I stopped the clock on this very serviceable puzzle at 8:54 – not quite fast enough to achieve my quixotic goal of a <10m Mon-Fri average time, I don’t think, but pretty close, pretty close. As the grid started to fill up with Zs, Qs, Vs and Ws I felt sure we must be in for a pangram, but fine-toothed combing has so far failed to turn up a J – I think they do it just to tease us!
Not much specialist vocabulary or obscure knowledge required here – I suppose ODALISQUE could be deemed a bit exotic, but I did know it (relevant to my interests perhaps?) OLOGY at 22D raised a smile and induced fond reveries involving dear old Maureen Lipman. I did do an unusual amount of biffing, 3D in particular and the top half of 4D, but it all turned out alright on the night.
Anyhow, back to just a little more anguished autopsying of e**t p**ls before I give up and go to bed. Thank you setter for a landslide win for fine cluing, and I’ll see the rest of you, somewhat groggily I’m sure, at some point tomorrow…
| Across | |
| 1 | KISS OF LIFE – first-aid: LI [lithium] “injected into” KISS-OFF [cold shoulder] + E [drug] |
| 6 | WOLF – bolt: FLOW reversed [flood “pulled back”] |
| 10 | THEREOF – from that: THE REF [the judge] “gathers” O [nothing] |
| 11 | ON THE GO – active: {m}ONTH [a few weeks “to dismiss leader”] followed by EGO [I] |
| 12 | HERBIVORE – HE + (RIB OVER*) [“to cook”]; and a herbivore would turn up their nose at cooked rib |
| 13 | CATCH – double def: come down with / hook |
| 14 | SNIPE – double def: from a safe distance, shoot / bird |
| 15 | FLY-TIPPER – filthy criminal: FLIPPER [part of seal] “covering” initials of {Y}obbo and {T}erribly |
| 17 | OUTRIGGER – boat’s framework: TRIGGER [set off] by casing of O{rmol}U |
| 20 | GUPPY – fish: PUG reversed [dog “returns”] with gutted P{re}Y |
| 21 | GROSS – double def: square figure (i.e. 144) / very round (i.e. corpulent) |
| 23 | ODALISQUE – subjugated woman: (QUAILED SO*) [“desperate”] |
| 25 | BOOTLEG – illegal: BOOT LEG [kick | a supporter] |
| 26 | DULLEST – most tedious: DULLES [US airport (Washington DC’s)] + T{erminal} initially |
| 27 | GOYA – artist: ending in {povert}Y in GOA [part of India] |
| 28 | PAWNBROKER – uncle: (BRAWN*) [“exercising”] during POKER [game] |
| Down | |
| 1 | KETCH – boat: wipe UP from KETCHUP [sauce] |
| 2 | SPEARMINT – flavour: S PEAR + MINT [small | fruit (with) perfect] |
| 3 | ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL – standard: Z [variable] in (IS IS [“is twice”] LEFT ALONE*) [“working out”] |
| 4 | LEFT OFF – ignored: FEL{low} reversed [bloke “not half” “upset”] + TOFF [swell] |
| 5 | FLOWERY – decorated with blooms: first of F{ebruary} + LOWER [“maybe cow”, i.e. one that lows] + {parsle}Y finally |
| 7 | OVERT – open: {c}O{urse}’s second + VERT [green] |
| 8 | FOOLHARDY – reckless: FOOL HARDY [sweet | author] |
| 9 | STOCKING FILLER – double def: little present | head of a bank robber, perhaps (as this fills a stocking mask) |
| 14 | SPONGE BAG – bathroom item taken away: SPONGE [bum] “sat on” BAG [nail] |
| 16 | PIPSQUEAK – nobody: PIP [just beat] + SQUEAK [narrow victory] |
| 18 | GEORGIA – double def: (Eurasian) country, (US) state |
| 19 | RWANDAN – African: RAN [conducted] carrying WAND [baton] |
| 22 | OLOGY – something to study: in {librar}Y GO LO{ok} “up” |
| 24 | ESTER – organic compound: {t}ESTER [analyst “skimmed”] |
The last time I voted in the UK general election was in ’87. It seems the main winners tonight are Mhairi Black and the BBC’s exit poll.
Edited at 2015-05-08 02:35 am (UTC)
Having said that, looking ahead a bit, I may well deliver a message of my own on the ballot form at the “election” for the Chief Executive of the HKSAR, which will take place on 1 July 2017, if the democrats here cave in over the next few months and agree to a rigged “universal suffrage” electoral system.
Without wanting to give too much away stateside wise, I still have the “Anyone but Hillary” button given to me by my electrician pal in Claremont, CA, back in 2003. Plus ca change…
Edited at 2015-05-08 04:10 am (UTC)
I’m annoyed because FLY-TIPPER is a nice clue, and all the better for kevingregg’s fantastic reimagining of it … cow-tipping for really small people.
COD … OUTRIGGER. Lovely surface.
Apologies if my “/” notation to separate the constituent parts of a double def isn’t clear enough!
My only excuse is that I was being thoroughly distracted by the flag-waving film “First of the Few” on the television celebrating VE Day.
Edited at 2015-05-08 08:11 am (UTC)
Dumped the anagrist into 23ac with the intention of returning to it later. Forgot to return, but it turns out ODALISQUE was as good an arrangement of letters as any. Who knew?
Like Sotira, I had FLY-ZIPPER, but showed uncharacteristic judgment by taking the time to account for the Z. Never heard of a FLY-TIPPER, but the wordplay was pretty clear.
Will do it all again next week I suppose. Thanks setter and blogger. Which reminds me Verlaine, sensational week of solving. Well done.
Felt like a tricky one, but, like yesterday, there were occasional flashes when I tuned into the wavelength.
I know I’m going to get ribbed for this, but STOCKING FILLER really appealed amongst this decent set of clues. Those of you with retentive memories will know that I referred just yesterday to lingerie’s role in bank-related crime: a future echo perhaps.
Now back to the serious business of watching 3 party leaders resigning. Or maybe I’ll do the TLS instead.
Oh yes, the puzzle. 20.16. Slowish because I’d wanted “stuff” in the stocking and I’d stuffed “globe” in for “gross” and had to fix it. Odalisque turns up in the NY Times puzzles fairly often.
Odalisque was one of those words I knew without knowing its precise (or in this case even vague) meaning.
Kiss off = cold shoulder? Really? Must be in a part of the country I’ve never visited.
Why does a sponge bag have to be taken away? Makes as much sense to say ‘left behind’ especially with the bum in the clue.
Left off – ignored? Again I struggled to find a substitution that worked.
Dulles = a random non UK airport I should know about?
And there was more of my own making. Never heard of ESTER – probably should have done – but skimmed had me wanting to take FAT off a word rather than the first letter.
No doubt these are all perfectly fair to the old hands but didn’t seem so to me!
Edited at 2015-05-08 06:28 pm (UTC)
Woman housed originally in compound (6)
ESTHER – H (“Housed originally”) in ESTER (a chemical “compound”).
At 8d I had “brotherly”, which was the only thing I could think of that fit the checkers (minus the initial B). I had some vague idea that it equated to “sweet”, but that’s as far as it went. That left me with _O_B for 6ac, for which I had “bomb” because… well, actually my logic was irreasonable and my reasoning was unlogical.
On the plus side, I luckily picked “ODALISQUE” in preference to the six other permutations that were left open given the checkers. Never heard of it. However, a quick Google image-search reveals that an odalisque was a rather chubby lady paid to lie on couches with tactfully draped gauze over parts of her. At least that’s what all the paintings seem to show. It must have been incredibly frustrating to be an artist in the 18th-19th centuries, what with pieces of gauze falling over the interesting parts of the models every time you turned up.
I completely failed to parse GROSS (my LOI); and – having pretty much lost the will to live – I made two stupid assumptions about O-S-F-A: that the “variable” was going to be Y and that the “standard” was going to be the name of some popular song which I’d probably never heard of.
KISS-OFF was new to me, and I’d probably have had my doubts about “boat’s framework” = OUTRIGGER if the wordplay had been less clear.