Solving time: 41 mins
It felt pretty quick this morning. I got the two long ones straight away – it helps when that happens. There were a couple of bits I needed to look up after completing, but it was all quite doable.
Music of the day: a clip of Anton Karas playing his zither.
Across
1 | LO(C,H)AN – a lochan, as you might expect, is a small lochan. This was the first to go in, thanks to last Monday’s piped water clue that I didn’t understand at the time. |
4 | O,BD,[c]URACY – BD=Bachelor of Divinity |
11 | A,LIE,N – LIE=invention held in A and N(ew). |
13 | E,LE(VAT)E – E=English; LEE=General as in Robert E Lee, a general in the American Civil War – the first general I think of nowadays. |
14 | A(D,E)PT – D and E are examples of musical keys, I think. |
15 | COAL HOLE – COAL=”Cole” Porter. A nut (or chestnut) coal is a small piece of coal – I had to look this up after solving. |
18 | REV,E(ILL)E – EE=endlessly keen. |
23 | RE,CLAIM – RE=Royal Engineers. A mining claim is hat portion of the public mineral lands which a miner, for mining purposes, takes and holds in accordance with mining laws. I had to look that up, too – never come across before. |
25 | ORTOLAN – hidden word. I don’t think I knew that a bunting was a bird. |
28 | COGITATE – CO=fellow, GI=soldier, TE=note about AT=”army troops” possibly. But I’m not sure. |
29 | CHASER – Yellow-Dog Dingo is a Rudyard Kipling character who did some chasing. |
Down
1 | LIB,ERI(A)N – if the ‘once’ refers to politician, I am sure my grandfather would disagree. |
3 | APPOINTEE=”a point Es” or something – I don’t think I’ve quite got it. |
5 | BY THE SAME TOKEN |
7 | ABIGAIL=”abbey gale” – an abigail is a lady’s waiting maid. I actually looked this up yesterday, after someone played it in a game of Scrabble. I thought that’ll probably come up in a crossword soon! |
8 | YONDER- anag of ‘not ready’ -TA |
9 | FIFTH COLUMNIST |
16 | HAL(FT)RUTH – FT is the Financial Times. |
17 | REIN,DEER=Reed reversed. Carol Reed is most famous for directing The Third Man. |
21 | CELEB(E)S – Sulawesi, the island of Indonesia, was once called Celebes. I had heard both names but couldn’t tell you where they were or that they were the same place. |
22 | FROLIC – L=learner and 1 in FROC[k] |
24 | A,R,GOT |
“Once” is presumably because they are now Liberal Democrats.
I found today’s a real toughie.
I agree that in 1dn LIB=politician once (on the basis that the Libs were previously known as Lib Dems) must be the right reading given that ERIAN clearly provides “area in Ireland”. Can’t see how BERIA, who was anyway a particularly murderous secret policeman rather than a politician, could fit in.
(ooh, bit of political controversy – where’s the colonel ..)
Last to go in was CELEBES – never heard of it or Sulawesi, but the word play and checkers enabled me to guess correctly. I would never have worked out the wordplay to 4 ac, so thanks to Foggy for that. By way of support for Anax’s suggestion (elsewhere), my “clue of the day” is 22dn ;o)
I finally remembered bunting can be a bird from the old nursery rhyme (bye baby bunting, daddy’s gone a hunting…)
I must remember to nominate 5D when Saturday prize puzzle 23743 is blogged. I thought we were in Private Eye crossword territory for a moment and I can’t believe it wasn’t intentional on the setter’s part.
I’ll definitely be “dealing with” both interpretations when I write it up!
As for today’s, my experience was very similar to Anax’s – I looked at it on the train for 10 minutes or so and only got 5 or 6 clues, then had another go at it at lunchtime and polished it off fairly quickly.
But a fun puzzle, really!
My nomination for clue of the day is 4A: a good surface reading which neatly concealed the wordplay.
There are 8 “easies” in this, my penultimate puzzle in a year of blog completion:
10a Writer’s position at end of dance (9)
BALL POINT
12a Pragmatic type working (as tiler)* (7)
REALIST
20a Left university career oddly showing monetary gain (5)
L U C (a) R (e) E (r)
26a Prone, possibly, to be mendacious (5)
LYING
27a Not even unfair ignoring it (9)
INEQU (it) ABLE
2d Students swap fake finally for a work of art (7)
COLL (e) A GE
6d High-class pundit’s employment (5)
U SAGE. I have difficulty equating SAGE with PUNDIT as I watch and listen to a lot of ex-footballers who are PUNDITS but not at all SAGE-like?
19a Attractive female’s rejected craftwork (7)
(f) ETCHING