Another fine Wednesday outing, with one definition I didn’t know but guessed, and one elephant trap which held me up at the end. I liked the “Clement Attlee” surface at 4d.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Saxophonist’s case holds long instrument (6) |
| SPINET – PINE (long) inside S[axophonis]T. | |
| 5 | Contemplate statisticians surrounded by booze (8) |
| CONSIDER – ONS (Office for National Statistics in UK) inside CIDER. | |
| 9 | Somebody’s grandfather clock? (3-5) |
| BIG-TIMER – I had gone wrong here when left with an impossible P*L*N**R for 2d, my LOI, as I had put in OLD-TIMER as a cryptic for grandfather clock. But it’s not that, it’s a double definition of sorts, one being a “somebody” like a Big Shot, one a large clock. | |
| 10 | Water jump(6) |
| SPRING – double definition. | |
| 11 | Secretly, Brahms and Liszt are manic (2,6) |
| IN CAMERA – (ARE MANIC)*. Do we approve of the CRS for p*ssed = inebriated, as our anagrind? | |
| 12 | Killing time with prince on isle, half-cut (6) |
| LETHAL – [is]LE, T[ime], HAL as in Prince Hal. | |
| 13 | Cocaine, cannabis and fruitcake (8) |
| CRACKPOT – crack being a form of cocaine and pot being cannabis. | |
| 15 | Part of fingerprint found in Star Chamber (4) |
| ARCH – hidden word. | |
| 17 | Diplomat devoid of love and desire (4) |
| ENVY – ENVOY loses his O. | |
| 19 | Epicurean academic stopping robbery (8) |
| HEDONIST – DON inside HEIST. I like to think I am one such. | |
| 20 | Start to roll joint and cause annoyance (6) |
| RANKLE – R[oll], ANKLE a joint. | |
| 21 | Grown weaker, ladies perhaps need exercises (8) |
| LOOSENED – LOOS – ladies perhaps, (NEED)*. | |
| 22 | Conference match bringing in two thousand (6) |
| SUMMIT – MM inside SUIT = match. | |
| 23 | Split always follows scorn (8) |
| DISSEVER – DISS = scorn, EVER = always. | |
| 24 | Peter out smuggling dope back in refuse (8) |
| ABNEGATE – GEN (dope) reversed inside ABATE = peter out. | |
| 25 | Frivolous people voting for vacuous treaty (6) |
| YEASTY – YEAS as opposed to NOES, T[reat]Y. I didn’t know this meaning of yeasty but it is #4 in Collins listing – “insubstantial or frivolous”. | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Perturbed at first, I ignore naughty lingerie (8) |
| PEIGNOIR -my LOI, as mentioned above, and seen once I had corrected 2d; P[erturbed], (I IGNORE)*. It is a kind of see-through robe, apparently; Mrs piquet definitely does not have one. | |
| 3 | Bird originally nested under r*.oof (8) |
| NUTHATCH – N[ested], U[nder], THATCH = roof. | |
| 4 | Clement Attlee regularly supporting constitution (9) |
| TEMPERATE – TEMPER = constitution, A[t]T[l]E[e]. Nice surface. | |
| 5 | Ken crawled along rocks for it (6,9) |
| CARNAL KNOWLEDGE – (KEN CRAWLED ALONG)*. | |
| 6 | Wise chief exchanging pounds for power (7) |
| SAPIENT – SALIENT (chief) swaps L for P. | |
| 7 | Thriller writer’s novel The Dingo (8) |
| DEIGHTON – (THE DINGO)*. As in Len Deighton, of “Harry Palmer” fame, who is alive today and 96 as I write this. | |
| 8 | State of royals is good, in truth (8) |
| REGALITY – G for good inside REALITY. | |
| 14 | Alarmingly hard-left sermon containing common sense (9) |
| OMINOUSLY – HOMILY = sermon, the H has left, insert NOUS = common sense; OMI(NOUS)LY. | |
| 15 | American doctor picked up more fresh, delicious food (8) |
| AMBROSIA – A for American, MB for doctor, ROSIA sounds like rosier = fresher. | |
| 16 | Nickname of international banker caught in scam (8) |
| COGNOMEN – GNOME (a Swiss banker) inside CON a scam. | |
| 17 | Found naked, lying around with artist and the like (2,6) |
| ET CETERA – I biffed this and deduced the wordplay later; RA (artist) follows [d]ETECTE[d] reversed, where detected = found and naked means remove the outer letters. Fortunately, you didn’t need to work that out. | |
| 18 | Extremely virile tough guys, tense and passionate (8) |
| VEHEMENT – V[irile], HE MEN = tough guys, T for tense. | |
| 19 | Hesitant husband becoming leader in Icelandic parliament (7) |
| HALTING – I knew the Icelandic parliament is called the ALTHING so it was easy to move the H to the front. | |
25:25. All sorted by the end, having wrestled with most of the same things as everyone else. DISSEVER looked so odd I had trouble trying to bridge the obvious DIS (that’s my spelling) and EVER. COD the vaguely but sufficiently known COGNOMEN
DNF, and I got the PEIGNOIR and BIG TIMER intersection, but failed with COGNOMEN, a word I’ve never come across.
Tough, but very fair wordplay. I found the grid a bit awkward for some reason.
Thanks Pip
And Setter
Late to the party as I had a few answers not done in the SW, put it to one side and only got back to it this morning.
No problem with peignoir. Mrs Jerry doesn’t possess one either Pip, maybe a Christmas idea here?
DNF. Peignoir/Cognomen/Yeasty and, of course, the wrong Timer.
Toughie.
Unlike Pootle, I had an auspicious start, fairly flying along with SPINET straight in and steady after that. Didn’t help putting in COGITATE instead of CONSIDER at 5a; that held me up for a long while. The long anagram at 5d came quickly, but I’d only vaguely heard of COGNOMEN (but had to be). Other likes were BIG TIMER ( once I’d corrected it from OLD!), CRACKPOT and LOOSENED. Fun crossword.
Ticks replaced question marks beside dissever and ominously (hard left defeated me).
Big timer bifd, not entirely convinced even now.
Mild quibble in the blogger’s parsing of vehement, which ignores the first e…formed from “extremely virile”.