Solving time : 24:54 on the club timer – I was so far from the setter’s wavelength that it was mocking me from the other side of the space-time continuum. After completing it, I think I was having a bad brain day (I’m trying to cut down on pain medication so I’ll blame withdrawl).
I thought we were heading for a pangram, so near the end I was looking for words with a Q or a Z in it, but there were none to be found. So much for trying to be smart.
I am unlikely to be able to comment much, so feel free to ask in comments and I’m sure the hive mind will oblige. I’m typing with one hand so sorry for any ghastly typos.
Away we go…
Across | |
---|---|
1 | SWALLOW(stomach),TAILED(followed) |
9 | ISLAM: hidden reversed |
10 | LIGHTEN UP: (THE,PLUG,IN)* |
11 | STAR-SHAPED: R in STASH, then APED – did not know this adjective use of ASTEROID but the wordplay is clear |
12 | FAST: triple definition – bound(held fast), rash and on a fast (fare-dodging) – my last in but a very fun clue. A few commenters point out this works better as two longish definitions |
14 | A FAR CRY: ARC in A,FRY |
16 | SHORTEN: SH(gagging order) then RTE(Radio Telefis Eireann) in ON |
17 | PIPLESS: |
19 | FIGURES: double definition, one being 1’s |
20 | NARK: double definition |
21 | PLAYFELLOW: P,L, then (FEW,LOYAL)* |
24 | EXTRA(wide),D(diameter),ITE |
25 | ADIEU: DIE in AU |
26 | STATE OF THE ART: or STATE OFT HEART |
Down | |
1 | S(small),HIPS(joints),CARP(fish),ENTER(l |
2 | ALLOA: ALLO |
3 | LUMP,SUCKER(one had easily) |
4 | WALLABY: BALL reversed in WAY – two cricket references in the one puzzle |
5 | ALGIERS: (IS,LARGE)* |
6 | LUTE: sounds like LOOT |
7 | DONCASTER: or DON CASTER |
8 | SPIT(beach area),AND(with),SAWDUST(fine stuff). I think my favorite one I’ve been to is the Duck and Drake in Leeds.See comments – I’ve given this one short shrift – PIT in SANDS,A,W,DUST |
13 | TONGUE-LASH: (HUGE,TALONS)* |
15 | AS,PI,RATES: so used to seeing PI meaning religious I was taken aback by seeing the 3.141etc PI here |
18 | SA,LT,IRE |
19 | FLYLEAF: FLY then FLEA with the F moved to the bottom |
22 | LEI,L,A |
23 | JAVA: opening letters of Just As Vessel Approaches |
Nice, different feel to this one. Last in were PIPLESS and FAST (canny def.).
COD (with a groan) to LUTE.
The only unknowns were LUMPSUCKER (knew lumpfish, but that was no help) and ‘asteroid’ meaning STAR-SHAPED so I put my difficulties down to quite a lot of tricky wordplay and carefully concealed definitions. I had RECORDS for ages at 19ac which convinced me that, having failed to crack the anagram at 13dn it wasn’t one after all.
To add to the misery, none of the four long bordering answers were obvious … to me at least. Then there were the part-of-speech switches: “asteroid” and “irrational” being notable cases.
All in all, one of those puzzles where you feel more a sense of relief than a sense of accomplishment on completion. (Now for the anaesthetic to wear off.)
With only the S at the end to prompt, I so wanted 15d to be HARRUMPHS (it’s got the speeds at the end, at least).
I thought the &littish definition in 1d was a bit of a strange job description for Mr Chips, but I can’t see anything else. Any offers?
STATE OF THE ART pleased me most while solving, in a decent collection of quirky clues.
Please excuse my other comments.
George Clements
Not the setter’s fault of course but “star-shaped” needs a complete overhaul in the light of modern scientific knowledge. Neither asteroids nor stars are star-shaped in the sense that the dictionaries have it. They merely appear so seen from Earth, because of atmospheric distortion..
Edited at 2013-10-24 01:23 pm (UTC)
In summary, “star-shaped” is synonymous with “shaped like a star” – whatever shape that may be 🙂
Having said that, there were some that should have been bunged in from the definitions alone that I didn’t see as quickly as I should have done, such as EXTRADITE and PLAYFELLOW, but I let the wordplay confuse me. I got SWALLOW-TAILED quickly but the other three long ones took a while to unravel. My time would probably have been a lot slower if I hadn’t seen “one had easily” for SUCKER in 3dn as quickly as I did. The excellent FAST was my LOI.
FOI Adieu, LOI Extradite.
Needed the wordplay to get quite a few, viz flyleaf, extradite, lumpsucker, playfellow and star-shaped.
Liked Doncaster and Saltire and the amusing definition of Fast as fare-dodging.
For ‘asteroid’ think typography, not astronomy!
RH side was recalcitrant – having seen SWISS at 1d, could only think ‘army-knife’ which doesn’t work for many reasons.
Thanks for blogging George – hope you feel better soon.
I didn’t understand what “spot” was doing in 12ac, so thanks to ulaca for enlightening me there. I’m still not sure what “harder” is doing in 15dn.
STAR-SHAPED, LUMPSUCKER and FLYLEAF were all unknown to me and had to be constructed carefully from the wordplay. I find this the most satisfying sort of clue to solve.
Fast LOI for me too (I agree with the double-def interpretation) and I think asteroid is a perfectly good and fair clue.
George, I know the Duck and Drake and it is indeed a very good example of a S&S pub.
The apostrophe in register’s and the lack of it in ones completely destroy the surface; otherwise I thought the surfaces today were uniformly excellent. A fine puzzle, and difficult: 47 min.
Rob
I still haven’t worked out how FIGURES = “registers”. Surely if the answer to 26ac is supposed to be an adjective (meaning “modern”), then it should be hyphenated, so the unhyphenated enumeration is wrong. Is 1dn supposed to be an &lit? If so, I don’t think much of it. And I personally don’t pronounce LUTE in the same way as “loot”. There was some good stuff in there, but too many minor irritations.
I agree with you about 1d and 19a.
11ac (“star-shaped”) was also a problem. I didn’t decode the wordplay, and was left guessing at “star” (based on the rocket and the asteroid). I spent a long time trying to convince myself that “star shaker/scarer/skater” were perfectly common expressions which I had mysteriously failed to encounter before. Got there in the end.
I have to say I’m not impressed by “star-shaped” as an answer – it seems a somewhat arbitrary connection of two words, rather than a common phrase. Why not “leaf-coloured” or “walrus-like”?
Also failed to parse “lute”. Finished the puzzle in a grumpy mood, but fortunately there are always patients to take it out on. (“Does it hurt when I do this? Yes, thought it might.”)
Am I the only one who has tried to convince himself of the most improbable words or phrases in the course of crosswording? My personal nadir, based on an incorrect intersecting word, was “palmish”, which I eventually convinced myself of meaning “handy”.
I think we’ll forgive it on the basis that it’s a dictionary definition of asteroid. Much as I like the idea of living in a world where there are words for “leaf-coloured” and “walrus-like” no such words exist, AFAIK.
As regards making up words, stay tuned for next week’s Championship prelim puzzle.
I’m sorry, I forgot to identify myself in responding to z8 about ‘ship’s carpenter’, and my comment was not very lucid: I meant to say that ‘small joints’ had to do double duty as part of ‘One using small joints’, serving as the definition for the solution.
As ever, I could well have missed something.
George Clements
“LOOT” as a pronounciation for LUTE is justified in the dictionaries so I’m glad I’ve not been pronouncing it wrong all these years!
Interesting about STAR-SHAPED: I think it’s one of those common compounds that doesn’t make the dictionary perhaps for the reason that if they included it they’d have to include lots of others.
I think “registers” = “figures” is a bit tenuous perhaps, but Tony Sever is right about the apostrophe. All in all, though perhaps not entirely convoncing so sorry about that.
“harder” is in the ASPIRATES clue on the principle that (in a linguistic sense) there is always some sort of breathing going on when pronouncing words.
Didn’t really like this one, but it could just have been me.