23766 – My first blog, blow by blow

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
 Solving time: Longer than it should have taken. I put this down to nerves on my first blog and attempting it late at night after a busy day.. Nevertheless it was a very enjoyable puzzle with a good mix of clue styles. I hope no howlers have crept in and that I haven’t analysed too many clues. For COD I’d pick 10a.

Across
1 CENOTAPH – C(pet on a)*H
5 JUGGLE – sounds like “Jug ‘ll”, jug being our chosen word for prison today
9 BLOW-BY-BLOW – A detailed account and a cryptic reference to the composer John Blow (1649-1708) thought to have been one of Henry Purcell’s music masters. I shall be interested to know how others got on with this clue. I had to dig deep for the answer despite having studied music of that era in some detail many years ago. I think I may have been too distracted by the rare appearance of Henry P in a clue to consider the alternative route to the solution which may have got me there quicker.
10 MALT,REAT – Malt is the Scottish alcohol + (rate)*
11 AR(C(arriageway))TIC
12 T(here)R(eluctantly) OG=go rev. – I must admit I didn’t know this word meaning to trudge but it was easy enough to work out
20 TAM=mat rev., P
23 S(ACRE)D – SD from SynoD
24 OF,FE=iron,RING – This threw me for a moment but a ring can be a set of bells
25 IMP,(c)OVER, ISH=(his)*
27 SYM =(my s(on)) all rev., BOL(d) – I only spotted “bold” whilst blogging. In the heat of solving I took the BOL from “bolshy” though the meaning wasn’t quite right.
28 PRURIENT – Interrup*(ted) – The answer came easily enough with the checking letters in place but it took me a while to spot that it was an anagram.
 
Down
1 CH((ROMA),T(he))IC
2 NOVEL,L,O – The popular composer being Ivor Novello. Along with the above mentioned Purcell another favourite of mine. You may gather I have a somewhat eclectic taste in music! Possibly Ivor’s most famous composition is Keep The Home Fires Burning, very appropriate at this time of remembrance as was the solution to 1a.
3 TA,BARD=drab rev
4 PRO,PAG(e),ATE=(tea)*
5 J(udge),AY(=always),WAL(=law rev.),K
7 LO,W(R)ISE – whilst Canary Wharf is a high-rise development
13 GASTROPUB – (soup bar,g,t)*  Nice one!
15 E,SCOFF,IE,R – Georges Auguste Escoffier, the master of traditional French coooking
16 RE(PU=up rev.)GNANT
18 RE(g)ALITY – “Some TV”? It often feels like all TV these days, but of course the setter is correct.
22 T(1)E,THE,R(ope) – that’s my take on it anyway but perhaps I am missing something. If not it seems a bit of an odd one to me.

12 comments on “23766 – My first blog, blow by blow”

  1. 6:44 for this one – the real starting point being 9A which was easy for me, especially coming just after Ivor N in my solving sequence. Maybe 1A for COD.
  2. 17 minutes, I guessed 9A from the definition. Rather liked 7D and 16D, found 6D a bit strained.
  3. Well done jackkt. I too was surprised by how nervous one felt doing one’s first analysis (and how long it takes to write all the notes). The puzzle was a pleasant 30 minutes. I got 9 across by first getting the B of TABARD and using my sole piece of knowledge of Purcell, that he wrote for the trumpet, hence BLOW. I too am missing something about 22 down, which doesn’t quite seem to work. I liked 24 across, 7 down and 21 down but choose 13 down as COD. Jimbo.
  4. Welcome and thanks jackkt
    Another enjoyable one, taking me 17 mins altogether. “Autobigraphy” is used often enough to make me realise that the answer to 9 was xxx By xxx. I think 22dn was intended to be an &lit with “one’s wanting” being a subtraction indicator, but it seems a bit clumsy.
    My COD is 10a, but jug’ll at 5a gave me the biggest smile. I never tire of AT ISSUE being clued as A TISSUE 🙂
  5. Not too difficult today.
    I loved Juggle – I got the G first and spent ages looking for something beginning with jug….
    Nice analysis jackkt!!
  6. Enjoyed the crossword, about 25 minutes for me which is better than average. Good critique too.
    I always thought (perhaps wrongly) that the word ‘scoff’ came from Escoffier. Presumably it is acceptable to use such a word to define the solution from which the word itself came?
  7. Nice debut Jack! Hard to find an exceptional clue here but I suppose I kind of liked 15D ESCOFFIER since the clue held together and it was rather amusing that such an anglo-saxon (?) word like SCOFF would turn up inside of a French chef. How insulting.

    Have to say that I missed all the subtleties of 9A unfortunately — rather a clever clue it turns out — which I guessed (having tried LINE-BY-LINE and NOTE-BY-NOTE first).

  8. Maybe it’s recovery from thanksgiving, but I found this one a real struggle, 35 minutes. Wasn’t helped by my printer cutting off the last line of 28ac (silly Americans and their short paper sizes. I liked 1ac, thanks jacktt for the analysis of prurient (last to go in the grid) and tether (second last, though I would have finished faster if I’d just written it in without trying to figure out wordplay). Blow by blow, har de ha ha.
  9. I’ve only just got round to doing this one, and found it another enjoyable puzzle in a bumper week (9:02). COD: 11A. I’m sure you’re right about TETHER.

    Purcell, almost always. Novello, sometimes. (I’m particularly fond of the tune of “Fly home, little heart” from King’s Rhapsody, though I can leave the words. Unfortunately I can only find the most ghastly rendition (of its incipit) on the Internet, sung by Patricia Johnson, an old-style fruity mezzo!)

    1. I know it well, Tony. I think his most famous from that score is Some Day My Heart Will Awake.
  10. Seven omissions from jackkt’s first blog:

    8a What might give some moRE Velocity (3)
    R EV

    14a Keen goalie – one prepares for shooting (10)
    GAME KEEPER

    17a Position taken into the House of Lords angered judges (5-5)
    CROSS BENCH

    26a Spring sap is flowing (3)
    SPA

    6d Small bird from Ghana once, not middle-of-road but extremely rare (9)
    GOLD C (OA) RE ST

    19d Base immorality spells trouble (7)
    BED EVIL

    21d A paper under discussion (2,5)
    A TISSUE

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