Well, I found this tough, and it seems to be testing our high flyers. It’s be interesting to see where the SNITCH settles down to. The ones that pushed my time out from around 20 minutes to the final 25.20 were two of the short ones, 1ac and 20ac which I was determined to solve and justify before submitting: this is blog night, after all. In this endeavour, as you will see, I failed but (spoiler alert) found a twinkle of light at the end of the game. Not quite as tough as yesterday’s COMMON, but not far off. Otherwise, I have successfully negotiated the (French again!) plants for one of which the clue provides most of the answer to a further plant, and have gamely attempted to cover the rather higher than usual science-y stuff but am prepared to be corrected by people who know. Some really good examples of the noble art of surface writing today.
Here is everything I’ve managed to work out, with clues, definitions and SOLUTIONS.
Across
1 Incapacitate old gun — by neglecting it (4)
MAIM Of course, you think you’ve got to find a word for gun from which you can exclude IT, but not this time. The sneaky “by” gives X (2X4), to be removed from MAXIM. Invented in 1884 by Hiram Stevens Maxim, credited as the first properly automatic machine gun and used in practically every theatre of war until 1959, which qualifies it both as a gun and old.
4 After disturbance, men get into plant (10)
MIGNONETTE How wonderful: the setter must have seen me coming. After trying to present MISTLETOE as an otherwise unlikely plant ending -ETTE on Monday, here we have a real one, an anagram (after disturbance) of MEN GET INTO. Take your pick from lettuce, a fragrant herb, the henna tree and a vine. And a sauce
9 Dam’s state primarily means adding extra top covering (10)
MOTHERHOOD Stop trying to think where the Hoover Dam is. Take the first letter (primarily) of Means, while adding OTHER for extra and HOOD for top covering. Dam is here an oldish word for mother.
10 Live with a top-class lover (4)
BEAU Be for live, plus a in plain sight and the Mitford upper class U.
11 Two blokes picked up very short unit (6)
MICRON Two random male names, strictly only one of them as a homophone, Mike and Ron.
12 Probably a bad conductor, Miles interrupts musicians with a line (3-5)
NON-METAL Pretty surface. The musicians are a NONET, interrupted by M(iles) with A L(ine) tacked on the end. Graphite, a form of carbon, is the only common non-metal conductor, if not a particularly good one, so our setter properly puts in “probably”. Maurice Miles, sometime conductor of the Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra and BBC Welsh and Scottish Orchestras is the only musical example I can find.
14 Pillar of Islam deceived judge (4)
HADJ Pilgrimage to Mecca, one of te for chief duties of the faithful Muslim. HAD for deceived plus J(udge).
15 Fluster some returning crate (10)
RATTLETRAP Rattle for fluster plus PART for some reversed (returning). An old car or jalopy.
17 Disease — PhD worked with it, I hear (10)
DIPHTHERIA Hands up if you struggled with an anagram (worked) of DISEASE PHD, but then realised it’s actually of PHD and IT I HEAR. No homophone, then, either.
20 Help from A-M not given? (4)
ABET My last in and a gamble. I’ll let you know if I’ve worked it out by the end of the blog. OK, I have it. A-M is the first half of ALPHABET, and it’s not given. Just the second half, then. Gosh I feel clever!
21 Stylish brother a cardinal? I can’t see it (8)
INFRARED IN for stylish, FRA for brother (as in Fra Angelico) and RED for cardinal as an adjective.
23 Checks around island’s seed store (6)
TESTIS Seed store! Tests for checks around I(sland).
24 Couple came across India heading west (4)
ITEM Came across plus NATO India reversed (heading west).
25 Iris‘s French food outlets bringing in foreign cash (5-2-3)
FLEUR-DE-LIS I think this is FR(ench) DELIS (food outlets) with LEU for foreign cash, which is not foreign for our Romanian contributors, included.
26 Pious sister nursing Yankee medic’s breakdown (10)
HYDROLYSIS Pious: HOLY sister: SIS, nursing or including NATO Yankee DR for medic. Any chemical breakdown of material by water.
27 Soak‘s under the table spewing last of beer (4)
DUNK Under the table DRUNK losing (spewing) the last letter of beeR. Not the most pretty image.
Down
2 Outrage current host taking lift in a race (11)
ABOMINATION This is current: I, host: MOB reversed (taking lift) inside A NATION for a race. Let’s not have the race/nation debate again.
3 Prince‘s mother nearly has a pint over at hotel (9)
MAHARAJAH After abandoning the idea of a prince’s mother being a Queen, I saw mother: MA, HA from has nearly, plus A JAR, colloquial for a pint reversed (over) at H(otel).
4 Eliot’s weaver bags iodine salt (7)
MARINER It helps if you know George Eliot’s Silas MARNER and that he was a weaver. Throw in the symbol for Iodine and decide that you’re looking for the sailor salt not a chemical one.
5 Refreshing nude art contributes to my amiable disposition (4-11)
GOOD-NATUREDNESS An anagram (refreshing) of NUDE ART encased in GOODNESS for the laconic my. Memories of Geoffrey Boycott pronouncing it aim aye’ able.
6 Possibly first racket stopping exam (7)
ORDINAL Racket is DIN, and exam ORAL. The first “stops” the second
7 Maybe post minute in Times (5)
TWEET Minute is WEE (wee cowering timorous beastie – well it was Burns night on Tuesday) inside two T(ime)s
8 Reach the qualifying rounds (5)
EQUAL Today’s beautifully hidden hidden. Inside thE QUALifying.
13 An old rebel musician snubs American RA perhaps (11)
ACADEMICIAN Your old rebel is Jack CADE who tried to bring down the government of the day in 1450, so yes, old. An gives you the initial A. Add MUSICIAN in plain sight minus the American US. RA Royal Academician.
16 Leader of tap dancers managed to grasp new beat (9)
TRANSCEND Perhaps not the first meaning of beat that springs to mind, but as equivalent to surpass it’s fine. It’s the leader (first letter) of Tap plus an anagram (managed) of DANCERS plus N(ew).
18 Shy about turning over university newspaper cutting (7)
HURTFUL Shy gives HURL, surrounding the reverse (turning over) of U(niversity) F(inancial) T(imes).
19 Star workers in colonies are kept in (7)
ANTARES Workers in colonies are ANTS and they keep in ARE in plain sight. Here’s Uhura singing “Beyond Antares”
21 Hibernian flag planted on peak of Himalayas (5)
IRISH Just IRIS for flag (the flower version, see 25 ac) and the first letter (peak) of Himalayas.
22 Police finally breaking in to discover addict (5)
FIEND The last letter of policE inside FIND for discover
I eventually biffed ABOMINATION, and my LOI.
FOI BEAU
LOI MAIM
COD INFRARED
TIME 9:37
I think this week has worn my brain out. I’m dreading tomorrow !
Thanks Z and setter.
I knew Maxim, and first deleted the ‘x’ by deleting a self-referntial “it” — it refering to maiming, or x-ing. After I was done I saw that the ‘by’ bit might work better, but that partial error saved me five minutes of headscratching.
My LOI and mer was Testis — since seed is only created but is not stored there, storage is in the adjacent Epididymis. I tried many permutations of “silo” plus something while sorting that out.
And, as above (twice) I agree with david_ch that we’ve seen the A-M trick before.
Edited at 2022-01-27 06:10 pm (UTC)
Plenty unparsed/NHO etc:
MA(X)IM as a gun — alpha trawl gave me LOI MAIM
MIGNONETTE — unknown, but worked out with just the final E in place and guessing it was an -ETTE
MICRON — even though my name is MIKE, didn’t twig that it was a ‘sounds-like’ for ages. POI
ABET — not a clue what was going on here — best guess
TESTIS — would normally have spelt this with and -ES at the end — don’t know what the difference is
FLEUR-DE-LIS — would have thought LYS but assumed LIS is acceptable
HYDROLYSIS — worked out without knowing the definition
Much better with the ‘Downs’ except for:
ACADEMICIAN — from checkers. NHO Jack CADE
ANTARES emits INFRARED
From a sub-MICRON plasma
A NON-METAL miasma
Turns hydrogen to helium instead