marshland, buy ground (6,9)

{ANIMAL HUSBANDRY)* — anagram of (ground [transformed, like grain or coffee]) IN A MARSHLAND BUY

6d	No sedative missing at // precipitous decline (4-4)

NOSE D||IVE — NO SED[AT]IVE with AT discarded (missing)

7d	Trotsky eats half of my // fruit (5)

LE(M)ON — LEON (Trotsky; Russian-Ukrainian Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky^[7]) containing (eats) M ([initial] half of MY)

8d	Mesmerized, // recite “J-U-M-P”? (10)

SPELL|BOUND — SPELL (recite) + BOUND (jump)

The wordplay is most effective when read as an entire phrase with "recite 'J-U-M-P'" equating to "spell bound".

12d	Pirate // shifting beer to fore (10)

FREEBOOTER* — anagram of (shifting) BEER TO FORE

15d	Reptile // mad at gorilla (9)

ALLIGATOR* — anagram of (mad) AT GORILLA

16d	Remove // gambling equipment surrounding Stanley (8)

DI(STAN)CE — DICE (gambling equipment) containing (surrounding) STAN ([diminutive of] Stanley)

19d	Small fry // cut the grass around tavern (6)

M(INN)OW — MOW (cut the grass) containing (around) INN (tavern)

Fry^[2] is used in the sense of a young or newly spawned fish.

21d	Turf // pulls back (5)

SWARD< — reversal of (back) DRAWS (pulls)

22d	Blue // feathers (4)

DOWN — double definition (the first in the sense of sad)

Epilogue

Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O,
And on that farm he had some beasties, E-I-E-I-O

... including a cow and a horse, not to mention a marmot, turkey, sheep, minnow, alligator and gorilla -- all penned in a grid that is very apropos to an agriculturally-themed puzzle. As Henry has pointed out in a comment below, the grid displays a series of 4 instances of the letter H arrayed across it which we can take as an allusion to the international 4-H movement^[7].

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References

Sources referenced in the blog are identified by the following reference numbers. The reference numbers themselves are hyperlinks to the entry in the source being referenced. Click on the number to view the source.

Key to Reference Sources: 

  ^[1]     - The Chambers Dictionary, 11th Edition

  ^[2]     - Search Chambers - (Chambers 21st Century Dictionary)

  ^[3]     - TheFreeDictionary.com (American Heritage Dictionary)

  ^[4]     - TheFreeDictionarycom (Collins English Dictionary)

  ^[5]     - Lexico (formerly Oxford Dictionaries Online) (Oxford Dictionary of English)

  ^[6]     - Lexico (formerly Oxford Dictionaries Online) (Oxford Advanced American Dictionary)

  ^[7]     - Wikipedia

  ^[8]     - Reverso Online Dictionary (Collins French-English Dictionary)

  ^[9]     - Infoplease (Random House Unabridged Dictionary)

^[10]     - CollinsDictionary.com (Collins English Dictionary)

^[11]     - TheFreeDictionary.com (Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary)

^[12]     - CollinsDictionary.com (Webster’s New World College Dictionary)

^[13]     - MacmillanDictionary.com (Macmillan Dictionary)

^[14]     - CollinsDictionary.com (COBUILD Advanced English Dictionary)

^[15]     - CollinsDictionary.com (Penguin Random House LLC/HarperCollins Publishers Ltd )

^[16]    - Dictionary.com (Random House Unabridged Dictionary)

^[16B]  - Dictionary.com (Collins English Dictionary )

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Signing off for today — Falcon