My solving time was off the scale even with generous use of aids after 60 minutes in order to get the thing finished and the blog started. I began well with 1ac and 1dn going straight in swiftly followed by 4 and 5 and 6dn so I thought I was in for a quick solve but then I came unstuck and apart from a handful in the SE almost every other answer was a battle. I didn’t even spot the hidden answer until all the checkers were in place and that was right at the end of the proceedings. I don’t know whether this was due to blogger’s nerves or if it really was a hard one. There were certainly a lot of chestnuts clueing parts of words but in many cases the definitions were devious and the wordplay almost impenetrable. I think I understand it all now apart from 2dn but no doubt others will point out anything I have overlooked.
Across | |
---|---|
1 | TIME TRIAL – Cryptic definition |
6 | THROW – Triple meaning |
9 | S(TR)UM – T |
10 | T(IT, FOR, TA)T – IT = computing, FOR=pro, TA= Territorial Army, all inside TT=tee-total |
11 | A( FARE,WELL) T,O, ARMS – The novel by Ernest Hemingway. FARE WELL = flourish inside AT, then O = ball (!) and ARMS = weapons. |
13 | INFRA DIG – (rain f |
14 | SER(B)IA |
16 | Deliberately omitted. I’m ashamed to say it was my last in which makes me feel this about my solving skills at the moment |
18 | V |
21 | INDIAN ROPE TRICK – (park indirection)* |
23 | A{V(AL)AN}CHE – Two old chestnuts for one here: AL = gangster and CHE = revolutionary |
25 | ER,RED |
26 |
|
27 | WALK,OVERS – WALK = constitutional, followed by the obligatory cricketing reference |
Down | |
1 | Deliberately omitted |
2 | MUR,RAY,FIELD – This is the Edinburgh rugby stadium. MUR = rum (unusual) reversed and FIELD = contestants. I assume RAY was a photographer, real or fictional, but I can’t verify this. On edit; Thanks to Jimbo for confirming the reference to Man Ray who I’ve never heard of. I had looked at the surname RAY on Wikipedia and he is listed amongst many others on the disambiguation page, however there is no indication there of his line of work so I wasn’t able to pick him out. |
3 | TEMPER, |
4 | INTREPID – (printed I)* |
5 | LET FLY – Two meanings, one a bit cryptic. |
6 | TWOSOME – (we most 0)* – ‘0’ = love |
7 | RAT – Another chestnut, RAM = sign, then change M |
8 | W |
12 | ROBE,S(PIER)RE – SRE from S |
13 | I PU(R,I) T, A,N |
15 | CAMP,BELL – I’ll get my song mention in here: The Campbells are comin’, Oho! Oho! by Rabbie Burns. |
17 | S(E)A W,ALL |
19 |
|
20 | CR(AC)OW – As the crow flies = in a straight line. AC = ca (around) reversed |
22 | KUDOS – Sounds like ‘queue doss’ |
24 | A,MY – MY as in ‘My!’ |
About time we had a puzzle with some meast in it – I really enjoyed wrestling with parts of this for 25 minutes.
I think UNEASY at 16A is one of the best hidden words I’ve ever seen. Pity about the obscure opera.
We cant let the infamouse CAMPBELL’s go without recording the Glen Coe massacre of 1692 and their murder of the MacDonalds – still remembered in some northern quarters
I PURITANI (unknown to me) took some time, slowed down by not knowing whether ‘King’ = K or R. In the end, my best guess was confirmed by Google!
Add me to those who have never come across I PURITANI.
The definition of AVALANCHE as ‘mass shooting’ caught me out at first, ‘ring of tents’ was downright ugly, and INFRA DIG must be up there with ‘per se’ for most popular Latinate term.
Liked the anagram at 4dn for its brevity, but after a tough week I’m giving COD to the marvellously cumbersome STRUM.
Lots and lots went in from the literal, working out the wordplay afterwards (eg VAMOOSED, AFTA, ROBESPIERRE, AVALANCHE etc). I never worked out the wordplay for STRUM, my LOI, just glad to finish by putting in a word that fit the literal.
Lots of good candidates for today’s Cod. Think I’ll go for KUDOS. Any objection to the homophone?
A quick query: what does the ‘report’ in 25a add?
Have a good weekend, everyone, and catch up next week! J
PS Has anyone heard of the opera?
As an opera fan (not a buff) I’m ashamed that I needed help to get I PURITANA. Subsequent research, where I was hoping that its obscurity would be confirmed, showed there to have been many recordings. So what do I know?
The cheat lead me to the brilliant UNEASY, my LOI and COD. The experts on the blog suggest this has been a tricky week and so I am pleased to come through unscathed, and if anything my confidence on the up.
Am I making sense?
Like others I’ve never heard of I PURITANI, but I don’t mind a bit of obscurity in a clue like this where the challenge is to construct from wordplay and then make a judgement as to what’s likely.
24dn AMY is just marvellous.
Not just you, jackkt.
Solving tired in the wee small hours, I struggled with all of this. Staring at 13d with all the checking letters, I knew I’d seen this opera title before but still took ages to get it. Turns out we had it in April 2008 (No.23,896) when it was clued rather more helpfully as:
Newly-arranged air I put in opera (1,8)
But my downfall was another typo – ROBSPIIERRE – which led to a hopeless GALLOPED at 18a.
I think my Player Rating just went negative.
And well blogged Jack, as always.
Time dreadful, but puzzle understood and appreciated. ‘Avalanche’, in particular, was a great clue.
I enjoyed this one a lot, and did it in 18 minutes feeling I was doing really well, perhaps because the cluing, while splendidly devious, seemed consistently so, if that makes any sense. It meant that I read 23a, for example, with only the briefest nod towards the telegraphed Valentines Day Massacre, and the splendidly opaque definition makes it my CoD by a narrow margin over the Byzantine STRUM.
LET FLY was last in (would also have made CoD on another day)
One minor quibble: I don’t buy TEMPERA as a drawing method – it’s paint and painting, isn’t it?
Congrats to the setter.
Louise
A: Well, my man, how goes it?
B: (Sings ‘My Man’ to show how it goes.)
In this entry (and it is *not8 the one I mean, which was recent) you, Jack, inform us that I Puritani is the 76th best opera of all time! 🙂