Solving time: 55m30s
Off to a good start. Mostly straightforward with a few easy clues for beginners. I finished with BODY and SABREWING – I almost gave up on that the latter.
I took a while to see the wordplay for GALLEON as I thought short book was Gal(ations). DECIBEL also took a while to unravel.
Across
1 | A MOS[t] – a book of the Old Testament. |
9 | OR,CHESTRAL=”kestrel” |
11 | 1,M(P)OST |
12 | STE(WARD)S – DRAW in SETS, all reversed. |
14 | S(W)UM |
15 | AD(MINIS)TER – ADTER=anagram of tread. |
17 | TRANSPOSED=anagram of ‘son departs’ |
20 | BODY=BOLDLY with no Ls (learners) – anyone unhappy with learner=L? |
21 | ASB(EST)OS – EST=anagram of sets. |
24 | GI,BE |
26 | SUPER,MODE,L |
27 | GO TO (got zero) |
Down
3 | S(CH,O)OLMEN – anagram of solemn, outside church(CH) and round(O). From the wordplay I thought of this immediately but wasn’t sure of the word. |
4 | BUS(H)T,EA – Shattered=BUST, each=EA, H=hot |
5 | CHRISTMAS ISLAND – anagram of ‘Miss it crashland’ |
6 | GALLEON – reverse of NO[v]ELLA,G |
8 | NONE,S – one of the canonical hours, and from my experience the most popular in crosswords. |
13 | DREADNOUGHT – anagram of ‘A thunder god’ |
16 | SA,BREWING – SA=It (as in Sex appeal) – this was last to go in – I’m not good on hummingbirds. |
18 | POTSDAM – MAD,STOP reversed. Refers to the Potsdam Conference at the end of World War Two. |
19 | DECIBEL – LE(the in French),B(bubbly initially),ICED all reversed. I think this took a while because I thought DE was ‘of the French’ |
21 | A,EG,IS – A=’head of army’ |
22 | BOB,UP – bob is a shilling (old British money which I’ve heard in various phrases: ‘bob a job’, ‘bent as a nine bob note’). |
Are there going to be blogs on the three Grand Final puzzles? I got through them all eventually but not without some considerable difficulty. I’d be interested to compare notes with others.
Mike G
As for L = Learner, there are precious few acceptable alternatives since the L (as seen on the front/back of a car) specifically means Learner (driver). Some publications will allow the use of “student” but not The Times. Even “novice” has to be expanded to “novice driver” or something similar. Pity really, as in most instances “learner” sounds rather clumsy or is a dead give-away.
I’m with The Times on L and learner – although learner is easy, L is only used to mean ‘student’ in a motoring context.
7D in other comment: Mayor is supposed to sound like mare – different kind of mount…
I wonder which the setter had in mind. I think the mountain is the better homophone.
Without a dictionary to hand I don’t know why the correct pronunciation is not what one would expect.
I didn’t really like “wanting” as a link between wordplay and definition in 15A. It seems to me that X (definition) can be said to want Y and Z (wordplay elements) but I don’t see that it works in reverse. I also thought “movement” a touch questionable in 23A. I hesitated to enter CREDO, even though that seemed clear from the wordplay, since I wasn’t aware that CREDO was a musical movement. After finishing the puzzle I consulted Oxford and Chambers, both of which say that CREDO can be a musical setting, which is not quite the same thing.
I had a problem in this corner as I had written SPIN for 10A.
My thinking was S(PI)N where SN = “Tin” and “colour” = “misrepresent” = “spin”. I realised eventually I couldn’t justify PI = “unknown” and had to look for an alternative.
If the answer is mayor, please explain.
Like a few others the combination of body and sabrewing (new word for me) was a stumbling block.
19.40 and could have been worse.
JohnPMarshall
I have two quibbles. First, I think that in 20A ‘all’ should be ‘both’, as there are only two L’s in BOLDLY.
Second, ASBESTOS appears to be defined by the verb phrase ‘we now know to be dangerous’, which I find unsatisfactory.
Didn’t know CREDOS were musical movements, but put it in as clearly being right (with an initial C). Put GO TO in somewhat reluctantly, does it really mean ‘come on’? Is ‘theologians’ sufficient for SCHOOLMEN?
Coming from Scotland (albeit Anglicised) I do struggle with homophones like GARNER=GHANA, WHICH=WITCH, as they don’t come naturally, but I’ve noticed that they are sometimes qualified by ‘some would say’ these days.
Peter, I hope it’s not too late to say well done at Cheltenham – a great result. Jimbo.
I must confess to being in the “what’s the fuss?” group for mare/mayor. Mostly I feel with homophones that if it would work on the BBC news, it’s fair game for the Times xwd. But I have to admit that despite a few weeks spent in the US at various times, thinking I was listening fairly carefully, I’ve heard claims for homophones there (e.g. Sirius/serious) which don’t fit my understanding of any American accent. So something like “some would say” is a nice touch.
Sabrewing slowed me down, and 4a brought about one of those “oh, of course” moments.
Barb
The rest of the crossword has 6 omissions from this blog:
4a Dicey business, finding two sorts of bacon (10)
BACK GAMMON
10a Colour unknown in tin (4)
C Y AN. A mixture of full green and full blue with no red in an RGB display. IN A CMYK display it is the leading C.
23a Musical movements insufficiently rhythmiC – REDO Some (6)
CREDOS. My favourite parts of the Requiem Mass I believe.
25a One’s down for admission to old castle (10)
DRAWBRIDGE
2d You’ll see what teacher does with essay I wrote (3,2,5)
MARK MY WORDS
7d Mount to speak for head of corporation (5)
MAYOR. Sounds like MARE to some. See above for discussion of homophones.