Time: 50 minutes. Not the easiest of Tuesday puzzles be everything was gettable and most of the clues were varied and interesting.
As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]. “Aural wordplay” is in quotation marks. I now use a Caret sign ⁁ to indicate an insertion point in containment clues. I usually omit all reference to juxtaposition indicators unless there is a specific point that requires clarification.
 Across |
|
|---|---|
| 1 | Straight entertainers with stuffing knocked out by a funny show (2,2,5) |
| AS IT COMES – A, SITCOM (funny show), E{ntertainer}S [with stuffing knocked out]. Liquor may be taken straight / as it comes / with nothing added. | |
| 6 | Split blades (5) |
| GRASS – Two meanings, the first as ‘inform on’ | |
| 9 | Percussion ensemble with something to play, short track (7) |
| GAMELAN – GAME (something to play), LAN{e} (track – path) [short]. ODE: gamelan – a traditional instrumental ensemble in Java and Bali, including many bronze percussion instruments. | |
| 10 | Parallel eating habits originally related to nutrition (7) |
| TROPHIC – TROP⁁IC (parallel) containing [eating] H{abits} [originally]. Tropic – the parallel of latitude 23°26ʹ north (tropic of Cancer) or south (tropic of Capricorn) of the equator. Trophic – relating to feeding and nutrition – I don’t recall meeting this before. | |
| 11 | Beat time, having raised orchestral baton first of all (5) |
| THROB – T{ime} + H{aving} + R{aised} + O{rchestral} + B {aton} [first of all] | |
| 12 | I go in nest, after flying about, for feeding (9) |
| INGESTION – Anagram [after flying about] of I GO IN NEST | |
| 14 | Sweet or savoury dish, mixed type (3) |
| PIE – Two meanings. I thought the second was to do with piebald horses or magpies being of two colours, but Chambers has simply: pie – confusedly mixed type (printing). | |
| 15 | Heavenly body gave interns breaks (7,4) |
| EVENING STAR – Anagram [breaks] of GAVE INTERNS | |
| 17 | One drink, Australian opening port, nothing special (1,4,1,5) |
| A DIME A DOZEN – I (one) + MEAD (drink) + OZ (Australian) contained by [opening] AD⁁EN (port) | |
| 19 | Only a handful I’m relieved to hear? (3) |
| FEW – Aural wordplay [to hear]: “phew” (I’m relieved) | |
| 20 | Drink separately in fun (9) |
| TEASINGLY – TEA (drink), SINGLY (separately) | |
| 22 | Camel leaving river with antelope (5) |
| ELAND – {Cam}EL (leaving river – R. Cam), AND (with) | |
| 24 | Queen rejected by girl, possibly put out again? (7) |
| REISSUE – ER (Queen) reversed [rejected], ISSUE (girl, possibly – offspring generally) | |
| 26 | Demanding individual, one no longer taking a part? (7) |
| EXACTOR – EX-ACTOR (one no longer taking a part) | |
| 27 | Raised mark on back of hand resided (5) |
| DWELT – {han}D [back of…], WELT (raised mark) | |
| 28 | High jinks in Equus, perhaps (9) |
| HORSEPLAY – HORSE PLAY (Equus, perhaps). Equus is a play by Peter Shaffer, about a psychiatrist who attempts to treat a young man who has a pathological religious fascination with horses. | |
| Down |
|
|---|---|
| 1 | Answer that’s not filled in, understood in secret language (5) |
| ARGOT – A{nswe}R [that’s not filled in], GOT (understood) | |
| 2 | Dip very short tongue? (7) |
| IMMERSE – 1 MM (very short – 1 millimetre), ERSE (tongue) | |
| 3 | Suit hosting party concerned with vegetarian food (9) |
| CALABRESE – CA⁁SE (law suit) containing [hosting] LAB (political party) + RE (concerned with) | |
| 4 | Newsworthy story best friend chewed over here? (3,5,3) |
| MAN BITES DOG -A cryptic hint referring to the adage that a man’s best friend is his dog. The definition refers to the idea that ‘dog bites man’ is no news whereas ‘man bites dog’ would be newsworthy. | |
| 5 | Sponge cakes go flat in the end (3) |
| SOT – {cake}S + {g}O + {fla}T [in the end]. Both are terms for a heavy drinker. | |
| 6 | I’m disgusted by 24 six-packs? (5) |
| GROSS – Two meanings. 24 x 6 = 144 (a gross). | |
| 7 | Infidel witnessing robbery? (7) |
| ATHEIST – AT HEIST (witnessing robbery) | |
| 8 | Part of scrum down, score after collapse (6,3) |
| SECOND ROW – Anagram [after collapse] of DOWN SCORE | |
| 13 | Beastly thing and gruesome display for the audience (7,4) |
| GRIZZLY BEAR – GRIZZLY (gruesome), then aural wordplay [for the audience] BEAR / “bare” (display – expose) | |
| 14 | Lit up — as ceilings, perhaps? (9) |
| PLASTERED – Two meanings | |
| 16 | Drink large rum and energy drink (6,3) |
| GINGER ALE – GIN (drink), anagram [rum] of LARGE, then E (energy) | |
| 18 | Picture this writer and soldier in shock (7) |
| IMAGINE – I (this writer), then GI (soldier) contained by [in] MA⁁NE (shock – hair) |
|
| 19 | Complex pattern generated by craft adrift on American lake (7) |
| FRACTAL – Anagram [adrift] of CRAFT, then A (American), L (lake). Collins: In geometry, a fractal is a shape made up of parts that are the same shape as itself and are of smaller and smaller sizes. Not a word I knew. It has made two previous appearances here, 15 and 16 years ago when I also didn’t know it. | |
| 21 | Introduce class who are popular? (5) |
| INSET – IN (popular), SET (class) | |
| 23 | Hat raised, lifted with courtesy, ultimately (5) |
| DERBY – BRED (raised) reversed [lifted], {courtes}Y [ultimately]. American for a bowler hat. | |
| 25 | Old letter delivered in time, thankfully (3) |
| ETH – Hidden [delivered in] {tim}E TH{ankfully}. A character in the runic alphabet aka ‘edh’. | |
Enjoyed this but never would have thought of CALABRESE as a vegetarian food and didn’t know it was a type of broccoli. GAMELIN was a NHO. Didn’t know ARGOT as a secret language, but the wordplay was clear. Was thinking A DIME A DOZEN would be ‘something a penny’ before the dime dropped! Thought ELAND was very good. Didn’t know the play ‘Equus’ but saw the answer from it looking something line ‘equine’. Knew FRACTAL from ‘fractal imaging’ which I learned about years ago. COD to PLASTERED.
Thanks Jack and setter.
Bookended: Trophic was my FOI, and I thought: “Ah. One of those puzzles”.
Calabrese and Gamelan were my last two in – requiring aids – and I thought “Yep. One of those puzzles”.
Some nice bits in between, and I’m with Quadrophonic in thinking Eland was the nicest of them.
Yes, it looks like a Tricky Thursday puzzle has snuck into the Tuesday slot. Most of it was not too bad, but I found trophic, as it comes, gross, reissue, and grass to be pretty tough. These holdouts took a long time and a lot of thinking to see.
Time: 45:38
Tricky. A few short. Got GAMELAN but had it as GAMALEN, with GAM{e}. For a long time I had KITCHEN, as slang for the percussion in an orchestra, learnt from crosswords.
Also had PEA, thought it was a triple def and I was seeing two of the three def, sweet pea and savoury dish.
AS IT COMES wouldn’t come for ages, and then couldn’t see case = suit for CALABRESE.
NHO TROPHIC but FRACTAL was no problem, seemed to be everywhere in the 90s. Chaos theory was supposed to explain geography, economics and even got a mention in Jurassic Park. Home PCs were just powerful enough to display them as screensavers too.
COD ATHEIST
Chewy enough, indeed, winding up with the nutritious TROPHIC (right above INGESTION) and CALABRESE. (Not to mention the assaulted pet.)
12:45, lucky solve. Had assumed CALABRESE was a kind of salad with mozzarella cheese or something. Had to do Equus in Year 10. Weird play. Got some GAMELAN lessons in Bali a couple of years ago, wonderful sounds. GRASS took the longest, despite having thought of it earlier, as NHO ‘split’ in that sense.
25 minutes, but it all counted for nothing, as I couldn’t remember GAMELAN (which we had no so long ago), and put in the perfectly parsable ‘gamelin’ (track and line being synonymous in train contexts).
All done in about a halfa, with many of the same problems cited above. Jack I think the GRIZZY BEAR clue is (for the audience) ‘grisly bare’.
From OUTLAW BLUES:
Well, I wish I was on some Australian mountain range
I wish I was on some Australian mountain range
I got no reason to be there, but I IMAGINE it would be some kind of change