A bit on the tricky side today.
I started off pretty well, only missing out on three clues after a first pass of the acrosses (7, 12, 23), but things slowed up considerably come the downs. It can often become a bit of a merry biff fest with that with that number of checkers, not so here.
At the end I was slow with 1d, and slower still with that pair of particularly well-disguised hiddens at 12 ac and 13d. Great stuff, both of them. I came in at 9.14, a good bit slower than yesterday.
Being a Felix puzzle, we can often expect a hidden theme, or Nina – I was as usual rather slow to spot it…
Lovely puzzle – many thanks to Felix!
| Across | |
| 7 | Arch at entrance to large amphitheatre? (4) |
| BOWL – BOW (arch) at L (“entrance” to Large) | |
| 8 | Kitty taken from cup stays out (8) |
| PUSSYCAT – anagram (out) of CUP STAYS | |
| 9 | Grub in tea urn, oddly, and a musical instrument! (6) |
| GUITAR – take the “odd” letters of G r U b I n T e A u R n | |
| 10 | Small swine turned to tap on barrel (6) |
| SPIGOT – S(mall) PIG (swine) OT (“turned” TO) | |
| 11 | Unhappy, coming across last of uneaten stuff on beach (4) |
| SAND – SAD (unhappy) about N (“last” of uneateN) | |
| 12 | Tonsil, ear, sinus, back: that’s too much for certain people! (8) |
| ISRAELIS – a reverse hidden, indicated by “back” and “that’s too much” (as in not all required) of tonSIL EAR SInus | |
| 15 | Agree pen needs to change colour (3,5) |
| PEA GREEN – anagram (to change) of AGREE PEN | |
| 17 | Sailing vessel, round, found in sports club (4) |
| BOAT – O (defined in the dictionaries as anything “round”) found in BAT (sports club – aah, that type of club!) | |
| 18 | Sailor’s English books missing (6) |
| ABSENT – AB’S (able seaman’s = sailor’s) E(nglish) NT (New Testament = books) | |
| 21 | Dull routine reflected essential Christmas tradition (6) |
| TURKEY – RUT = dull routine, reflected = reversed, KEY = essential | |
| 22 | Corn seen waving, displayed by monitor (8) |
| ONSCREEN – anagram (waving) of CORN SEEN | |
| 23 | Mound close to church one’s going to (4) |
| HILL – H (the close (or end) to churcH), and I’LL = I WILL = I AM GOING TO = ONE’S GOING TO, all exactly the same | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Inhabitants in location work with university (8) |
| POPULACE – in[side] PLACE (location) goes OP (work) with U(niversity) | |
| 2 | Ecstatic journalist coming round at the last minute? (6) |
| ELATED – ED (journalist) coming round LATE (at the last minute) | |
| 3 | Software to take up and assess (8) |
| APPRAISE – APP (software) to RAISE (take up) | |
| 4 | When descending on Kansas makes requests (4) |
| ASKS -AS (when) on/descending on KS (Kansas) | |
| 5 | Nothing turned up in extra subtitle? (6) |
| BYLINE – NIL (nothing) turned up/reversed in BYE (an extra, in yep, you’ve guessed it, cricket) | |
| 6 | Maybe start race, we hear, to provide pudding ingredient (4) |
| SAGO – we hear the same as SAY (maybe/for example) GO (start race) | |
| 13 | Some appearing to need air when called? (8) |
| RINGTONE – hidden in “some” of appeaRING TO NEed. AIR as a song makes a lovely definition. | |
| 14 | Ale Basil ordered for girl (8) |
| ISABELLA – anagram (ordered) of ALE BASIL | |
| 16 | State oil’s coming from mouth? (6) |
| GREECE – is spoken from the mouth the same as GREASE (oil) | |
| 17 | Accommodation on ship, we hear, for these new arrivals (6) |
| BIRTHS – we hear the same as BERTHS (accommodation on ship) | |
| 19 | Reverberation upset grand toff (4) |
| BONG – unset/reverse G(rand) and NOB (toff) | |
| 20 | Peg must catch right plane, for example (4) |
| TREE – TEE (peg in golf) must catch R(ight). The plane tree crops up a bit, as does DEAL for wood. | |
Just in time is the opposite of being late, very strange error.
If I arrive just in time, then I am definitely not late!
I could have been clearer in the blog, but it’s not a mistake – it’s in the sense of, for example:
Scoring late/at the last minute, the team snatched an unlikely victory.
I interpreted SAGO a little bit differently: you maybe “SAY GO” to start a race. I can also see it your way though!