Time: 22:10. A relatively gentle Thursday puzzle in which my main delays were created by the two long across clues, both of which I read badly and fluffed the definitions.
Secondary holdups came from the setter zeroing in on my geriatric spelling weaknesses, which substitute an A where and O should be: it happened twice! The sauce was also taxing, because I thought it was something to do with French butter and tried to insert a U somewhere along the way.
I show definitions underlined in bold italics, excluded letters in [], and hope the rest explains itself.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Where trial is broadcast and heard (6) |
| CAUGHT – A trial takes place in a “court”, which when broadcast sounds like our answer, which I have done rather better since getting my new hearing aids. | |
| 4 | Haul iron spades into street fight (8) |
| SLUGFEST – Haul is LUG, and iron is FE (Fe for purists). Place both into ST[reet]. “A match or struggle, characterized by heavy blows.” | |
| 10 | Missing start, stadium track is making a comeback (9) |
| RENASCENT – Don’t be put off buy trying to spell it as a variation on Renaissance. It’s an ARENA with its start missing and SCENT as in a track followed by bloodhounds and such. | |
| 11 | Blade whirling either way (5) |
| ROTOR – Either way indicates you’re looking for a palindrome. | |
| 12 | Misbehaving bachelor admitted to perfect pattern (11) |
| HERRINGBONE – Struggle city here! But go for ERRING for misbehaving, add B[achelor] and place the ensemble into HONE, which is perfect as a verb, accent on second syllable. I lost time trying to work some variation on epitome, model or paragon, emphasising the need to separate in the right places. | |
| 14 | Dictator’s due tribute? (3) |
| ODE – Another “heard” clue. When taking dictation be careful how you spell “owed”. | |
| 15 | Lie about uranium remnants (7) |
| RESIDUE – RESIDE stands in for lie, and encloses U for uranium. | |
| 17 | Piece retreating to capture another? (6) |
| NUGGET – A piece, especially in gangster slang, is a GUN. Reverse it, and add GET for capture. Another refers back to piece, but offers a more prosaic meaning. | |
| 19 | Fare from Scotland has bags regularly going astray (6) |
| HAGGIS – I’ll do the wordplay so you don’t have to. It’s HAS taking in a mix (astray) of the odd letters of GoInG. Cue debate about indirect anagrams, but did you honestly think it was going to be anything else? | |
| 21 | Country bread keeps American in California (7) |
| CROATIA – The type of bread you need is ROTI, into which you insert A[merica], before inserting the ensemble into CA[lifornia] | |
| 23 | Plump duck served with pint (3) |
| OPT – Plump as a verb. Duck is its usual O from cricket, and PT as a standard abbreviation for pint. | |
| 24 | Bridge pile replaced earlier chain (11) |
| ARCHIPELAGO – I’ll parse this now. It’s ARCH for bridge, an anagram (replaced) of PILE and AGO from earlier. | |
| 26 | Ice is one ingredient of the mojito (5) |
| EMOJI – Hidden in thE MOJIto. Pick any one of these:🧊🥶🍦🍧🍨❄️, probably the first one in a mojito. | |
| 27 | Produce aisle losing length to stock new sauce (9) |
| BÉARNAISE – A spelling test. Produce is a pretty good synonym for BEAR once you get the spelling right, AISLE loses its L[ength] and the two bits “stock” or enclose N[ew]. | |
| 29 | Shaping of tiny tree which never ends (8) |
| ETERNITY – At last a straight anagram (shaping) of TINY TREE. | |
| 30 | Tip to finish level one on a video game? (6) |
| PLAYER – The syntax it a bit odd, but to finish tip you need a P. Level and LAYER are close enough. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Group of commuters race after Mark cycling (8) |
| CARSHARE – Cycle the letters of SCAR, mark, to get CARS, add HARE for race. | |
| 2 | Rounded section of Sumatran lumpfish is bony? (5) |
| ULNAR – The hidden is reversed (rounded) this time in SumatRAN LUmpfish. Adjective relating to the larger of the forearm bones. | |
| 3 | Suffers fools (3) |
| HAS – Two definitions: he has a cold, he has us all with his trickery. | |
| 5 | Eating tons, managed personal disappointment (7) |
| LETDOWN – Managed give rise to LED, which consumes T[ons] and is followed by OWN for personal. | |
| 6 | Men anger god arousing figure in bed? (6,5) |
| GARDEN GNOME – An anagram (arousing) of MEN ANGER GOD and a cutesy definition. | |
| 7 | Sociable former footballer stops not drinking (9) |
| EXTROVERT – Former is EX, your footballer plays for Blackburn or Bristol (or Melchester for comic book lovers) and is a ROVER. Bracket ROVER with TT for teetotal, not drinking. | |
| 8 | Nearly shot island bird (6) |
| TURKEY – Shot is TURN, from which you delete the last letter. Island is KEY, as in Florida Keys. | |
| 9 | Measure sides as a whole? (6) |
| LEAGUE – A variable measure of distance. A number of sporting sides together also form a league | |
| 13 | Anger happening to bore people (11) |
| INDIGNATION – I think this works best if happening and to bore are taken together, to produce IN DIG. People give NATION. | |
| 16 | Change to hammers automated building (5,4) |
| SMART HOME – An anagram (change) of TO HAMMERS. | |
| 18 | Person demonstrating regret to billions when overthrown (8) |
| SABOTEUR – Regret RUE, TO, B[illions] when AS, all reversed (overthrown). | |
| 20 | Old brass boat capsized under fire (7) |
| SACKBUT – That is old brass instrument. A TUB or boat reversed below SACK for fire. | |
| 21 | Cold capital by peak (6) |
| CLIMAX – C[old], the capital of Peru, LIMA, and don’t miss the by to give X. | |
| 22 | Beginners in croquet often take this stick (6) |
| COHERE – The first letters of Croquet and Often, then the instruction “take this” translates to a more peremptory HERE. | |
| 25 | A US campus meets variable goodwill (5) |
| AMITY – Out setter avoids arguments over whether MIT is an American university or not by defining it as A campus (the A is part of the wordplay).The variable is Y. | |
| 28 | Queue up endlessly for nothing (3) |
| NIL – The sort of queue you want is a LINE, from which you remove the end and then reverse (up in a down clue). | |
Missed 1 down since Mark with a capital is M. If it had simply been mark I could have solved it. In 1 across I missed CAUGHT as heard.
I got EMOJI but how does “Ice is one” become an emoji?
See Zabadak’s explanation in the blog.
I was slow and got the wrong end of the stick on many clues – e.g. I thought you had to know something about croquet. Is 6 a German something? It’s carpool in the US – what might it be in the UK? Is the island Tiree? Haggis must be it, but why? Well, after stumbling along for a while, I managed to get going, ending up with sackbut, turkey, and league.
Time: 53:53
I think 18dn is a ‘semi-&lit’ clue?
Liked this a lot and managed to finish with the exception of CLIMAX and kicked myself for not seeing the X=By. SACKBUT came to me but what it was I had no idea. SMART HOME took an age to figure out from the anagrist. BEARNAISE went in from the checkers. Liked SABOTEUR which provided ARCHIPELAGO but managed to bung in an ‘e’ where the ‘I’ should be. PLAYER was my LOI and took a while to see the unusual parsing. SLUGFEST started out for me as ‘dragfest’, but of course it didn’t parse until I saw what was going on. Liked NUGGET and assumed the ‘other piece’ was a news article or similar. Lovely puzzle for a Thursday.
Thanks Z and setter.
Awfully slow. A few quick ones, like ULNAR, EMOJI, & AMITY, but mainly like pulling teeth. It took me ages, for instance, to think of the right __AISE sauce, or to think of KEY. LEAGUE was my LOI (after HERRINGBONE & CARSHARE), and I couldn’t parse it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an anagram like that in HAGGIS, and I rather liked it. It’s not a taboo indirect anagram, is it? The anagrist is all there. Is a SABOTEUR a person demonstrating? I suppose the original saboteurs were, but. COD to COHERE.
53 minutes, so very slow, but I mostly enjoyed this.
I struggled to justify INDIGNATION and still think the wordplay is a bit of a stretch.
I don’t get the definition of SABOTEUR as ‘demonstrating’ and acting as a saboteur seem far removed from each other in the world of protest. Or is it perhaps a reflection of modern times that the dictionaries haven’t yet caught up with?
For some reason I thought the sauce was spelt Bernaise, so that clue took a bit of unravelling.
Didn’t know ‘ice’ as an EMOJI but I spotted the hidden word and was not delayed on that one.
24:23 on a puzzle I’m frankly very happy to finish with no errors. Technically NHO “carshare” although it makes sense once properly parsed. HERRINGBONE×LEAGUE was the last pair to fall into place. OPT as “plump” is gibberish but couldn’t have been any other answer. Great puzzle overall!