A rare puzzle by Jimmy, only the third one we have had one from him/her. The previous two (QC 2669 on 7 May and QC 2710 on 24 June) were both excellent puzzles towards the friendlier end of the spectrum, and this one continued in the same vein, taking me a below-average 11:10 with much to enjoy on the way.
Some very nice clues, some smooth surfaces and some straightforward indicators for the anagrams etc make this a very well constructed puzzle. I’d expect to see some fast times today: do tell us all how you got on.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, deletions and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
| 1 | Eccentric afraid heir is light-headed? (4-6) |
| FAIR-HAIRED – (afraid heir)*, a nice anagram to get us going, with the indicator being “eccentric”. A small element of deception here, as light-headed does not have its usual meaning of “dizzy, faint” but refers to hair colour. | |
| 8 | You shouldn’t drop this group of baby mammals (6) |
| LITTER – A DD, with the second definition straightforward enough but the first one slightly cryptic. The RSPCA, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals would of course insist that one should not drop any baby mammals at all, ever. | |
| 9 | London attraction — a challenge for Scottish hillwalker? (3,3) |
| BIG BEN – The common Scottish place name component “ben” (as in Ben Nevis etc) is from the Gaelic “bheinn”, and means mountain or hill. So as well as being London’s iconic clock tower by the Houses of Parliament, a “big ben” would be a large mountain, and a challenge for anyone climbing it.
(And yes I do know that Big Ben is correctly the name for the massive bell in the Elizabeth Tower – weight nearly 14 tonnes apparently – not the tower itself. But in common usage the name usually refers to the whole tower, clock, bell and all). |
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| 10 | Big road filled by trendy car (4) |
| MINI – MI (the “big road” being the motorway M1, making a second appearance in the week after starring in Monday’s QC) with IN (trendy) inside it. | |
| 11 | Add explanations to article on revolutionary gallery (8) |
| ANNOTATE – AN (article) + NO (on reversed, ie “revolutionary”) + TATE (Crosswordland’s favourite art gallery). | |
| 12 | One who induced drooling with unfinished dessert (6) |
| PAVLOV – The dessert is a pavlova, from which the last letter is removed, indicated by “unfinished”, thus giving us PAVLOV.
Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) was a Russian scientist whose main area of study (for which he was awarded a Nobel prize) was the digestive system. He is best known for a small part of that study, where he noted that he could make dogs salivate or drool not at actual food but at the prospect or promise of it, a reflex response which became known as a Pavlovian reaction. |
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| 14 | Orator gutted by friend using speech (6) |
| ORALLY – O |
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| 16 | Nicked criminal freed after leaders of police ignored laws (8) |
| PILFERED – PIL (“leaders”, ie initial letters, of Police Ignored Laws) + FERED (anagram of “freed”, the indicator being “criminal”).
A very smooth surface, with images of criminals being nicked or arrested and then let go because the police did not follow proper procedures, and my COD. |
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| 18 | Go red in the face after bishop leaves drunk (4) |
| LUSH – BLUSH (go red in the face) with the B removed (“bishop leaves”). The link of Lush to Drunk plays not so much on the adjectival use of drunk for someone who has had too much to drink just this once, but on the noun sense of the word for someone who has too much to drink habitually. | |
| 20 | African country bordering a West African country (6) |
| MALAWI – MALI (an African country) with A W (a West) inside it.
This was my LOI as I took time to see “bordering” as an inclusion indicator rather than meaning one component of the clue was adjacent or next to another, but one can have a flower bed bordering a lawn and going all round it, so I think the clue works. |
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| 21 | Impoverished person’s urge to enter pub (6) |
| BEGGAR – EGG (urge, as in the sense Egg on = Urge on) included in BAR (pub), the inclusion indicator being “to enter”. | |
| 22 | Checked item on which kings and queens stand? (10) |
| CHESSBOARD – An all-in-one cryptic clue, the kings and queens being chess pieces here. | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Defence of boxer protecting middle of ribs (5) |
| ALIBI – ALI (Crosswordland’s favourite boxer) surrounding (ie protecting) IB (middle of rIBs). | |
| 3 | Damaged trailer is the result of faulty hearing? (7) |
| RETRIAL – (trailer)*, with the anagram indicator being “damaged”. If a hearing or trial is faulty the result could be that it needs to be redone, leading to a retrial. | |
| 4 | Song from musical in East London (3) |
| AIR – The musical is HAIR, from which the H is dropped when said by the archetypal Cockney resident of East London.
And it is not just Cockneys who drop their Hs. There was a famous and very distinguished 19th century barrister called Sir Arthur Channell who also dropped his Hs. In one trial, over the fate of a ship called the Helen, the judge became confused as to whether the ship involved was the Helen or the Ellen, as the papers said Helen but Sir Arthur kept referring to the Ellen. The lawyer on the other side, Sir Freddie Tresiger, gravely explained that “she was christened the Helen, m’lud, but she lost her ‘H’ in the chops of the Channell”. |
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| 5 | Outlaw to steal from home with US gangster (5,4) |
| ROBIN HOOD – ROB (steal) + IN (home) + HOOD (US gangster). | |
| 6 | Number like one thousand, primarily (5) |
| DIGIT – DIG (like) + I (one) + T (thousand, initially).
Our setters appear to have collectively decided that the use of “number” to mean an anaesthetic, as it has so often in these puzzles, was (although very clever) perhaps being slightly overdone, as this is the second time in just a few days that the word is being used in its more straightforward numerical sense: Orpheus had “A number, for example, visiting Bury” (answer Integer) on Monday. |
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| 7 | Pulse is fast on crossword setter over fifty (6) |
| LENTIL – LENT (Christian time of fasting) + I (ie how a crossword setter would refer to themselves) + L (fifty). I was very slow to see this one as with the first two checkers being -E-T, I was convinced for a long time that the answer started BEAT-. But it is the vegetable pulse not the musical or medical one that we are after here. | |
| 11 | Promote and devise art in a novel way (9) |
| ADVERTISE – (devise art)*, the anagram indicator being “in a novel way”. | |
| 13 | Beast in area north of Milan, camouflaged (6) |
| ANIMAL – A (area) above or on top of (“north of”, this being a down clue) NIMAL (anagram of Milan, the anagram indicator being “camouflaged”). | |
| 15 | Everybody, say, runs round pretty quickly (7) |
| ALLEGRO – A four part IKEA clue, the construction being ALL (everybody) + EG (say) + R (runs) + O (round). | |
| 17 | Spanish ruler’s cut old bread in Geneva (5) |
| FRANC – The Spanish ruler is FRANCO, from which O (old) is cut or deleted, giving the FRANC, the unit of currency (“bread” in US slang) in Geneva.
A trap for those who parsed FRANC as just “Franco cut, ie last letter lopped off”, as this leaves the word old in the wordplay with nothing to do, since unlike in France, Belgium or Luxembourg, where the Franc was indeed the “old bread” or old currency before the three countries adopted the Euro, Switzerland still uses the Franc to this day. |
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| 19 | Part of a flight coming from best airport (5) |
| STAIR – A hidden, in beST AIRport, with the indicator being “coming from”.
Oh that type of flight, and nothing to do with birds, aeroplanes or people fleeing. |
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| 21 | Coach needs player on the bench to turn up (3) |
| BUS – The player on the bench is a substitute or SUB, which is reversed (“turned up”) to give us our final answer. | |
Had to wait until today to do yesterday’s QC. Thanks very much Cedric for entertaining blog. I fell into the trap of 16D as I had totally forgotten about Franco so bunged in FRANC without parsing, knowing it is still the Swiss currency. Thanks Jimmy for the clever misdirection of many of these clues.