So, was this a satisfying and reasonably straightforward offering? Up to a point, Lord Copper. By which I mean, I found this (mostly) easy going until I got to my last one in, where I hesitated, and then found I had an error to go with a solving time of around 11 minutes; I’m not sure if it’s a result of getting that particular clue wrong, though it’s the likely culprit (I think). Apart from that, a perfectly enjoyable puzzle at the easier end of the spectrum. All may become clear as I work through the blog…
…ah, got it. While I was typing in MILLIMETRE, my brain was obviously still considering MILLILITRE, so I have ended up falling between two stools with MILLIMITRE. Any errors in this puzzle were at the user end, as is usually the case.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | WATCHING BRIEF – i.e. if you kept your watching brief, you’d manage to avoid seeing so many disappointing Christmas specials and repeats. |
| 9 | RIOJA – The port of RIO + [A J{udge}]rev. |
| 10 | CAFETERIA – [FETE in CAR] + 1 + A. |
| 11 |
ELECTRONIC – (NOTICECLER |
| 12 | SNIT – (TINS)rev. gives a word for a bad temper, which I didn’t realise till now was American in origin (in so far as I’d thought about it at all, I thought it sounded like a Northern dialect word, as per friends of mine from Lancashire who refer to someone “having a cob on”). |
| 14 | HUNCHES – CHE (Guevara) in HUNS. |
| 16 | SWINGER – W{ife} in SINGER. Groovy, baby, very groovy. |
| 17 | SIGNORE – SIGN (=warning), + O{ld} R.E., i.e. the Italian for “Mr”. |
| 19 | PALETTE – A LETT (as a person from Latvia is known) in P.E. |
| 20 | IOTA – In English, the first nine letters are A TO I; reverse that and you get the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet. |
| 21 | MULTIMEDIA – M.A. outside U{niversity}(LIMITED)*. |
| 24 | GALVANISE – VAN(=vehicle) inside [GAL IS], + E{asy}. |
| 25 | TULSA – [A SLUT]rev. This use of “slut” to mean an untidy or slatternly woman, rather than one of dubious morals, is what got UKIP’s Godfrey Bloom into trouble in 2014. Well, more trouble, if we’re honest. |
| 26 | BEYOND THE PALE – the original “pale” has nothing to do with a sallow complexion of course, simply being the boundary which marked the limits of English rule in Ireland. Anything outside that was un-English and thus clearly insupportable. |
| Down | |
| 1 | WARREN HASTINGS – WARREN(=densely populated area), HASTINGS(=battleground). We’re getting a good dose of colonial history today – Warren Hastings was the first Governor-General of British India. Mr Johnson, who taught me History when I was 10, would be glad to know I remembered the name (if little else from the period). |
| 2 | THOLE – {boa}T + HOLE. Quite an obscure word, I think, though the wordplay and checkers make it pretty clear. Thole pins come in pairs, and act as the fulcrum for your oars on old-fashioned rowing-boats. “Rowlocks!” I hear you cry, but it’s absolutely true. What is often referred to as “the gate” in modern parlance. |
| 3 | HEART THROB – (BROTHERATH{ollywood})*. |
| 4 | NOCUOUS – [U{niversal} CON]rev., O{ld} U.S. Obviously, you see the word “innocuous” much more often, and “noxious” as its opposite; in fact, I started out thinking this must be “noxious”, because I could see the anagram of “Sioux” there, but it doesn’t quite work, and their appearance is presumably just a happy coincidence. |
| 5 | BOFFINS – OFF(=leaving) IN(=home) in B{russel}S. Two words which seem to have been coined as a result of World War II. I guess a lot of the most important people on the Allied side could be described as one or the other. |
| 6 | INTO – hidden in quaINT Observances. |
| 7 | FORTNIGHT =”FOUGHT KNIGHT”. |
| 8 | WALTER DE LA MARE – A L{ake} in (LATERWEDREAM)*. Nicely misleading without the lift-and-separate, as he was very much a Home Counties poet. |
| 13 | MILLIMETRE – homophone-haters look away now; obviously if you went off to collect Millicent, from the station, say, you would be a “Millie-meeter”. |
| 15 | NIGHTCLUB – (THING)*, [L{eft} in CUB(=youngster)]. |
| 18 | ELUSION =”ILLUSION”. This is where I hesitated longest, as “elusive” may be a common word, but I wouldn’t say the same of “elusion”; and I was wary because it was a homophone clue, and there’s always the chance you’re getting the wrong end of the stick altogether. As it turns out, I shouldn’t have worried, as I’d found a much less obscure way to mess up my submission. |
| 19 | PATIENT – double def., one noun, one adjective. |
| 22 | DELTA – both a large (river) mouth, and a letter of the Greek alphabet to match IOTA in 20 across. Not often that Times clues refer to other parts of the grid. |
| 23 | WARY – R{iver} in WAY(=route). |
MILLIMETRE was my LOI after MULTIMEDIA, and NOCUOUS was teased out from the wordplay.
And, for what it’s worth, I had parsed MILLIMETRE as MILLI reversed (up) inside a person ME, plus a shortened TRES (very). So: m ILLIM e TRE
Let me ask UK native English speakers a question: are cafeteria and buffet synonymous to you? In the US, I would think of a cafeteria as a line where you select individual items and put them on your tray, to be rung up by the cashier before you sit down, while at a buffet, you pay one price and fill your plate as you please from a variety of dishes arrayed on a serving table.
‘Buffet’ in the other sense is also perfectly valid and both meanings are given in all the usual dictionary sources.
Edited at 2014-12-31 12:49 am (UTC)
36 minutes on thus, getting into a right palaver over the Millie clue – but unlike Tim, having the advantage of solving on paper which meant I had to scratch wrong letters out.
Courtesy of free Waitrose Times and doing the crossword, I’ve changed my subscription.
Very satisfied to have finished yesterday’s and today’s.
I came here to check on 17ac, signore, trying to work out why Gis was backwards, and nore , not fore was a warning.
I always thought the Times was the real toughie, but I think the sharp clueing makes for lack of ambiguity and for clear signposting. Classical references suit me more than golfers and footballers too. I don’t know why I’m anonymous, I’ll try to find an identity later
No need by the way to create an identity but it does make it friendlier to know who is posting so just a “whatevername” at the end of your anon post is appreciated. Creating an identity however does give you the opportunity to correct your own postings, a facility that I am sure many of us have been grateful for.
Edited at 2014-12-30 04:53 pm (UTC)
Not too tricky today, but dnk WARREN HASTINGS, THOLE or SNIT, and I couldn’t parse SIGNORE and IOTA (too clever for me). Many thanks for sorting those two out.
Enjoyed the puzzle and, as always, everybody’s comments.
In case I don’t manage to find crossword time tomorrow, Happy New Year to all setters, bloggers and contributors, and may all your solutions be correct ones.
George Clements
I solved the first three acrosses followed by the first seven downs, and then switched back to the acrosses hoping for clean sweep. 11ac was fine, but with just the N of 12ac in place, I thought of SNAP as a possibility, but then panicked: wasn’t SNIP a word that Americans used for a fit of pique? Or should the answer be SNAP after all? Damnation seize it! I’m on quite a good run of “all corrects” at the moment and it could be about to come to an abrupt end. If only I’d stuck with the downs, I’d have picked of the easy 9dn, remembered that SNIT was the word I was thinking of, and saved a lot of agonising.
The other brainstorm was to bung in SIGNORS at 17ac, which held up ELUSION for ages – not a word I’ve met very often in any case. (Same goes for NOCUOUS.)
I share others’ doubts about CAFETERIA and “buffet”.
Not a bad puzzle, but not my favourite.