Time: 20:02, taking a while to make sure I had my last in at 7a right. A real mix of slang from various places and ages and one answer (at the bottom) that floored a University Challenge team in a recently rerun series.
It’s possible, I suppose, that there’s an American flavour to this one plus an England Anthem in a nod to today’s opening of the World Cup, but to keep us cheerful there’s a couple of entries from The Uxbridge English Dictionary, and all the letters of the alphabet except J and, bizarrely, F.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, everything else hopefully self explanatory. No poetry this week: the muse is taking a break.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Pointer, little help (6,4) |
| MINUTE HAND – Pronounce minute the other way, and “my amphibian” becomes the measure of time. A help or aid lends a HAND | |
| 7 | The biter bit! (4) |
| TICK – So an arachnid that bites is a mite or a TICK, and I suppose a tick can be seen as a small bit of time or some such. | |
| 9 | Material passed down includes our tailored kind (8) |
| GENEROUS – Whether you like it or not, if you breed you pass down your GENES. Insert an anagram (tailored) of OUR. | |
| 10 | Police arresting every person in club (6) |
| MALLET – The METropolitan Police take hold of ALL for every person. | |
| 11 | Delivery of an online giant? (6) |
| GOOGLY – “An off break bowled with an apparent leg-break action by a right-arm bowler to a right-handed batsman, or conversely for a left-arm bowler”. Whatever, it’s suppose to bamboozle a batsman, and in my experience can also make the wicket keeper look incompetent. Our setter invents the Uxbridge word that means “a bit like Google”. | |
| 13 | Knight observed in gesture, delicate — anything but cheesy? (3-5) |
| NON-DAIRY – N, the chess knight, within NOD for gesture, and AIRY for delicate. | |
| 14 | Shivering soul hid: warmer at night? Yeah, right! (1,6,5) |
| I SHOULD COCOA – No longer current, I think, but a staple of Billy Cotton in his band show and/or Eccles et al in the Goon Show. Cockney rhyming slang, though opinion varies at what it echoes. An anagram (shivering) of SOUL HID plus the late night chocolate based beverage. | |
| 17 | Characteristic of comic script in French that has leading man (12) |
| CHAPLINESQUE – Script gives you LINES, then “that” in French gives QUE. CHAP for man is placed in the lead. | |
| 20 | Well, how might one spread butter? (8) |
| SMOOTHLY – I think we’re meant to understand that if a thing is done smoothly it is done well, buttering your crumpet being an example. | |
| 21 | Spiffing idea in puff? (6) |
| WHEEZE – Another antique, this time Woosterish. Puff the more literal version. | |
| 22 | Market and pub surrounding plaza out of place (6) |
| BAZAAR – BAR is your pub, and PLAZA without the PL[ace] is inserted. | |
| 23 | Lentil dish and two ducks on red or white hot plate (8) |
| VINDALOO – The lentil dish is DAL, often spelt with an H. Two ducks provide the O O, and VIN comes in red or white varieties. Assemble. The highly spiced Indian dish celebrated in an England World Cup song from 1998. | |
| 25 | Language City or United fans heard? (4) |
| MANX – The language of the Isle of Man. People from Manchester, home to football teams City and United, are sometimes known as Mancs, which sounds similar. | |
| 26 | I add no more after ornamentation, Ancient Greek form noted? (6,4) |
| DORIAN MODE – “A mode of ancient Greek music consisting of two tetrachords with a semitone between the two lowest notes in each, the tetrachords separated by a whole tone (as efga or bcde, but reckoned downwards by the Greeks), traditionally of a stirring, solemn, simple and martial quality”. Not that you asked. An anagram (after ornamentation) of I ADD NO MORE | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 2 | Name-dropped lovely type of music in cool location (3,5) |
| ICE HOUSE – Without the N[ame], a lovely, NICE version of HOUSE music provides our answer. | |
| 3 | Victorian transport taken by commuters (3) |
| UTE – So that’s Victorian as in Oz, where a UTE is a Sports Utility Vehicle, hidden for us in commUTErs | |
| 4 | Flying by one jet (5) |
| EBONY – An anagram (flying) of BY ONE for the shade not the aeroplane. | |
| 5 | As sarnie prepared with minimum of cheese (7) |
| ARSENIC – Seasoned players will know that As, cleverly placed at the beginning of the clue to give the capital letter, is the chemical that is also an anagram of SARNIE plus the first letter of Cheese. | |
| 6 | Brother in fleece with tiny tinny? (9) |
| DOMINICAN – Fleece gives DO (as in deceive, cheat), leading to a tiny, MINI CAN, tinny being Ozspeak for a can of the amber nectar. | |
| 7 | US city leader in trouble with God when put on spot (11) |
| TALLAHASSEE – I was so relieved to find a US city that fitted the crossing letters I forgot to parse. But it’s the first letter of Trouble plus ALLAH (pbuh), plus AS for when and SEE for spot | |
| 8 | Shade of red — like an American singer? (6) |
| CHERRY – Another Uxbridge invention, “a bit like CHER” | |
| 12 | Funny old American beef and ox spoil cuts (7,4) |
| GROUCHO MARX – I’ll allow he was funnier than his cousin Karl. Beef is GROUCH, then MAR for spoil cuts into OX. | |
| 15 | Beaten, that position in first place (9) |
| LEATHERED – That position is THERE, inserted into (the) LEAD for first place. | |
| 16 | Fashionable term for “hive of activity”? (4,4) |
| BUZZ WORD – Term is doing double duty, or perhaps we should read this as a kind of &lit. Anyway the sound an active hive makes is, of course, a BUZZ. | |
| 18 | Break in American journey certainly welcomed by paramour (7) |
| LAYOVER – AY for certainly is welcomed into LOVER for paramour. | |
| 19 | Monkey unfortunately killing last antelope (6) |
| IMPALA – IMP for monkey, plus ALAS for unfortunately with its last letter deleted with extreme prejudice. | |
| 21 | Money in silver immediately flipped (5) |
| WONGA – Just AG for silver plus NOW for immediately reversed (flipped) | |
| 24 | 1760 yards south of a point (3) |
| AIM – 1760 yards is I (one) M[ile] set south of A. | |
Totally off the wavelength today. I wandered all over the grid looking for easy pickings and found a few but found most of the long ones hard to fathom. TALLAHASSEE came to mind late once I’d figured out TICK but had to look it up to find the spelling. NHO I SHOULD COCOA but saw the ‘I should’ from the anagrist and with ARSENIC and DOMINICAN in place there left little doubt, still unsure of what it’s supposed to sound like though. DORIAN MODE went in once enough checkers were in place to justify it. CHAPLINESQUE would never have occurred to me, but think it’s a great clue being a fan of the great man. Saw IMPALA and BAZAAR quickly but had to wait until GROUCHO MARX came along before I saw MANX. Liked VINDALOO and WONGA. Misled at 3d UTE even though I live there and have a ute. Duh!
Thanks Z and setter.
17:04, with CHAPLINESQUE, TALLAHASSEE and I SHOULD what the????? taking the most time.
Nice workout, thanks setter and Z. Expect letters from the vast army of Times Cryptic-solving Australian tradies, who wouldn’t be impressed with a ute being equated to an SUV.
An enjoyable workout, especially as I had struggled early on to find a single answer to enter in the grid. I particularly liked I SHOULD COCOA, and yes, Z, The Billy Cotton Band Show was just the place to have heard it said back in the 1950s, an expression of sceptical disbelief. 47 minutes.
I also struggled to find any answers to get going except for ICE SHEET…which was wrong. So I started from below zero answers!
I found this hard but got there in the end. Held up by putting in ICE SHEET at 2d which fits both literal and wordplay (sheet music being a thing). I’ve never heard of I SHOULD COCOA but once I realized the first two words were an anagram, that meant I realized SHEET was wrong. At the end, I realized this was probably a pangram (it isn’t) and was trying to get a J in to help me. I had no idea what was going on at MANX and assumed maybe the X was U or C giving MANU and MANC. Anyway, I couldn’t think of any other language that fitted. Also not certain of TICK since bit and tick don’t really seem like the same thing.
the DOMINICAN/I SHOULD COCOA (??????) intersection dragged this well over the 30 minute mark, but a LOT of these clues were punishing. my goodness. pleased to survive it without aides, but what a grueling slog…