Crossword roundup: the real origin of 'curate's egg'?

The news in clues

In a qualifying puzzle for the Times crossword championship, a clue that simultaneously feels contemporary …

26ac Russian politician still to admit large crime (7)
[wordplay: synonym for “still” containing (“to admit”) abbrev for “large”, then synonym for “crime”]
[YET containing L, then SIN]
[definition: Russian politician]

… and, since the current leader seems to be trying to match Stalin’s three decades of power, reminds us that there were once others, like Boris YELTSIN.

Meanwhile, we have a tense image from Boatman in this clue …

28ac UK citizen stands by Labour leader boxed in by Trotskyite extremes, likely to snap (7)
[wordplay: term for UK citizen, next to (“stands by”) first letter of LABOUR (“Labour leader”) inside first and last letters (“extremes”) of TROTSKYITE]
[BRIT, next to L inside TE]

… for BRITTLE. And the solution is now out for a Times Jumbo from before the New Year …

2d Scorer required in Johannesburg match? (5)
[wordplay: abbreviated paraphrase of “Johannesburg match”]
[abbreviated version of “South Africa tie”]
[definition: scorer (as in one who writes musical scores)]

while the Test it brings to mind continues. “Scorer” seems especially fitting for Erik SATIE, as his scores are enjoyable before you even hear the music, not least for his instructions to musicians: “light as an egg”, “like a nightingale with the toothache” and the rest.

Latter patter

Here’s Tramp …

11ac Felt item of clothing; a piece turned over to iron (6)
[wordplay: reversal (“turned over”) of slang for “a gun” (“a piece”), coming after (“to”) chemical symbol for iron]
[reversal of A ROD, after FE]
[definition: felt item of clothing]

… misleading us by making “felt” feel verbal rather than adjectival en route to FEDORA. Before the fedora, there was Fédora, an 1882 play which, the OED tells us, was perhaps most memorable for its stylish lead Sarah Bernhardt:

The name of the play and its heroine appear to have been adopted slightly earlier for various items of womenswear, including hats.

One moment. Felt headgear and 19th-century fictional women … felt headgear and 19th-century fictional women … that’s it! I was thinking of the fedora’s cousin.

Yes: the trilby. Previously Trilby, heroine of an 1894 novel, then slang for a foot (Trilby in the book had tremendous feet), next a kind of shoe, opportunistically trademarked in America … and, most enduringly, a felt hat with a shape either similar to or completely dissimilar to that of the fedora, depending how much or how little you pay attention to headgear.

The novel? Its millinery legacy is perhaps its creator’s third-largest achievement. His second is being grandfather not only to the five boys who inspired Peter Pan but also to a novelist whose name also endures: he was George and she remains Daphne du Maurier.

And his largest achievement? For a long time, they said it was his talent to coin phrases used to this day. Case in point: “bedside manner”, originally meant facetiously, as it appears in this 1884 du Maurier cartoon for Punch. One problem: we see the same phrase used, with, I think, the same side-eye, in a novel of 1869:

The expression most associated with Du Maurier is “curate’s egg”, thanks to another Punch cartoon in which a nervous clergyman attempts good manners:

TRUE HUMILITY.
Right Reverend Host. “I’M AFRAID YOU’VE GOT A BAD EGG, MR. JONES!” The Curate. “OH NO, MY LORD, I ASSURE YOU! PARTS OF IT ARE EXCELLENT!”

Two problems this time. The first is that “curate’s egg” is not as enduring as it seems, since it has effectively lost its meaning. It served a useful purpose for a while in offering a short way of saying something quite involved: “any part of this being bad would spoil the whole thing – and has – but I am choosing to say that some of it is good, either knowingly, to cushion the blow, or with sarcasm”. As often as not, though, it’s used to mean something more like “a mixed bag”, which seems a shame when we already have expressions like “a mixed bag”.

We discussed this tendency for phrases to lose nuance before; then, I had not yet read last year’s piece on “curate’s egg” at Garson O’Toole’s Quote Investigator – a site I trust, for what its worth. It seems that earlier the same year, the less celebrated satirical magazine Judy had a cartoon in which someone tries to be polite about an unpleasant egg. Perhaps, though, Du Maurier had introduced the social context which gives the joke its punch?

He had not. Here’s the caption for Judy’s cartoon:

SCENE – BISHOP’S BREAKFAST TABLE.
Bishop (to timid Curate on a visit). DEAR ME, I’M AFRAID YOUR EGG’S NOT GOOD!
Timid Curate. OH, YES, MY LORD, REALLY – ER – SOME PARTS OF IT ARE VERY GOOD.

Judy’s editor made a fuss, perhaps unaware that the whole being-polite-to-a-bishop-about-an-egg thing had been the subject of an anecdote which seems to have been knocking around for at least 20 years.

Given that I wouldn’t be astonished to discover that there was already a play called Trilby about a woman with nice feet, this brings us to our next challenge. Reader, how would you clue PLAGIARIST?

Cluing competition

Thanks for your clues for SNEEZE. The audacity prize goes to Combinatorialist for the mind-boggling “Rearrange 7 – 5 + ½ × 0 to give a surprising outcome!”

In an adjacent field is PeterMooreFuller who has, as far as I know, invented a new cryptic device in the tradition of the Spoonerism, where “Carroll” indicates a portmanteau word. The example is “‘Sunlight or pepper, or a nostril hair tweeze, may sometimes elicit a sniff and a wheeze,’ wrote Carroll”.

Much to say on this, perhaps in another post. In the meantime, the most unexpected surface reading was DeetotheGee’s “Poles placed by mobile phone company on the borders of Zaire cause explosion”.

The runners-up are Croquem’s economic “Cold blast?” and Lizard’s crossword-referencing “What’s within Azed seen to be tricky? I’ll be blessed if I do it!”; the winner is Alberyalbery’s “Explosion under the bridge?”

Kludos to Albery; please leave entries for this fortnight’s competition and your picks from the broadsheet cryptics below.

Clue of the Fortnight

The Telegraph setter here has managed the trick of making one word look like an adjective …

26ac Night on the town in becoming uniform (7,3)
[double definition]

… when it’s really verbal, en route to EVENING OUT. Evening all!