34 minutes to do all but 40a, then another 3 days till I finally gave up and went for help. Obviously I didn’t spend the whole 3 days on it, that would be silly. In the end it was a perfectly fair and gettable clue that I just wasn’t good enough to get. Apart from a couple of the usual unfair literary clues I really enjoyed solving this one.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | SEARCH WARRANT – a lovely cryptic definition to start with. “Policeman’s rifle permit”, rifle here meaning to search through |
| 8 | PUBESCENT – PUB, detectivE, SCENT |
| 13 | RIDGE – RIDE around G |
| 14 | MEGAPHONE – ENO (English National Opera) then HEM (gentle cough) reversed around GAP |
| 15 | P,LEDGER |
| 16 | PROMISED LAND – two defs one slightly twisted |
| 17 | HARD CHEESE – as above |
| 18 | INDUCT – “inn ducked” |
| 19 | RESIGNED – play on words between re-signed and resigned |
| 21 | PRO,TEA – a plant also known as sugarbush. I prefer the latter. Is the question mark enough to indicate definition by example? I think it probably is. |
| 24 | GENERATION – GENERA[-l] the O in TIN (can) |
| 26 | BLARNEY STONE – (SON BARELY TEN)* I like the defiinition here, “that offers convincing speech after kiss”. This took a long time to solve, mainly because I’d made a bar splitting the answer as (9,3) |
| 29 | DOW,N – DOW of DOW Jones fame |
| 30 | ACID RAIN – “a sewer in Sark” is A C.I. DRAIN |
| 31 | DEFIANCE – D,E (lower classes) then FIANCÉ (intended) |
| 34 | LOOK INTO – LOO (ladies) KIN,TO |
| 35 | TIME SLOT – TIMES LOT (multiplied by large amount) |
| 36 | WILT – WILT[on], Wilton is a type of woven carpet |
| 39 | TO ERR IS HUMAN – (MAN HURRIES TO)* |
| 40 | KILO,CYCLES – no matter how long I stared at this and went through the alphabet trying to find a word to fit, I still couldn’t get it without online help. Even after getting it it took a while to understand what was going on, It’s KILO (weight) then CYCLES (keeps varying). Looks easy now! The setter wins again. |
| 43 | ATTICA – hidden in ZermATT I CAll . The setter wans’t over-generous with the definition here, “area to the south east” though it’s difficult to argue that Attica (Greece) is to the South East of Zermatt (Switzerland). I wonder if it’s the only place that is |
| 44 | CONDENSE – CONDEMNS + E(ast) – M(illions) |
| 45 | HOOPLA – AL[-l] + POOH (bear) reversed |
| 49 | STRAIGHT ON – (GHOST TRAIN)* Has anyone seen this anagram before? I haven’t |
| 51 | FINANCE HOUSE – (HE FACES UNION)* |
| 53 | EMIRATE – EMIGRATE with G removed |
| 54 | DARWINISM – DAR[e] WIN 1’S M(arried) |
| 55 | SIS,SY |
| 56 | TRAVELLER – double literary ref, one fair once you’d got 20dn and the other utterly ludicrous. 20d is Gulliver who famously went on his travels. “asked if anybody was there” refers to the first line of a poem, The Listeners by Walter De La Mare. ‘IS there anybody there?’ said the Traveller’ Why do we have to keep having these stupidly obscure literary references in crosswords? |
| 57 | EGG ON ONES FACE – slightly odd cryptic def “with this, yellow with embarrassment” |
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|
| Down | |
| 1 | STRAPPING – APP(endix) in STRING |
| 2 | ANDROID – ANEROID (barometer) with one change. I wondered whether there was an ANDROAD barometer as the clue started “Robot making one change to a” which suggested ANDROID with I becoming A. Fortunately I decided to dismiss my theory |
| 3 | CREDIT CARD – This one took me longest of all to work out – “part of course completed” refers to an educational credit and “scoring document” is card. |
| 4 | WIMSEY – W[-h]IM the YES reversed. Lord Peter Wimsey was a sleuth in a detective series by Dorothy L Sayers. This demonstrates perfectly my hang ups about literary clues. I think this clue is perfectly acceptable as Wimsey is the main (or one of the main) characters in a series of books by a quite well known writer. Compare this to 56a where you are also expected to know the actual lines of a poem. |
| 5 | REGULAR SOLID – (ROLL DIE SUGAR)* – a bit of geometry to redress the balance somewhat |
| 6 | ALPINIST – PIN in A-LIST. “secret for accessing funds” for PIN is marvellous |
| 7 | TROY – R in TOY |
| 8 | PIED A TERRE – (TAPE I’D)* then ERRE[d] |
| 9 | BIPEDS – 1p (not much money) in BEDS (short for Bedfordshire). I remember when 1p was a lot of money and could buy you four black jacks or fruit salads. I think they’re 5p each now |
| 10 | SHEPHERDS PIE – SHE,P(ressure),HER,D(aughter),SPIE[d] . Lovely build up |
| 11 | EAGLE – EAGE[r] around L. An eagle is two under par in a silly game that spoils a good walk (eh Jimbo?) |
| 12 | THREE DAY EVENT – brilliant! “Competition involving half of creation”. we’re told that God rested on the 7th day, so half the creation would have been a 3-day event |
| 20 | GULLIVER – GULL, [r]IVER |
| 22 | THORN,BILL – there are lots of different hummingbirds, and here’s a link to a rufous capped thornbill one |
| 23 | ATLANTIS – NT,I in ATLAS – the lost continent |
| 25 | NEW FOREST – “softer” is an anagram of forest, hence “NEW FOREST”. I went to the New Forest last year for my holidays. I enjoyed it so much I’m going there again this year. It’s not far from Jimbo’s neck of the woods |
| 27 | EJECTION – D(emocrat) removeved from DEJECTION |
| 28 | ORDINAND – RAN around DIN all in DO reversed |
| 29 | DOLL TEARSHEET – (SHE TOLERATED + [pisto]L)*. A character in Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 2, who had the grand total of 31 lines attributed to her. This is the only Shakespeare book I’ve ever read and I’ve still never heard of her! Only gettable by best fitting the anagram fodder between the checkers. |
| 32 | MICROCLIMATE – (CRITICAL MEMO)* |
| 33 | ALL,ITERATION |
| 37 | OUT OF ORDER – two meanings, one slightly whimsical |
| 38 | HYPOTHESES – THESE in HYPOS (syringes). Newton once said “Hypotheses non fingo” (Latin for I contrive no hypotheses). THESE may be doing double duty here but I suppose the def could be just “Newton made up none” |
| 41 | SPARE TYPE – two meanings |
| 42 | INCISING – “in sizing” |
| 46 | P,RUSSIA – both Fredericks 1 and 2 were kings of Prussia. I thought Freddy 2 was great |
| 47 | SHTETL = first letters of Some Hope To End Their Lives. Yiddish for town-ish |
| 48 | ACUMEN – Cu (copper) in AMEN |
| 50 | RAITA – the setter reckons this sounds like “writer”. I pronounce it Rye-ee-ta and, like most of the world, I also pronounce the final R in writer. I can’t really see the point in having an R there if you’re just going to ignore it. |
| 52 | BRAE – BRAVE without V |
I’m rather less sympathetic over your ignorance of The Listeners and DOLL TEARSHEET, both of which are part of this country’s literary heritage. Go read!
However, I would guess that those of my generation who have even a fairly modest acquaintance with “the old stuff” will almost certainly have read The Listeners and will probably be able to quote its first few lines, so I find it difficult to accept your “stupidly obscure”, particularly as it’s a poem I’m very fond of.
I managed to get everything in in 90 minutes–although not understanding a half-dozen or so until reading this blog–but DEFIANCE and WILT took forever. The former gets a COD; I would have got the latter if a) I had heard of Wiltons, or b) I had had the patience to work my way to the end of the alphabet (Bilton? Hilton? Hinton?…)
The reason for that is so simple that it is hardly worth stating: the editors and most of the setters have obscure literary qualifications.. it is exactly the same reason that keeps all of the sciences, for the most part, as mute onlookers. And seems to cause mayhem when they do rear their heads, as with 40ac.
Having said that I accept it as part of the scene, and didn’t find 56ac (for which the number in the blog seems a bit misplaced?) at all hard to solve, given the reference to Gulliver from, wait for it, “Gulliver’s Travels” – it would be more charitable, it seems to me, to see the reference to de la Mare as just an embellishment, a nod to those who like such things. I wouldn’t want to have to clue jumbos for a living!
I also wouldn’t want to clue Jumbos for a living, but Jumbo setters probably do. I see my role as a blogger is first to explain the answers and then to judge the quality of the clues. In a puzzle which I rated overall as really enjoyable, I consider I wouldn’t be doing my “job” properly if I didn’t point out two clues out of 60 which I thought were pants! I went to a football game today. I wouldn’t like to be a referee, but I still booed him off the pitch for being useless. He probably refereed it much better than I would have done.
(I assume that 7dpenguin’s problem with 40ac was simply that he couldn’t see the word rather than that he didn’t know it in the first place. I don’t imagine that many people would have difficulty with the clue unless they had the same blind spot.)