Mostly straightforward but 28A,29A and 17D provided something of a sting in the tail and cost me an irksome couple of minutes. The sort of puzzle that I look at after solving and ask myself why certain clues took me so long to get as the answers seemed so obvious.
Solving time: 14:38
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | P in SA,RED – briefly considered DER for “communist backing”. |
| 9 | (CLOUDIER)* – CRUDE OIL. |
| 10 | (PARENT)* – ENRAPT. “Send” can be a slang term meaning to thrill or rouse into a state of ecstasy; for me, it’s a usage that I don’t think I’ve seen outside of a crossword (so I’ll sit back and wait for the comments quoting well-known examples of it now). |
| 11 | THROUGHOUT – “threw out” |
| 13 | alternate letters of ChAiRmEn. |
| 14 | AS,IS – “a ziz”. I had no idea that “ziz” (or “zizz”) was a dictionary word so I filled this in thinking it was a weak homophone on “zzz”. |
| 20 | BALT(i) |
| 21 | AD,AD< – the possible origins of the word DADA are interesting: one theory is that “da da” meaning “yes yes” in Romanian is the equivalent of the sarcastic English phrase “yeah right”. |
| 28 | W,NAY,ELSE – WESLEYAN. Toughest clue of the puzzle for me and the last one to go in. NAY ELSE for “no different” was a particularly difficult spot and on my first reading I thought that “Nonconformist originally” was going to be N. John Wesley founded the Methodist movement. |
| 29 | MINIM,A – another tricky one as you have to spot that the natural-sounding “bar area” is two separate elements of wordplay |
| Down | |
| 2 | PUR(e)CHASER – only just worked out the wordplay here. It was the “short neat” bit that had me going. |
| 6 | W in SEE THE ARTS – excellent clue with a great surface. Picking out the definition from “Loves to visit…” is tricky. |
| 7 | MOROCCO – a type of goatskin leather, as well as a country. |
| 17 | MAN in (SIMPLE)* – I thought I was in trouble when I had this and 28A left as I couldn’t see an obvious answer for either of them. The wordplay for this was clear enough – I ruled out F for “fellow” as I had an A filled in and felt sure that had to come from MAN – so with P?LMANI?M, PELMANISM was the only realistic answer. As well as a card-game it’s also a system of mind-training to improve the memory. |
| 19 | SCAN,LAD (going up) – what you might read in the RED TOPS. |
| 20 | B,URGE,ON – I’ve never seen “crust” to indicate the first letter of a word before but I think it’s fair enough and works perfectly in this clue. |
| 24 | DI(sh),GIN |
PARTY, which I don’t think I’ve seen before (maybe “Outdo?” for BARBECUE or something similar though). I didn’t know PELMANISM, and it was the last to go in. CASEMATE also had me thinking COXXXXXX for a while. I started on 27D by typing in STY, but didn’t find it convincing. Nevertheless it took a whole to see RAM. 29A was also tricky until I had MXNXXX. Jason J
You have to hear the first three yous lasting for several beats.
I wasn’t sure about the meaning of SENT or how “AS IS” sounded like sleep, so thanks to those explaining all this.
5a Fellow lawyer in part of fortress (8)
CASE MATE. Not a commonly known word?
15a Armed troops search river with police protection (5,5)
RIFLE CO R PS
18a Who might have unlimited opportunities to acquire gold? (10)
PROSPECT (S) OR
23a The ordinary man in the street? (10)
PEDESTRIAN
25a Girl’s carrying antique container (6)
H OLD ER
26a Going round forest soldier planted a tree (8)
G ARDEN I A
3d What do United players wear at Old Trafford? Rags? (3,4)
RED TOPS
4d Scheduled for radio, old entertainers such as Eric and Ernie (3)
DU O(ld). Wow, what a huge clue for a 3 letter answer.
5d ChanCELLOr’s concealed big fiddle? (5)
CELLO
8d Animal one caught in nasty trap (5)
TAP 1 R
12d Do without? (6,5)
GARDEN PARTY. A concise clue – see 4 down.
16d Attractive suit (3)
FIT. Much better.
22d Make amends quite early in the day (5)
AT ONE
27d There’s little room to accomodate a farm animal (3)
R A M