29254 It made one Gasp and Stretch one’s Eyes

Author   ZabadakPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic

 

Almost 24 minutes on this rather good crossword, a fair few of those banging my head against a bit of wordplay which I was determined to resolve before submitting, but didn’t. The tech whizz also had me scrambling, unnecessarily, for some esoteric bit of jargon. Otherwise the vocab seemed to be generously selected, so long as you are aware of the poet and a couple of sporting references

Definitions underlined in italics, excluded and dropped letters enclosed in [] and everything else hopefully self explanatory.

Across
1 Flamboyant lawyers love what Manuel says (7)
BAROQUE – Lawyers collectively form the BAR. Love is O in, for example, tennis, and then Manuel is either a generic Spaniard, or more likely the hapless waiter from Fawlty Towers, whose sketchy command of English prompted a ¿QUE? to whatever instruction Basil gave.
5 Issue pound, having gained backing, more or less (7)
PUBLISH – Pound (weight) is LB, having gained provides UP, the two being joined and reversed. -ISH is a suffix denoting more or less, of which I  am sureish.
9 Roots tangled in the densely packed place (9)
ETHNICITY – An anagram (tangled) of IN THE followed by CITY for densely packed place.
10 See a police officer gets a round in, perhaps (5)
LOADS – Not drinks, then, but a bullet. See is LO, add A and D[etective] S[ergeant]
11 Have a hankering for chicken, mostly (5)
CRAVE – An adjectival form of chicken is CRAVEN. All but the N for your entry.
12 Really not far from home on island (2,7)
IN EARNEST – Not far from home is NEAR NEST, to follow I[sland]. Lose time by assuming “home” is always IN
13 In photo, auntie thanks new salesperson (4,9)
SHOP ASSISTANT – Here’s where I lost time. Photo is SHOT, thanks is TA and N[ew] is standard. To assemble the answer (which thankfully can’t be anything else) you need to derive PASSIS from auntie. You’ll be pleased to know light has dawned: auntie is PA’S SIS[ter].
17 Poet whose children were naughty smearing earlobe with chilli (7,6)
HILAIRE BELLOC – An extraordinary man whose “Cautionary Tales for Children” contained such gems as

The Chief Defect of Henry King
Was chewing little bits of String.
At last he swallowed some which tied
Itself in ugly Knots inside.

Read the full set with Ian Basil Gawaine Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood’s (“B.T.B”) delightfully naïve illustrations  here. Oh, right: it’s an anagram (smearing) of EARLOBE and CHILLI.
21 Talk of the old days, short skirts in the playground back in style? (9)
REMINISCE – MINIS for short skirts inserted into REC for playground and finished off with the back (end) of [styl]E
24 Sail boatbuilder shortened after trimming edges for ages (5)
GENOA – NOAH the ark builder minus the H following [a]GE[s] (edges trimmed).
25 Nap before noon having so many hours until then (5)
DOZEN – Nap gives DOZE, add N[oon]
26 Ban plagiarism in written work (9)
PROSCRIBE – A plagiarism is a CRIB, insert into PROSE for written work.
27 Sopranos cast short of a godfather? (7)
SPONSOR – An anagram (cast) of SOPRANOS with the A removed.
28 Classic sandcastle — Geraldine holds with symmetry (2,5)
ST LEGER – One of the four big horse races, hidden in sandcaST LEGERaldine. Symmetry? 6 letters before, 6 after.
Down
1 Make pale line in the sand (6)
BLEACH – L[ine] in BEACH made of sand.
2 Try splitting beam of light up in practice (9)
REHEARSAL – HEAR is from try, insert into a reverse (up) of LASER for light beam.
3 Case of Ecuadorians occupying capital? Yes (5,2)
QUITE SO – The first and last of E[cuadorian]S contained in the local capital, QUITO.
4 Fresh lime in tea to remove, maybe from the cup (9)
ELIMINATE – That is, the cup competition. An anagram (fresh) of LIME IN TEA
5 One’s balance improves certainly during gymnastics lesson (5)
PAYEE – Certainly gives AYE, and gymnastics lessons are P.E. One inside the other.
6 Area trading with rubles (7)
BELARUS – &lit. An anagram (please allow trading!) of A[rea] and RUBLES
7 Mad assessor’s self-explanatory statement? (5)
IRATE – As in hopping mad. An assessor says “I RATE”
8 Doubt that boy will chase mates out of bounds (8)
HESITATE – That boy will chase translates to HE’S IT in the playground game of tag. Strip the bounds (outside letters) of [m]ATE[s]
14 Holding broken TV, consult office’s tech whizz (5,4)
STEVE JOBS – The letters TV are split into SEE for consult. Chambers gives “settled duty or employment” for office, so I offer that as an equivalent  to JOB (adding the ‘S)
15 Equally cold final section on the way up (9)
ASCENDING – Equally cold is AS C. Add ENDING from final section.
16 Game in which king swaps letter, initially for a D (8)
CHARADES – King is a CHARLES. The first letter of -um- L[etter] is swapped out for A D.
18 Knock top off pot taken by gambler? (7)
INNINGS – From cricket. The pot taken by a (successful) gambler is WINNINGS. Remove the top letter.
19 Well grounded soldier enters the nearest pub (7)
LOGICAL – The nearest pub is a LOCAL, which a GI, soldier, enters
20 Rush someone who minds taking drug (6)
CAREER – Someone who minds: CARER. Insert E for drug.
22 Singer joined then given audition (5)
MEZZO – Sounds like (given audition) MET SO, joined then.
23 Quality of drink that’s uncertain (5)
SUPER – Quality in its meaning of excellence, SUP for drink and ER the uncertain sound.

55 comments on “29254 It made one Gasp and Stretch one’s Eyes”

  1. 35 minutes for a straightforward puzzle. FOI ST LEGER then CAREER and GENOA. LOI LOADS Filled many in without parsing COD IN EARNEST.
    Thanks Z

  2. Good one, had me puzzled! I never figured out why BELARUS—should’ve spotted the anagram fodder, but that’s a helluva anagrind! Didn’t know the cricket sense of “knock,” but looked it up later. Last thing I figured out was PA’S SIS.

  3. Never did see the parsing of SHOP ASSISTANT and never would have seen Pa’s Sis for Aunt. NHO of the poet. Saw BAROQUE straight away which led me to think it was going to be an easy day. Not QUITE SO. Liked ETHNICITY and IN EARNEST.
    Thanks Z and setter.

  4. After a great start in the NW I managed to turn this into something of a marathon and finished with 53 minutes on the clock. There was some tricky wordplay that delayed me but was satisfying to work out, e.g. SHOP ASSISTANT which I I might have biffed and moved on but must have taken a good 10 minutes to unravel over several return visits.

    There are five classic horse races rather than four, and the ST LEGER (run at Doncaster) is the third of them to appear here in recent weeks following The Oaks (twice) and The Derby (both run at Epsom). The other two are the One Thousand Guineas and Two Thousand Guineas (run at Newmarket) which if they turn up as answers would have to be in a Jumbo.

    My longest delay was over my LOI DOZEN which should have been a write-in. Although I know MEZZO perfectly well I had managed to write METZO at 22dn, confusing wordplay with answer, which gave me an incorrect checker for 25ac and I was baffled at the thought of a word to fit D?T?N.

    1. I’ve heard it said that no self-respecting owner will turn out for a mere 1,000 guineas these days! But of course, you’re right, and (not for the first time) I ignored that nagging little voice that insists on fact-checking.

      1. I know almost nothing about horse racing. I only knew there are five because I had reason to look them up for my Jumbo blog posted 17th May.

        1. Jack, back in the 90’s I was a compiler for the Sporting Life. Everyone ‘s favourite jockey at the time was Frankie Dettori. One day he went through the card at Ascot (rode every winner). I clued an answer thus: That F in Frankie (said the bookies) (7). The editor loved it. The definition of course was INITIAL..

      2. You’re right, they wouldn’t.
        But with some low-level flat races for maidens, classified stakes, and 40-60 rated handicaps now worth only £3500 to the winner, that scenario is much closer than you might think, and encapsulates the problem currently blighting British racing. Jumps racing is in an even more desperate state. Basement level training fees are about £23k pa. So infeasibly, a low-ability horse has to win seven times in the year to cover the fees.
        At the top end, the One Thousand (for fillies) and Two Thousand Guineas (colts and fillies) derive their names from the original prizes on offer way back in the early nineteenth century. Unusually, the fillies race at £311,000 is now worth more than the colts race (£297,000). Owners of the winners of these races, and the races at Royal Ascot next week, tend to not have to worry about the maths.
        Unfortunately, it’s not Royal Ascot every week

  5. I found this tough but fair, finishing in 35.59 which we’ll call 36. The NE held out for longest with BELARUS, PAYEE, IRATE and PUBLISH having to be ground out the hard way. Oh publish wasn’t, nor PROSCRIBE, nor SHOP ASSISTANT, so thank you Z. Good puzzle.

    From A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall:
    I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
    I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways
    I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
    I’ve been out in front of a DOZEN dead oceans
    I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
    And it’s a hard…

  6. 42 minutes for me. I never did work out how SHOP ASSISTANT worked, and when I realized STEVE JOBS was not some word for IT support that I’d never heard of it was a relief. We do seem to be on a horse-racing theme right now, I guess a change from cricket!

  7. 21’06”, RHS seemed like hard work. Thanks for PASSIS. And for ‘he’s it’. Poet heard of but not read.

    GENOA brought to mind the obvious old answer. COD to STEVE JOBS.

    Thanks z and setter.

  8. 23 very enjoyable minutes, had to biff a few (SHOP ASSISTANT, PROSCRIBE) but for the most part I had the unusual pleasure of seeing everything click neatly into place.
    FOI BAROQUE
    LOI INNINGS
    COD PAYEE (in a very crowded field)
    Many thanks to both blogger and setter.

  9. 13:38. A really lovely puzzle: tricky without being a grind and full of delightfully inventive stuff. ‘What Manuel says’, ‘gets a round in, perhaps’, PA’S SIS, ‘one’s balance improves’, ‘that boy will chase’. 27ac SPONSOR is a delight, as is the extremely neat &Lit BELARUS. Top notch.

    1. Re BELARUS, I was reading “rubles” as “rubies.” Now it makes a lot more sense!

  10. Enjoyed this, some nice clues and good surfaces.
    Hilaire Belloc, now there’s a poet! None of your soppy Shelley-type stuff here:
    “Lord Finchley tried to mend the Electric Light,
    It struck him dead: And serve him right!
    It is the business of the wealthy man,
    To give employment to the artisan.”

  11. 31 minutes. Terrific puzzle with too many good clues to pick one out, which of course I now will do. It just has to be BAROQUE. Thank you Z and setter.

  12. I chortled at LOI Knock = INNINGS on 33 mins and for that reason alone it also gets my COD.
    The whole SW corner held me up. Needed Zabadak to explain PASSIS.
    I agree with all the previous comments about the top quality of this one.
    Thanks Z and setter.

  13. 25:14*
    Another blinking typo. (HILAIEE BELLOC)

    Annoying as it was my last in and I’d finally put all the bits in the right places, or so I thought.

    Otherwise no major issues but I was stumped for a while for IN EARNEST and I hesitated before putting in HESTITATE.

    Thanks to both.

  14. BELARUS is a great clue. I’m always wary where there is no &lit signalling but still, a lovely crossword all round.

  15. 21:36. Lots of PDMs. Held up mostly by IRATE, STEVE JOBS and SUPER. I liked DOZEN, BLEACH and INNINGS best. Thanks Z and setter.

  16. As others have said a great puzzle. One of those I found challenging but not entirely sure why afterwards. Just how I like it.

    One lesson in fully parsing your answers as I had an incorrect IN SOMEWAY for a while. I just saw ‘Not really’ ‘far from home’ and ‘Island’ and wrote it in. That blocked pretty much the whole NE corner until I revisited. LOI BELARUS for which I was just not seeing the obvious in a rather literal sense, for that clue.

    Lots of good clues in this but since it fooled me for a long time COD goes to BELARUS.

    I also had the middle Z in first for the singer at 22d and one point thought it was going to be LIZZO. I was quite looking forward to the comments after TOM HARDY yesterday. Thankfully, it wasn’t to be.

    Thanks setter and blogger.

    1. In another puzzle today, I wondered for a while whether Sia had another life as a church reformer. But alas.

    2. Haha, can you imagine, after the comments about Tom Hardy yesterday, if we had Lizzo today!

  17. Reading how some found this straightforward is good for my humility. It certainly wasn’t easy for me. Finished in 45 mins, but with LOADS, BELARUS and PUBLISH biffed and unparsed. DNK GENOA was a sail, so constructed from wordplay with fingers crossed. Never really on the wavelength with this one, so just glad to finish. Liked PAYEE and STEVE JOBS.

  19. 18:00 dead for what became an enjoyable game of hunt the definition. Several of them were very cunningly concealed. GENOA vaguely remembered and last in.

  20. Challenging but enjoyable. FOI was —-QUE with BARO arriving somewhat later. QUITE SO was next. Then battle commenced IN EARNEST. SHOP ASSISTANT was biffed when I had a few checkers, so I never pondered on PASSIS. I surprised myself by extracting HILAIRE BELLOC from the depths (and a few crossers). BELARUS took ages to see. CHARADES, DOZEN and MEZZO brought up the rear at 30:03. Thanks setter and Z.

  21. 38:53. I took a long time with the north east corner in particular, but all very good stuff. BELARUS was very clever. I liked “he’s it” so COD to HESITATE

  22. Two goes needed.

    – Not familiar with his naughty children, but eventually figured out HILAIRE BELLOC from the anagrist
    – Got ST LEGER with no idea what the ‘with symmetry’ was doing
    – Staring at S_E_E _O_S for 14d, I thought it might be some French term for a know-it-all (something-tous, maybe?) until I thought of Steve Jobs – though I still couldn’t parse it
    -Didn’t parse CHARADES

    Thanks Zabadak and setter.

    FOI Baroque
    LOI Steve Jobs
    COD Sponsor

  24. 30:45 – great puzzle, in spite of not knowing the cricket knock and not (and never in a million years) being able to parse auntie as pa’s sis. Perhaps a bit too smartypants?

  25. Good one, 25 minutes, didn’t parse SHOP ASSISTANT so thanks Z for that. I’d have struggled with that if it was mine to blog. HESITATE was a bit tricky too.

  26. A strange one for me because I completed it all except for BELARUS and LOADS in well under my average time then just couldn’t see either of those, so a DNF. I thought knock = innings was a bit of obscure cricket terminology too far but you didn’t need to know it to get the answer.

  27. Blog site gave me a “500” error for a while. Anyways very enjoyable and a bit more meaty puzzle than the last few days. Spent a long time trying to parse “in earshot” as “not far from” before IRATE put me right. Knew the poet but not the naughty children. Had to think why LOADS worked before my PDM. Thanks Zabadak and setter

  28. If knock = innings is obscure just wait for track = golf course. Wonderful crossword that I found very difficult of course (I had speed cops for STEVE JOBS and only got it when I had the middle E) but as is often said and was said today, all quite understandable once one gets the answer, the sign of a good crossword. Que for what Manuel says could be seen in two ways: what the hapless Manuel says in Fawlty Towers, and ‘what’, as Manuel, the typical chap from Spain, says, so the setter can’t be accused of insularity. For LOADS I had l(o)a DS, with la = see (??) and a sort of &lit., but rather unsatisfactory.

  29. Very nice crossword, with a much-needed blog to explain how a few biffs actually worked (like the excellent PASSIS), so thanks, Zabadak! COD INNINGS (and glad to see the cricket has restarted after a rain delay).

  30. 17:16

    Made good progress early doors, filling in the top half with some rapidity, only hesitating over HESITATE and SHOP ASSISTANT – didn’t get the PASSIS part, so thanks for that. Don’t know any of BELLOC’s work but managed to solve the anagram from three checkers including the helpful C. No idea what a GENOA sail would look like. Finally left with the mysterious 14d, with which, once I’d realised that the letters of TV were to be split, the penny dropped.

    Thanks Z and setter

  31. Completed this little beauty, but not without a few biffs, notably SHOP ASSISTANT and HESITATE.

  32. The definitions of ‘crib’ and PAYEE were thoroughly unconvincing but otherwise a fair but difficult crossword. With a bit of cheating I got all but two (IRATE and LOADS).

  33. Very meaty, but all parsed except INNINGS, which I had forgotten, if I ever knew, was a synonym for Knock. However, I did eventually realise it was Winnings with the initial off. The NE corner held out the longest, with PAYEE, PUBLISH and IN EARNEST blocking completion until I thought of AYE rather than YES! A thoroughly brilliant crossword.

      1. Of course I realize that. But it dawned on me that the clue doesn’t say where to start counting your “hours until.”

  35. I started quickly enough with the nw corner solved rapidly, but had to work hard for the remainder to eventually finish in 50.57. I spent about ten minutes on my final three, HESITATE, BELARUS and finally LOADS. An enjoyable crossword that certainly stretched me.

  36. Thanks Zabadak and setter. I enjoyed this a lot, and yet it wasn’t hard, a good combo IMO. As usual the blog was top rate too.
    1a Baroque. LOL for the Fawlty Towers memory.
    9a I wrote the answer to 4d into here which delayed (and annoyed) me a bit.
    13a Shop Asst, bifd. Pa’s sis eluded me totally. Thanks Zabadak.
    25a Dozen, was delayed by spelling 22d Mezzo metzo, as did jackkt. Not sure where either of us found this non-word; just following the wordplay without engaging spelling-brain I suppose. Fortunately not for long.
    28a St Leger. Never noticed the word “symmetry” in the clue nor the symmetry in the letters. It is a shame that the setter’s art was wasted on me.
    8d Hesitate bifd. Never saw “He’s it”, wasted again.
    18d Innings COD.

  37. 23.00

    Also liked it, particularly PAYEE when the light dawned.

    Thanks Z and setter

  38. Is ‘IT’ invariably the chaser? Can’t it be the chasee in some games? I got the answer right, but didn’t understand the parsing and am not sure I like it. Otherwise some exceptional clues, especially for PAYEE and SPONSOR. “Why you so craven? You just a fly down like raven.” – Israel Vibration. 18’47” – so still pulling average down – just. Can’t last much longer.

  39. This took a while, 53 minutes, but it was worth it. I enjoyed many of the clues, with (to me) novel ideas which slowed down the parsing, for instance in SHOP ASSISTANT and HESITATE. I enjoyed the anagram of HILAIRE BELLOC, a much neglected versifier.
    ‘Here richly, with ridiculous display
    The politician’s corpse was laid away.
    While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged,
    I wept, for I had longed to see him hanged.’
    FOI – SALES ASSISTANT
    LOI – HESITATE
    COD – IN EARNEST
    Thanks to Zabadak and other contributors.

  40. There are five classic races, one thousand and two thousand guineas, the oaks the Derby and the St. Leger

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