This is a puzzle I think newcomers to the 15 x 15 cryptic could enjoy tackling. I romped through it in less than 15 minutes, with a MER only at the spelling in 16d, before updating my almost non-existent knowledge of movies.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, DD = double definition, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Baby duck seen in river in the south west (4) |
| FOAL – the River FAL in Cornwall has O = duck inserted. | |
| 3 | A myth about US car budget (10) |
| AFFORDABLE – A FABLE has FORD inserted. | |
| 9 | Moving script’s reported traffic jam? (7) |
| AUTOCUE – sounds like “auto queue”, ha ha. | |
| 11 | Relax — I hear that bloke’s leaving for East End (4,3) |
| EASE OFF – sounds like “‘e’s off” being cockney for he’s off. | |
| 12 | Bad credit affected bank product (5,4) |
| DEBIT CARD – (BAD CREDIT)*. | |
| 13 | Sore points finally ceded by withdrawn ascetic (5) |
| ULCER – RECLUSE = ascetic, reverse it and remove the ES compass points. | |
| 14 | Disraeli once ordered comms blackout (5,7) |
| RADIO SILENCE – (DISRAELI ONCE)*. | |
| 18 | Co-star of M Ryan donating time for celebration (12) |
| THANKSGIVING – I don’t know much about movies, but I did recall Tom Hanks starred in some movies together with Meg Ryan; so T HANKS, then GIVING = donating. Wiki tells me they were Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve got mail, and Joe versus the volcano, none of which I’ve seen. | |
| 21 | Half of disc features live instrument (5) |
| REBEC – REC[ord] with BE = live inserted. A medieval bowed instrument I’d heard of but couldn’t describe. | |
| 22 | Contrite salesman runs away from newcomer (9) |
| REPENTANT – REP (salesman), ENTRANT loses R. | |
| 24 | Belong to Resistance penetrating French wartime traitor (7) |
| PERTAIN – R goes into Marshal Philippe Pétain. A neat surface. | |
| 25 | A devoted individual, island girl worked during afternoon (7) |
| PILGRIM – (I GIRL)* inside PM = afternoon. | |
| 26 | Prince liked her wearing distressed recalled clothes (10) |
| CINDERELLA – IN (wearing) clothed by (RECALLED)*. | |
| 27 | Stomach English pub sandwiches (4) |
| BEAR – E inside BAR = pub. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | The German visits tarts somewhere in the Low Countries (8) |
| FLANDERS – FLANS (that kind of tarts) with DER inserted. Der being “the” in German. | |
| 2 | Soldier group enlisting international fighter of toxic culture? (8) |
| ANTIBODY – ANT (soldier) BODY (group, e.g. body of men), insert I for international. | |
| 4 | For new year, regularly visited love goddess (5) |
| FREYA – alternate hidden as above. The Norse one, often spelt Freyja. | |
| 5 | Perhaps shift where boa might be put? (9) |
| OVERDRESS – a boa being a fur thing here, not a snake. | |
| 6 | Unify Scotland, sadly lacking social cohesion (13) |
| DYSFUNCTIONAL – (UNIFY SCOTLAND)*. Another neat surface. | |
| 7 | Begin to talk about piece that might feature cameo on the radio (6) |
| BROACH – sounds like BROOCH. | |
| 8 | Struggle upended iron stronghold (6) |
| EFFORT – Fe = iron, reversed = EF, add FORT = stronghold. | |
| 10 | Get on with it and switch to Cheltenham coverage? (3,2,3,5) |
| CUT TO THE CHASE – double definition, one cryptic. | |
| 15 | Lack of awareness noticeable in Signor Ancelotti (9) |
| IGNORANCE – hidden word. If you didn’t know, he’s a football team manager. | |
| 16 | Twisted wire current prisoner at liberty smuggles (8) |
| FILAGREE – FREE = at liberty, insert I LAG (current, prisoner). This caused me a MER as I was convinced it’s spelt FILIGREE, and my checker said A, but Collins says it’s a rare alternative spelling. | |
| 17 | Bouncing around, Tigger starts to move every item in the kitchen (3,5) |
| EGG TIMER – (TIGGER E M)*, the E M from every move. We had a standard poodle called Tigger, who totally lived up to his name. | |
| 19 | Extremely long line in reading, say, boring subject (6) |
| TROPIC – R (one of the three R’s) inside TOPIC = subject. | |
| 20 | Gong rung initially over new fairy king (6) |
| OBERON – OBE (gong, medal), R[ung], O[ver], N[ew]. | |
| 23 | Young boxer, possibly one beginning to learn? (5) |
| PUPIL – PUP (young boxer possibly), I (one) L[earn]. | |
Really enjoyed that, but it was hardly a romp. Slow in places – SW corner and LOI AUTOCUE. Knew BROOCH had double-O and BROACH didn’t. Suspected CINDERELLA on first read of the clues – the parsing didn’t jump out so didn’t enter it. Saw the anagrist and wondered where the Y went in DYSFUNCTIONAL, but writing it out as disfunctional looked even worse. Knew Harry/Sally which others have noted did not feature Hanks, T. Seen a couple of his fillums – used to travel long-haul a bit, and after eating and drinking and watching the odd interesting movie or two there was no alternative but to watch the Hollywood crap. Most of which are equally enjoyable with the sound off; you know the plot and what they’re saying, even having never seen the film before.
16:24 – never heard of a REBEC and although I had no problem avoiding the first I in DYSFUNCTIONAL, I was a lot less confident about there not being a second one in FILAGREE. Otherwise buttery smooth.
Lots to like here. Totally missed the reference to Mr Hanks so thanks Pip for the explanation. Three correct solves this week in under 25 mins which is fast for me so perhaps the editor has been reading the blog …. Thanks all.
Entering Roundneck instead of overdress held me back for a while – after all, a boa goes round the neck and a shift dress could have a round neck. Eventually the penny dropped, but I’m another Dysfunctional failure.
Thanksgiving was good.
19:16
Pleasant straightforward solve.
LOI THANKSGIVING went in with a sense of deja vu, although before I had the checkers I was trying to fit B Crystal into the answer.
Thanks piquet and setter
A gentle solve, just at the right level to give us a good challenge.
One question: in 13a, is ‘sore points’ doing double duty in clueing the S and E to remove from recluse?
Thank you piquet and setter!
‘Points’ in this instance just references compass points. It’s coincidence that those are also the first & last letters of ‘sore’!
On 13ac I think TomHearken may have a point. Good spot.
23:04. Obviously completely off the wavelength today, because I found that really hard!
I got myself into a right pickle in the SW corner by confidently putting in RACES for the last word at 10dn, in spite of the fact that the T in DEBIT CARD (lovely anagram!) ruled out OFF TO THE RACES and I wasn’t aware of another expression that would fit (get to the races?). This gave me the unknown CIBER for 21ac, and the combination made the rest of that corner – including the obvious CINDERELLA – impossible. What a mess.
Like many others I spent a bit of time trying to figure out how Billy Crystal was going to fit into 18ac. The Hanks/Ryan films are all of a type that I detest so I’ve never watched any of them.
Totally agree about those movies Keriothe but I’m a Hanks fan and loved him as the coach (there’s no crying in baseball) in A League Of Their Own. Yes I Know – baseball. Sorry about the dismal innings. We all have them but no crying in crosswords.
Hanks is a very good actor but his movie choices tend to the sentimental a bit for my taste.
Ha, my WITCH is currently 269. What a disaster!
I had no problem with the T Hanks stuff as I’m sure I’ve seen this device before (maybe in the Guardian?). Apparently they were in 4 films together (Joe vs the volcano, Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve got mail and Ithaca). No problem with DYSFUNCTIONAL as I already had the ‘i’. Misreading the ‘d’ of RADIO SILENCE as an ‘o’ meant I couldn’t get ANTIBODY or AUTOCUE so DNF but fairly easy overall.
Perhaps you saw the T Hanks idea in an Azed crossword. He does it from time to time.
A pleasant puzzle, all done in 28 minutes. I was careful to check the anagrist in 6dn, so avoided the possible mis-spelling. NHO FILAGREE spelt in this way, but REPENTANT left no alternative. Perhaps the wealth of anagrams and homophones made this a bit easier than usual.
FOI – DEBIT CARD
LOI – FILAGREE
COD – ANTIBODY
Thanks to piquet and other contributors.
A frustrating DNF – after an hour gave up on ULCER and TROPIC, though was then able to biff BROACH (didn’t know cameo as jewellery) and get REBEC from the wordplay. Wasn’t too sure about FILAGREE as I didn’t know the word, but figured the wordplay made sense with all the checkers. COD THANKSGIVING, even if I’m not a fan of the Hanks/Ryan-style romance genre. Thanks piquet and setter!
I was on wavelength and avoided the bear-traps that it seemed others fell into. LOI was BROACH after I got ULCER, and I managed to avoid putting BROOCH.
19.36 I had DISFUNCTIONAL initially but the definition was very loose so I went back and checked the anagrist for once. I learned REBEC from an appearance here in May of the closely related RIBIBE, which annoyed me by being the only clue I didn’t solve that week. All parsed except LOI ULCER, which didn’t seem like it could be anything else. Thanks piquet.
22 minutes with LOI AUTOCUE which I thought was clever
Also didn’t like the filagree spelling, for a while I had ruled filigree out because of the a in repentant
Also DYSFUNCTIONAL I knew it had to have a Y and there was nowhere else to put it, but I’m not sure I’ve seen that spelling before
For a while I invented a new word, TORPIC, which I convinced myself was some kind of etiolated line, till the REBEC saved me
Thanks setter and blogger
Just under 33mins for a successful solve a day later. Last ten mins held up in the SW corner having put “cut to the RACES” but eventually spotted that CINDERELLA might fit and REBEC, TROPIC and PERTAIN then tumbled after rethink. Then I was left to figure out FILAGREE which I’d had the right components for but never quite in the right order.
As for Thanksgiving, it came up in the QC about a month ago at 1D – little bit harder though as it was just “Actor Tom” and we were looking for a “holiday”. Naming the Hanks/Ryan triple bill is one of my party tricks as no-one remembers Joe vs The Volcano – and I haven’t even seen it!