Solving time : 24:50 – and I’m only the sceond on the timer so far, so I think this is on the harder side. I certainly found it that way, piecing together a number of answers from one side or the other, though now I think I’ve got it all together.
Blatant plug – hey, are you looking for a last-minute gift that does real good and has crazy pictures and crossword clues. I bought two of my friends the 3D Crossword Calendar, and now I’m considered the most generous guy on the planet.
Away we go…
Across | |
---|---|
1 | HUT,CH |
4 | BABY GRAND: GRAND being the sum of money |
9 | GRAVADLAX: GRAV |
10 | MINCE: C |
11 | ROTTER: double def, second being one that is in the process of rotting |
12 | UNHORSED: (SO,HER,DUN)* |
14 | SMALL, HOURS: not sure I’ve seen this phrase without “wee” in front of it |
16 | CLIP: triple definition |
19 | SOBS: B in SOS |
20 | PENNY,ROYAL |
22 | FOR,SOOTH |
23 | INCITE: sounds like IN SIGHT |
26 | UNITE: two homophones in a row! sounds like YOU KNIGHT |
27 | LJUBLJANA: capital of Slovenia which I think has appeared before – very tricky wordplay – CLUBLAND without the outer letters, insert two J’s and an A at the end |
28 | GREENBACK: since EVIAN reversed would be NAIVE |
29 | NOOSE: reverse of E,SOON |
Down | |
1 | HIGH-RISES: a strict union could ask for high rises (or raises?) |
2 | TRACT: take OR away from TRACTOR |
3 | HEAVENLY: H,EVENLY with A inside |
4 | B,ALL |
5 | BOXING RING: since RING is hidden in fighteR IN Gear |
6 | GAMMON: AMMO in G |
7 | AUNT SALLY: or AUNT’S ALLY |
8 | DREAD: R in DEAD |
13 | POTENTILLA: OP reversed, then TEN(mid-morning),TILL(up to),A |
15 | AUBERGINE: BERG,IN,E covered with AU |
17 | PILFERAGE: (FRAGILE)* in PE |
18 | FRANKL |
21 | MOVE ON: take the I away from MOVIE ON |
22 | F,LUNG |
24 | IDAHO: O,HAD,I reversed – I think I’ve seen this wordplay before recently |
25 | PUCK: double definition from the hockey disc and the character in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” |
Apparently Beecham used to go into a club in St James’s every morning to relieve himself on the way to the Phil. After some years of this, the doorman had the gall to ask if he was a member. Sir Thomas: “Good heavens! Is this a club as well?”
Adds a new meaning to “Gents’ Club”?
Have actually eaten GRAVADLAX. Didn’t enjoy it one bit. It even tasted as if it had been buried for a month or so.
COD to HEAVENLY for a refreshing use of “regularly”. WOD (worst of the day) to ROTTER because it was my last in.
Edited at 2013-12-19 08:33 am (UTC)
Gave up halfway. I’m not sure if a lot of the clues were terribly clever or simply terrible but I’m not really in a position to judge – I’ll leave that to those who solved it.
Edited at 2013-12-19 03:17 am (UTC)
All in all I did just about finish, but would have to give that one as a victory to the setter, since a lot of his clues went over my head.
Never heard of PENNYROYAL or POTENTILLA, GREENBACK was obvious from the definition, but I did not see what Evian had to do with it.
If Times crosswords were all like this one I don’t think I would bother with them.
Edited at 2013-12-19 04:13 am (UTC)
This reminds me of Groucho Marx’s famous line: I wouldn’t belong to any club that would have me as a member.
Thanks to all, Chris.
POTENTILLA I DID get entirely from wordplay, though it rang a faint tinkle. A model of how to clue something half your solvers won’t have heard of. Ditto GRAVADLAX.
On the other hand starting a clue “So, her dun” is telegraphing an anagram rather too strongly. Shall we call it a brave try at an &lit?
I made GREENBACK my CoD – the sort of clue that makes you feel a bit clever once you spot it. UNITE was pretty cool, too.
Today I have learned that the short version of until can have two L’s and no apostrophe. I thought it was a second appearance of “work” during solving, implied in the clue for POTENTILLA.
Edited at 2013-12-19 09:15 am (UTC)
wonder what nasties Sotira has doled out for our Turkey tomorrow?!
Found this one tricky, and was left with several gaps…
LJUBLJANA will not be in it (see my comment below).
The worry this week is that I will not be able to solve my own clue in sotira’s crossword tomorrow.
I had heard of GRAVADLAX, POTENTILLA and PENNYROYAL, and I saw GREENBACK straight away, so they definitely helped my solving time.
Once I was happy with the spelling of Ljubljana IDAHO was my LOI.
I thought “In summer one dreamt” was a fairly weak indication of a character in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Another thoroughly enjoyable solve – hats off to the setter for LJUBLJANA, a HEAVENLY clue, FORSOOTH, as was GREENBACK, my COD. I rather like clues where one spend ages worrying at them, and then when the penny drops one thinks, Watson like, how absurdly simple!
Odd mixture of the easy, e.g. HUTCH, SOBS, and the inordinately tricky, e.g. BOXING RING. A bit annoyed by BALL, so simple I couldn’t be sure it was right and kept it back until (or till) I had both checkers.
We are being literary all of a sudden – after the glut yesterday, Shakespeare and Chaucer today. Who’s next?
Edited at 2013-12-19 12:30 pm (UTC)
Once I realised that I was looking for a 10-letter plant to fit PO…….A and that I again had to try to figure out how to spell LJUBLJANA, I went to bed.
LJUBJANA appeared in 2010 – http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/631388.html – and I did get it right that time but quite by accident, attempting to spell something else. I seem to remember having a similar experience with Izvestiya.
COD .. GREENBACK (maybe because I saw it quickly)
No, actually I’m having a terrific week, just not in Crosswordland.
I didn’t know PENNY ROYAL but I did remember POTENTILLA from puzzles past.
I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s Turkey, and to several ‘less than a litre’s on Saturday.
I liked “GREENBACK” – I seem to recall Evian/naive coming up before. Not so impressed with “UNHORSED” – I agree with others that the anagram was weak and too obviously signposted.
It looks like this week’s award for “most ingenious or entertaining accident” will be claimed by a gentleman in the building trade. Having fixed his hand to a stud-wall partition with a nailgun, he threw said nailgun down and managed to nail his foot to the floor. This, in turn, caused him to fall over backwards as he pulled his benailed hand out of the plasterboard, whereupon he concussed himself on the lip of a wheelbarrow. Full marks to him, I say – we haven’t seen enough of that kind of thing since Ealing Studios folded. Of course, there’s still Friday night to look forward to, but to be honest it seldom throws up anything interesting, so to speak.
Apart from that, I whizzed through all but 23ac (INCITE), 29ac (NOOSE), 18dn (FRANKLIN) and 24dn (IDAHO), and they fell quickly enough once I got INCITE (which I must have seen before). LJUBLJANA went straight in from the 1st, 3rd and last letters, though I had to pause briefly to check the wordplay.
Edited at 2013-12-19 11:55 pm (UTC)
I must apologise for taking so long to reply to your comment. I’ve been mulling it over and I think you’re almost certainly right. My problem was that the word “this” is commonly used nowadays to indicate the answer, and from that point of view I think the clue would have been better without it. ROTTER was my first thought (for exactly the reasons you give), but it occurred to me that “wretch” could indicate RAT, and I was worried that I might be missing some more-or-less obvious word that would fit RAT‑E‑. Hence my dithering as I looked for alternatives.
A real pleasure to meet you too – I’ve been dining out on it since!
Thank you for your further insight into your thinking – really helpful as a learning exercise for me.
I see that the clue works with and without the word ‘this’.
The superfluous word makes it possible for ‘that won’t always be this’ to be part of the clue separate from ‘fresh’ as opposed to the more straightforward ’that won’t always be fresh’.
I’m not experienced enough to know when a clue is bad because it deceives the solver or good because it does exactly that!
A tough work out, but an enjoyable one.
I haven’t had time for the Times crossword for the past two days, so I have them stored up. From the comments of other contributors, it seems that I may also face challenges with them.