Usually I admire crosswords which require a few leaps of the imagination to get to the answers, but for me, this one had a leap or two too many to be fair, or much fun. I’ll let you decide if I am being too critical or if you were happy with all those oblique definitions, not to mention “electron gun” defined by “beamer”.
EDIT it seems some of you loved it, and some agree with me!
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Speculative parking on the streets (9) |
| PROOFLESS – P for parking, ROOFLESS so presumably homeless and ‘on the streets’. I thought this was a bit of a leap, both roofless meaning homeless and proofless meaning speculative, but once I had 3d it was inevitable. | |
| 6 | Spot bulk of voracious eater (5) |
| LOCUS – most of a LOCUST. | |
| 9 | Heard girl eat, not causing offence (7) |
| ANODYNE – I suppose the setter thinks this sounds like “ANNA DINE”, but for me it doesn’t work, I say ANO-DYNE and ANNO is not a girl’s name. | |
| 10 | In bed, chaps love spice (7) |
| PIMENTO – PIT = bed, insert MEN for chaps and add O for love. | |
| 11 | Old ladies supported by one who wears apron? (5) |
| MASON – MAS, mothers, ON = supported by. | |
| 12 | Derive satisfaction from renovated teak organ (4,5) |
| TAKE HEART – (TEAK)*, HEART an organ. | |
| 14 | Doctrine leads to intolerance, spite and malice (3) |
| ISM – initial letters as above. | |
| 15 | Proud tirade in favour of public transport (11) |
| PROTUBERANT -PRO (in favour of), a TUBE RANT being a tirade in favour of travelling by underground. | |
| 17 | Anticipate extra visitors without trace of trepidation (6-5) |
| SECOND-GUESS – SECOND GUESTS would be extra visitors, remove the T being “a trace of trepidation”. I wasn’t keen on “a trace of” as an indicator for the first letter, but… | |
| 19 | Dance hit (3) |
| BOP – double definition. | |
| 20 | Numeral is strangely half-moon shaped (9) |
| SEMILUNAR – (NUMERAL IS)*. | |
| 22 | On TV, follower of Doctor King left a bit of an impression (5) |
| WHORL – Doctor Who is on TV, so WHO then follows R for king and L for left. I can’t see a dictionary definition for whorl to agree with this, unless it’s an indirect reference to a fingerprint. | |
| 24 | Donnish European disparaging about sex (7) |
| ERUDITE – E[uropean], RUDE = disparaging, insert IT being crossword-speak for sex. | |
| 26 | Silly yet vain innocence (7) |
| NAIVETY – (YET VAIN)*. | |
| 27 | Are inclined to suppress resistance and rage (5) |
| TREND – TEND with R inserted. “RAGE” as in “all the rage”. | |
| 28 | Backing ID check for each complaint (9) |
| DISTEMPER – ID reversed; STEM = check; PER = for each. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Song of son climbing in trees (5) |
| PSALM – PALMS are trees, the S for son “climbs” up the word. | |
| 2 | Old puddle raised problem for marsupial (7) |
| OPOSSUM – O for old, SOP (puddle) reversed, SUM for problem. | |
| 3 | Fire predecessor when situation deteriorates? (6,3) |
| FRYING PAN – nice cryptic clue, out of the frying pan into the fire. | |
| 4 | Return googly but not wide “beamer” (8,3) |
| ELECTRON GUN – this has to be one of the most obscure clues, both in terms of parsing and definition, that I’ve ever seen. It might be okay in the Mephisto. ELECT = return, “googly” is a cricketing term for a left arm bowler’s leg-break which isn’t a leg-break but turns the opposite way, also informally known as a “WRONG-UN”, (EDIT apologies, as pointed out below by ulaca, it is a right-arm leg break bowler’s wrong-un, not left-arm) then we drop the W for wide. And the mental jump from “beamer” to “electron gun”, which probably only physicists have heard of, is a bit ridiculous IMO. | |
| 5 | Fool taking a step back (3) |
| SAP – a PAS is a step in French, or in ballet. | |
| 6 | Vital fluid lady drained with speed (5) |
| LYMPH – L[ad]Y, MPH = speed. Think I’ve seen this before. | |
| 7 | May see you in concert aria (7) |
| CANTATA – MAY doesn’t really mean CAN but in common speech people often say “can you get me a coffee?” not “may you.. “. TATA = see you, goodbye. | |
| 8 | Baseball player’s outfit (9) |
| SHORTSTOP – here we go again, a clue for our Transatlantic friends. SHORTS and TOP comprise an outfit. | |
| 13 | Shopping locally, after champagne and gold (11) |
| KRUGERRANDS – KRUG being a brand of champagne that I can’t afford, (or at least, can’t justify the price of); ERRANDS could be shopping locally – another stretch IMO. It took me an age to see “gold” was the definition and work out why. | |
| 14 | Importunate nun snubbed in pub over time (9) |
| INSISTENT – INN (pub) has SISTE[r] inserted and T added. | |
| 16 | Old Spooner’s most useless key? (9) |
| ERSTWHILE – I suppose our Rev. Spooner could have said WORST ISLE for most useless key, but it’s not a phrase that trips off the tongue, is it? | |
| 18 | Order papa to cut lovable figure (7) |
| COMPUTE – OM (order of merit) P[apa] cuts into CUTE = lovable. | |
| 19 | Sound of jeers in court session (5-2) |
| BOOZE-UP -BOOZE sounds like BOOS, UP as in “in court”. | |
| 21 | Island patrolled by fat northern landowner (5) |
| LAIRD – LARD with I[sland] inserted. | |
| 23 | Actors naked in bed (5) |
| LAYER – actors are PLAYERS, remove their outer letters to make them “naked” and get LAYER, presumably as in rock bed or rock layer. | |
| 25 | Design curtains (3) |
| END – A dodgy double definition, I think “by design” can mean “with that end in view”, is there a simpler way for design to mean end? | |
I enjoyed this. The only thing I didn’t know was the WRONG’UN bit of ELECTRON GUN. But once I had ELECT it went straight in since I was aware of what goes (went) into a cathodel ray tube or CRT. LOI was COMPUTE, I think because I had the clue backwards and thought I was looking for an order by putting a P into a lovable chap.
Didn’t have much time to spend on this as I had a lunch to go to, which was probably time much better spent. Did the, for me, quickly gettable ones before I had to go out, and tried to add a few more when I got home, hours later, without succeeding. The lunch time wine didn’t help. Having read piquet’s blog, I would never have finished anyway. Sometimes I find the crossword more annoying than fun; this is one of those times. (I concede that this may be sour grapes).
46’00”
Tricky going, seemed uphill all the way but plugged on doggedly.
All parsed en route, bar trend’s definition, which dawned seconds after stopping the clock.
I found this a very elegant puzzle and very satisfying to solve; smooth surfaces and masterful misdirection.
Very well done setter; many thanks to you and Pip.
41:37. should have been quicker in the SW corner, but got stuck with COMPUTE and TREND (which I suspected meant fashionable but could I see the answer?).
I liked this one a lot. only biffed one CANTATA. thanks P and setter!
45:52
Stuck for ages at the end on PROOFLESS, ELECTRON GUN (which I should have seen earlier, after a career working with linear accelerators), and my LOI COMPUTE (where I eventually saw the parsing before submitting).
Thanks Piquet and setter
Worked out the (w)rongun from deciding it must be electron from beamer. Don’t know enough about music to question CANTATA. COD was FRYING PAN for me.
40 minutes to solve. Tough but rewarding. Temporarily ‘stumped’ by ELECTRON GUN, and had to allow my elderly brain to cool down for a while (as per a real firearm)before getting this one.
26.30. Took a while to get going and finally cracked erstwhile to finish. Bit late so I’ll sign off by saying whorl was my COD.
It’s very late and there are many comments already, but I can’t resist saying I really liked this puzzle, all 45 minutes of it, and especially the very strange and roundabout clues like FRYING PAN, PROOFLESS, and my LOI KRUGERRAND — it took me ages to see what to do with the K! (and then it fell into place, once I had the other checkers).
Apart from the boring old sex=IT and the improbable SOP for puddle, I thought this was a terrific puzzle. Admittedly it was accompanied by a large drink which encouraged the sort of loose thinking that may have inspired the setter! FRYING PAN was the best clue for ages. Thanks to setter, piquet and all.
Bunged in PROSPECTS for 1 across, and took ages to see the light. Really foxed by a lot of this puzzle. In some clues I thought the foxing fair; in others, not. ANODYNE for me is pronounced not with a schwa, but an ‘o’. 42’56”
A pile of time wasting crap. Good cryptic should be solvable fair and square. When will you mediocre editors realise that you will lose readers when you let this rubbish through.