At the time of writing, I am within a few ticks of my clockwork timing device of the average time for solving this at 12.25, and I rather suspect this will produce some PBs. It’s got rather an old-fashioned flavour to it, what with the wartime conference, daddio words for with it, and the blast from the past fog. Apart from the program, the Pixar reference and Bart Simpson, there’s nothing in here that a Sixties solver would find unfamiliar. I know. I was that solver. I’m not knocking it: a measure of nostalgia wrapped up in mostly innocuous clues leads to a pleasant, if, for me, undemanding solve and a chance to finish blogging early. Though I have spent time trying unsuccessfully to find a video of the relevant late 60’s Barker/Corbett sketch to confirm my title for today prompted by 15 across.
Definitions underlined in italics, removed and unnecessary letters are shown in [square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Perhaps watch video that may rain on your parade (6,4) |
| TICKER TAPE – A wind-up watch is one thing that ticks, so a TICKER, and a video used to be on TAPE. Back in the day, ticker tape parades welcomed returning astronauts and sports heroes. | |
| 6 | Tunisia’s capital missing from book of maps, regrettably (4) |
| ALAS – Remove the capital T of Tunisia from an A |
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| 10 | Regularly leave key equestrian competitor (7) |
| EVENTER – The odd (even) letters of lEaVe plus your ENTER key. | |
| 11 | Break shoe, run and throw? (7) |
| UNHORSE – An anagram (break) of SHOE and RUN. | |
| 12 | Evaluates software associated with lifts (9) |
| APPRAISES – Software, I’m reliably informed, is an APP and lifts gives RAISES | |
| 13 | Empire in complete mess at the outset (5) |
| REALM – My best try: he’s a REAL idiot might be rendered he’s a complete idiot. Add the first letter of Mess. | |
| 14 | Detest drab horticulture displays (5) |
| ABHOR – Displayed in drAB HORticulture | |
| 15 | Games a police chief overheard in thick fog (3-6) |
| PEA-SOUPER – Games in school are/is/were PE. A police Chief Superintendent can be abbreviated to A Super. Which sounds like a SOUPER. In the days when everyone had a coal fire, the resulting mix of fog and smoke led to particularly impenetrable miasmas, likened humorously to pea soup. | |
| 17 | Tell me, using your brain, best sock (3,4,2) |
| OUT WITH IT – This has best in its meaning of beat, defeat, so using your brain to that effect is to OUTWIT. Sock gives HIT to complete the entry. | |
| 20 | Be overwhelmed with new information from the east (5) |
| DROWN – N[ew] WORD as (on the streets) information read from the right/east. | |
| 21 | US college briefly thanks conference venue (5) |
| YALTA – Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill met in February 1945 at this Crimean resort to fix the shape of post war Europe. YAL[E] is the mutilated college and TA is thanks. | |
| 23 | Champion rugby player playing in French team initially (9) |
| PROPONENT – An advocate version of champion. Your rugby player is a PROP (front row of the scrum supporting the hooker), playing renders ON, in (in) French gives EN, and complete with the first letter of T[eam] | |
| 25 | Doctor urged on to get experience (7) |
| UNDERGO – Ann anagram (doctor) of URGED ON. | |
| 26 | Rely excessively on old and extremely vulnerable scheme (7) |
| OVERUSE – O[ld], the extremes of V[ulnerabl]E and RUSE for scheme. | |
| 27 | Level of drop in sound (4) |
| TIER – Another sounds like: this time of TEAR drop. | |
| 28 | Persistent about fast time? Not so much (10) |
| RELENTLESS – About: RE. Fast time: LENT. Not so much: LESS | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Articles about Bart’s last letter to Homer (5) |
| THETA – This Homer’s Greek. Articles are THE and A and the enclose T comes from the end of BarT | |
| 2 | Personal insult loved by a miserly director? (5,4) |
| CHEAP SHOT – A skinflint film director would prefer a SHOT that doesn’t cost very much. | |
| 3 | Spare gold coin one splits with European is remarkable (14) |
| EXTRAORDINAIRE – Spare is EXTRA, gold is OR, coin is DINAR. Insert I in the last and add E[uropean]. You’ll soon notice that extraordinary doesn’t reach the end. | |
| 4 | Arrives and spoils Pixar movie (5,2) |
| TURNS UP – When milk goes sour it spoils or TURNS. The 2009 Pixar movie advertised is UP, which is actually rather good in a sentimental way. | |
| 5 | Old kingdom’s power over large country (7) |
| PRUSSIA – P[ower] over RUSSIA, which is still pretty big. | |
| 7 | Grub is something very hot, reportedly (5) |
| LARVA – Another sound like (reportedly). LARVA is indeed hot stuff. | |
| 8 | What “decreases” rations — me unfortunately (5,4) |
| STEAM IRON – Not so much a UED as a Christmas cracker definition: generous of the setter to put it in inverted commas. And an anagram (unfortunately) of RATIONS ME. | |
| 9 | Fresh food and shower before nap? Tuck in here! (8,6) |
| SHERWOOD FOREST – That’s Friar Tuck – ho ho! An anagram (fresh) of FOOD and SHOWER plus REST for nap. | |
| 14 | Columnist from Guyana not wrong (5,4) |
| AGONY AUNT – “Dear Marj. My husband cares more about this crossword clue than me…” “Tell him it’s an anagram of GUYANA NOT. You can show him it’s an anagram by pointing to the word wrong. His love for you will be instantly rekindled”. | |
| 16 | Wage produced from plain writing? Sweet! (9) |
| PROSECUTE – This is wage as a verb. Plain writing is PROSE, and sweet is CUTE. | |
| 18 | Cool to live without working body part (7) |
| HIPBONE – Cool is HIP, and to live is BE. Working is ON, and BE goes without it in the old fashioned, outside, sense of the word. | |
| 19 | Couple raised farm animal during work (7) |
| TWOSOME – I’ll admit that when solving I thought the raised (upside down) farm animal would be COW, but I see now it’s SOW which fortunately is what I entered. The work into which it’s placed is a TOME, usually a large book. | |
| 22 | Enter gate-keeper’s residence (5) |
| LODGE – Two definitions. | |
| 24 | Be anxious when losing opener for lock (5) |
| TRESS – Lock of hair, of course. Be anxious is STRESS. Remove its opening letter. | |
I did this in two bites either side of bedtime, so it was never going to be a PB. Finished in 40 minutes overall, with another TIED at 22 ac. But it was enjoyable, especially the clever consecutive anagrams at 8, 9, and 14dn.
FOI – ALAS
LOI – TURNS UP
COD – TICKER TAPE
Thanks to Zabadak and other contributors.
26:33
Nightmare when 3/4 of the way through, just draw a blank on the last six or so. Must have been a good 7-8 minute gap to finally see HIPBONE which released the pressure, giving PROPONENT and an extra checker for SHERWOOD FOREST, leaving REALM, DROWN and finally PROSECUTE. Gutted to note the Snitch which is still only at 63 – meaning I was more than 5 minutes outside my target of 21.5 mins. Tomorrow is another day.
Thanks Z and setter
I can’t remember a gentler challenge. The whole west side went straight in; east side took slightly longer to get up steam, but still took less than ten minutes.
I must confess to starting to write “EXTRAORDINARY”, but noticed that it left me a letter short before I got as far as the third “R”.
I didn’t parse EVENTER, because “key” in a clue just has me thinking about the letters A to G rather than my PC keyboard. And the Pixar film reference meant absolutely nothing to me, NHO “Up”, but the answer was obvious, so in it went.
Thanks to Zabadak for the explanations.
I didn’t time this as I expected a more difficult Thursday puzzle. Loved ‘tuck in here’. LOIs overuse/prosecute crossers.
Now how will I pass the time on a rainy morning?