Club Monthly 20164 May 2014 – lexicographic delight

Solving Time: Well, not entirely sure, if I’m honest, as I failed to write down a time and as usual have left doing the blog until now.. However this did not feel particularly difficult, of its kind. Up to its usual high standard, and notable this month for some particularly lovely solution words … guelph, filioque, roopit, opodeldoc, noctilio, pahoehoe., opopanax.. it’s just lexicographic poetry, who could resist?

cd = cryptic definition, dd = double definition, rev = reversed, homophones are written in quotes, anagrams as *(–)

ODO = Oxford Dictionaries Online, OED = Oxford Dictionary, etc.

Across
1 volkerwanderung – RWAND(A) in *(EVOKE LARGE). All those Goths and Franks, wandering around continental Europe in medieval times. There should be an umlaut over the o, but by convention all such diacritical marks are ignored in crosswordland
9   opodeldoc – surgery = OP + lines = ODE + L(eft) + DOC(tor).. nice word!
10  cornu – my = COR + sNoUt. Hornlike, as in eg cornucopia..
11 guelph – E(xtreme) in swallow hard = GULP + H(ard).
12  filioque – Q(uestiun) + eg diesel = OIL + I, all rev. in FUE(L)
13  roopit – men = OR, rev. + O(ver) + hole = PIT, a clue which is easier once you see that “over” just means O and is not indicating an insertion. Which took a while, in my case
15  miswrite – sounds like “Miss Right”
18  pahoehoe – old man = PA + HOE + HOE, not a gardening implement I use much myself, sad to say. More of a chainsaw man myself. Pahoehoe is a Hawaiian word for hardened lava
19  Briton – BRI(GH)TON
21 opopanax – trendy = POP, + gossip = ANA, in O + X
23  upcast – *(AT CUPS)
26  darzi – hidden, rev., in showbIZ RADio. An Indian tailor
27  oxycodone – like beef maybe = OXY + firm = CO + cooked = DONE. I’m never keen on these esoteric chemicals that crop up here regularly, but this was fairly straightforward
28  Vitruvius Pollio – six = VI in *(ITV PULLS OUR), + ten = IO I think.. I confess I only properly parsed this now

Down
1   vlogger – L(ine) in “concerning good government” = RE G GOV, rev.
2   leone – Christmas = NOEL rev. + E(uropean). Guess which country uses the leone as “ready” cash? Yes.. in 1964, £1 = 2sll. Now, google says that £1 = 7,300sll, so it has not been a great investment
3   eye-splice – spies = EYES, + P(O)LICE. The def. is just “join”
4   wadt – (A)WA(Y), + TD rev. An irish politican being a TD, what we would call an MP. Wadt (or wad, or wadd) being a dialect term for plumbago, ie graphite
5   noctilio – *(C(ricketer) + IN TO OIL). A hare-lipped bat, which graces Chambers with its presence but not Collins or even the OED.
6   elchi – (UNW)ELC(OME) + welcome = HI. An elchi being a Turkish ambassador..
7   utraquist – *(QUART) + UIST, either N or S, islands in the Outer Hebrides.
8   gougere – GOUGER + (TH)E. “a choux pastry flavoured with cheese” (Collins)
14 ochlocrat – short girl = CHLO(e) in O(fficer) C(ommanding), + inform = RAT. Can’t be long now before we are all in an ochlocracy
16  wirephoto – current = I + salesman = REP + burning = HOT, all in without = WO.
17  sola topi – OK, we have “from the sun briefly” = SOLA(R), + we have overhead = TOP and one = I. The def. I think is an &lit. I wasn’t at all sure this parsed correctly at first but now I believe it does, and in fact is a clever clue. And I’m sure you all knew, as I did not, that a sola topee is a hat made from the solah or sola tree, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the sun; so “solar topee” would be wrong, so wrong..
18 Plovdiv – film = VID(EO) + V(ERY) O(LD) LP, all rev. I had heard of Plovdiv, only because they have had chess tournaments there – but in fact it seems a very interesting city, one of the oldest in the world. Sounds like a nice area for a holiday, and just look at the climate there..
20 nathemo – N(ew) + articles = A, THE + tick = MO. a contraction of “never the more,” used by Spenser (and maybe nobody else since..)
22 adieu – cast = DIE in a family film = A U. Does die = cast quite work? “The die is cast” and die-casting” both imply two distinct items.
24 aboil – AB (able seaman) + (S)OIL. Aboil is what my risottos must not be allowed to do.. (and not aroil, as I originally put here!)
25  kyus – hidden in GorKY USsr. Kyu, a novice Judo-er

Author: JerryW

I love The Times crosswords..

2 comments on “Club Monthly 20164 May 2014 – lexicographic delight”

    1. OK, well, I was all set to say no, it must be aroil, since I had an all-correct solution, when I just checked to see what I had submitted, and found I had actually submitted aboil! So I’ve corrected the blog, thanks for pointing that out.. no idea why I wrote aroil on the paper

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