Solving time: 13.09
After a good start, I spent a long time at the end with an otherwise completed grid, gazing at one unyielding clue (see 10 A, below). As I tend not to notice surface meanings much while solving, I only really appreciated the quality of some of these clues when writing the blog. There were so many pairs of words that seemed to go together naturally, such as “nervous tension, “Welsh university”, “numeric characters”, “brave soldier” – every one of them a trap.
Apologies if I have made any mistakes – I’m more tired than usual and probably won’t get round to making any corrections tonight. And a very happy World Cup to you all.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
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1
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PROSPECT – (crop pest)*- a straightforward anagram is a welcome sight at 1 across. | |
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5
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W(IG)WAM – IG is the soldier returning (GI, reversed) inside the first letters of “wife with a medal” – and the definition is just “home of brave”. | |
|
9
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DON QUI(XO)TE – DON=fellow, QUITE=completely, and X/O are opposing symbols in a game of noughts and crosses. You’d think a setter who included Don Quixote would be unable to resist going for the pangram, but this one seems to have done so. | |
|
10
|
BEN(JAM)IN – one of the founders of the tribes of Israel. This was one of those maddening clues that held me up for what seemed like ages, after I had finished the rest of the puzzle pretty quickly. I just couldn’t see how it worked – was the definition “circulation”, “circulation problem”, or “tribal leader”? “Home for tribal leader” – did that mean I needed to substitute IN for a T somewhere? There were two places this could happen, which just made it worse. Eventually I resorted to picking what looked like a crucial space – the 4th letter – and trying every letter in it. I got to J and all became clear. Really, I should not have struggled with this – I know quite well that BEN means mountain. The rest of the wordplay is JAM=circulation problem, in the sense of a blockage or stoppage, and “home” was indeed IN. | |
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11
|
TENS,OR – a definite case of “write it in and work out the wordplay later”. “Present, for example” refers to the present TENSE, “in short” is an instruction to remove the last letter, and OR=men (other ranks in the military). | |
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12
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AX(L)E, revolver here defining a thing that revolves. | |
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14
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TO THE NINES, an anagram of TENSION, indicated by the very neat “nervous”, around the article “the”. | |
|
20
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GO,OD – OD here standing for overdrawn. | |
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23
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SK(ERR)Y – a reef of rock or a small rocky island. Got this from the wordplay – had heard of the word but had no real idea what it meant – if forced to guess I’d probably have said it was a boat. | |
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24
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CAMBRI,AN – “university rejects a third” tells you to remove a third of the letters of CAMBRIDGE. | |
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25
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NIGHT LIGHT | |
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26
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TEA – cricketers take a tea break in the afternoon, except in England where they more usually spend the afternoon, like the rest of us, observing the rain. | |
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27
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SEXT,ON – SEXT is one of the canonical hours of prayer. | |
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28
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PASSED BY – at least I assume so, though I don’t quite see how the first part of the clue works. | |
| Down | ||
|
1
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PALM BEACH – with anagrams going right in an 1 across AND 1 down, I started off with optimism, but in the end this would be the very corner that held me up. |
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2
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ORDINAL, – tidily hidden in recORD IN A Log, though for me “Extract” gave it away at once. An ordinal can be a book of instructions for religious services. | |
|
3
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PEDLAR, sounding like “pedaller”. | |
|
4
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CUNEIFORM – an anagram of (of numeric). Cuneiform, meaning “wedge-shaped”, was an early writing system. I know the word, but the clue reads so smoothly that I needed all but one of the crossing letters before I realised what was going on. | |
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5
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WHISTLE – whistling for something can mean asking for it in vain, and to wet your whistle means to have a drink. | |
|
6
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G, ROUNDING | |
|
7
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AWE(SO,M)E – SO=so, M=much at first, all inside (cased in) A WEE (a little) | |
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13
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EYEBRIGHT, an anagram of (they’re + big). Eyebright is a small plant of the genus Euphrasia. | |
|
15
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HYDRANGEA, a larger plant, sounding like Hyde (London park), ranger. | |
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16
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SEDENTARY – “sedimentary” (one sort of rock) with the IM removed (indicated by “I’m avoiding”). | |
|
18
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ASK(ANC)E – ASKE(d) is “almost invited”, and the party the African National Congress. Very timely. | |
|
21
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O(MITT)ED – the OED is always a good starting point if you see “work of reference” or something of that kind. | |
|
22
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A,BAT,IS – with the IS coming from “one’s”. An abatis is a rampart made from the branches of trees laid in a row. I did not know this, but just about recognised it as a word and was sufficiently confident from the wordplay not to think twice about writing it in. | |
The first part of the ‘passed by’ clue refers to something like a little slip in a gadget saying ‘passed by Joe Blow’, although such a slip is more like to say ‘inspected by’ or ‘approved by’.
I didn’t get ‘Benjamin’ for a long time either, had to go away and come back. It is also US slang for a $100 bill, so watch out for that.
There was a lot of clever cluing and enjoyable technique in this puzzle. I always remember the three types of rocks from 9th grade earth science: ignorant, sentimental, and metaphoric. What, that’s not right?
CAMBRIAN was relatively easy for me, as the version of ‘Men of Harlech’ we sing concludes with the magnificently jingoistic invocation to ‘Cambria, God and Right’ – better even than ‘confound their politics, frustrate their knavish tricks’.
The difficulty outside this corner was at 10ac but the problem there was caused by a slip in solving 3dn where I had stupidly written “pedler”. I do know how to spell it but I had the word “pedaller” also in mind at the critical moment and muddled the last two letters.
Wasted a while at 20ac trying to make “gain” fit and took far to long to think of “mitt” for “hand” at 21dn having already written in the O and the TED. I never heard of ABATIS so although I had considered it quite early in the proceedings it didn’t go in until I had all the checking letters.
I’ve heard people say of bad tea that at least it’s hot and wet. Is this an actual reference at 26ac, I wonder.
There’s a PALM BEACH north of Sydney. It’s where Home and Away is filmed, which I’m sure we all watch.
In order to gain access to this site I have just had to verify that I’m over 14 years of age and every blog now carries an official health warning. I started doing crosswords when I was 12, so presumably I would have simply lied to gain access?
I’m increasingly convinced that the lunatics have taken over the asylum
On the whole this was a delightful challenge with lots of anagrams and tailoring phrases making for a flying start. I got tensor, skerry, abatis and eyebright from the wordplay. I had to avoid a strong urge to enter Lampeter at 24, guessing that the setter is probably a vicar. It was nice to see Don Quixote today. He does not often make an appearance on account of his high Scrabble score.
I loved WIGWAM because it was almost a paragraph, and TEA because it couldn’t be more English, but there were a lot of clues here that would be CoD on other, blander days.
I had GOOD plus the two well worn flowers (liked “annual” as a definition) and groaned slightly at “park warden” but that was it. Stuck – and for really no good reason. Then AZED/Mephisto came to my aid with ABATIS, seen many times before but temporarily forgotten. That gave me CAMBRIAN and the rest followed, home in 25 minutes.
Thought 4D CUNEIFORM first class
As always, thanks.
I await more evidence from clues, but start to wonder whether this is a rule that’s been relaxed. At present it’s not a change I like, but that was true with unindicated def by example at first back in about 2003, and I changed my mind with time.
good puzzle…also thought Go overdrawn was an unusual clue…
In golf terms had a couple of rounds in the low 60’s this week but finished off with an 80 and a couple of lost balls
COD WIGWAM, a veritable tour de force of arcane wordplay with a smooth, smooth surface.
COD to WHISTLE!
I have to admit (or confirm) that, like Jimbo, I have never seen Neighbours. Nor E.Enders and Corrie come to that!
Perhaps I will kick myself, but is this a bad clue?
Other than that, a bit of an odd one. Started quickly then stopped for about five minutes with 10A and most of the SE not done. The former was due to the common mis-spelling of CUNIE.. the latter I dont know why. None of 20A, 24A, 22D, 21D or 16D were coming, until 24A popped up and the rest went in straight away.
Has anyone discussed (generally) yesterdays qualification puzzle. It seemed to me to be a level easier than the first two, hence my quick time (for me), so if anyone suggests it was on a par, I will be v.happy and may even post it in.
We don’t say anything about qualification puzzles until after the closing date. I would encourage people to enter when they think they’ve done a puzzle in a good time, but the decision must be made by you without help from others, or people will be accusing us of providing assistance which is unfair to people who don’t know about this blog.
Hint: first post.
Is skerry exclusively Scottish? I seem to remember the Skerries off Anglesey.
The only major problem occurred when I dropped my breakfast kipper onto the paper, rendering the top left almost indecipherable: good argument for an i-Pad, I suppose.
Liked CUNEIFORM.
.
A clearer reason for rejecting this is that “leader” would never be used in the Times puzzle to indicate someone with the surname Leader, because the surname must have a capital letter. This is the deceptive upcasing/downcasing difference which someone asked about a few days ago.