I found this one slightly harder than average, finishing in 21m 5s. There was only one answer for which I had to rely entirely on the wordplay, suggesting that it was the difficulty of the clues that caused problems rather than obscurities in the answers.
I liked the quirky wordplay of 43A and 23D, but I’ll give my COD to 26A, simply because it’s a piece of Times crossword music that, for once, I actually knew.
| Across | ||
| 1 | STATE OF THE ART – STATE (Declare) + O (old) + FT (newspaper) + HEART (centre) | |
| 8 | TAILGATED – AIL (trouble) in T (time) + GATED (confined – often used to refer to schoolchildren being forced to stay on the school grounds as a punishment). Nicely incorporated definition: “Risked running into” | |
| 13 | OWING – WIN (victory) inside OG (defensive blunder, i.e. own goal) | |
| 14 | ADMIRABLE – hidden reversed in hotEL BAR IM DAshing | |
| 15 | REDRAWN – RED (Visibly embarrassed) + RAW (au naturel) + {woma}N | |
| 16 | DROP-IN CENTRE – double definition, the second cryptic with the idea that a “rise of extremism” would correspond to a “drop in centre” | |
| 17 | GRIPE WATER – GRATER (Rubber) around I PEW (one seat), for the concoction often used to assist babies with wind issues | |
| 18 | APACHE – APACE (with expedition) around H (horse) | |
| 19 | PESHAWAR – anagram of HE WAS A PR, for the Pakistani city famed for its naans. This was so obviously an anagram that I didn’t pause while solving to consider the merits of “whizz” as an anagrind – I suppose that any indication of movement, whether rapid or otherwise, is defensible. As Jerry points out below, whizz can also mean to blend things together in a food-mixer, which is a better interpretation. | |
| 21 | HATFUL – HAT{e}FUL (abhorrent to avoid the centre) | |
| 24 | LITTERBUGS – LITTER (chair lifted) + BUGS (needles). Perhaps more a North American idiom than a British one. | |
| 26 | SKYE BOAT SONG – (BAGS NOT OK YES)*, with “Air” the definition. I would guess that people will be most familiar with the Roger Whittaker/Des O’Connor version, though I can’t say that that genre of music is a particular area of expertise for me. | |
| 29 | FOPS – F (following) + OPS (lots of cuts in theatre, i.e. a description of surgical operations). Another nicely incorporated definition: “People affected” | |
| 30 | CROMWELL – C{hancellor} + ROM (memory, i.e. Read-only Memory) + WELL (ably) | |
| 31 | ANARCHIC – A + NAR{k} (police informer endlessly) + CHIC (smart) | |
| 34 | GOATHERD – O (love) inside (stopping) GATHER (to pick up) + D (daughter). Definition: “Nanny’s tender” | |
| 35 | JAUNTIER – JAUNT (Trip) + IE (that is) + R (run) | |
| 36 | ORAL – {m}ORAL | |
| 39 | RACING DRIVER – RIVER (Runner) around AC (athlete’s club) + IN + GDR (East Germany). AC would normally be “athletic club”, I think, but presumably the setter is simply giving an indication of the meaning rather than the exact words. | |
| 40 | WRONG WAY UP – (UNWARY + POW + G{rabbed})* | |
| 43 | HERESY – the announcement of the arrival of a (mathematical) variable might be HERE’S Y | |
| 44 | MEMSAHIB – hidden reversed in PunjaBI HAS ME Married | |
| 45 | TRIFLE – double definition | |
| 49 | GATLING GUN – GAG (Joke) around GLINT*, + UN (in French I, where I needs to be read as the Roman numeral rather than the pronoun) | |
| 51 | BEVERLY HILLS – BILLS (charges) around EVER (still) + L{argel}Y + H (hospital), for the small city neighbouring Los Angeles that’s home to Rodeo Drive | |
| 53 | INBUILT – INUIT (Greenlander perhaps) with the ends of B{asketbal}L inserted but not adjacent to each other | |
| 54 | NEW FOREST – (WET FENS OR)* | |
| 55 | ELIZA – reversal of I + L, in AZE, where the definition refers to Eliza Doolittle from Shaw’s Pygmalion, whose Cockney pronunciation would have rendered haze (confusion) as ‘aze | |
| 56 | GROSGRAIN – S{olidify} in GROG (spirits diluted) + RAIN (water). Not a word I knew. Chambers has: “a heavy corded silk used especially for ribbons and hat bands” | |
| 57 | PENNY FARTHING – PENNY FAR{e} (cheap travel rate mostly) + THING (Obsession) | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | SWORDTAIL – (SOLD RAW IT)*, for the small Central American freshwater fish popular with aquarium enthusiasts | |
| 2 | ARIZONA – A + NO (number) + Z (unknown) + IRA (Gershwin), all reversed | |
| 3 | ENGLISHMEN – double definition, the second slightly cryptic and referring to the lyrics of Noel Coward’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen, while masquerading as a tabloid headline | |
| 4 | FIASCO – F (female) + I + AS (when) + CO (firm) | |
| 5 | HOMING PIGEON – HOG + PIG (two unlikely ones – the “ones” referring back to the “flier” mentioned earlier in the clue, and the whole a reference to the expression “pigs might fly”) around MIN (minimum), + EON (age) | |
| 6 | AIRBRUSH – AIR (Bearing) + B{ucket} + RUSH (hurry) | |
| 7 |
TABS – double definition, the first referring to a tab in the sense of a fixed number of blank spaces in a document, the second cryptic and equating paying bills with footing tabs, the crypticity/crypticness/crypticality/what |
|
| 8 | TIEBREAKER – TIE (Couple) + BREAKER (wave), to give the act that settles the winner of a tennis set, quiz, etc | |
| 9 | IRRUPT – {c}IT{y}, around RR (bishop, i.e. Right Reverend) + UP (happy) | |
| 10 | GO DOWN A STORM – GO DOWN (Founder) + ARM (member), around S (son) + TO | |
| 11 | TOAST – TO A T (spot on) around S{upermarket}, the definition being “Drink to” | |
| 12 | DENDROLOGICAL – (DOC REDOING ALL)* | |
| 20 | ALKALINE – {w}ALK + A (answer) + LINE (policy) | |
| 22 | FOOLHARDY – FOOL (kid) + HARD (demanding) + {to}Y | |
| 23 | OBSCURED – good news from a clinic regarding an ex-schoolboy could be OB’S CURED | |
| 25 | TAP DANCER – homophone of TAPPED (exploited) ANSWER (response) | |
| 27 | OWN BRAND – BROWN* + AND (also), with our old friend pants making its gazillionth appearance as an anagrind | |
| 28 | TWEAKERS – WEAKER (not so powerful) inside ST (stone) reversed. Collins tells me a tweaker is an engineer’s small screwdriver. | |
| 29 | FIGURE-HUGGING – FIGURE (Work out) + HUGGING (throwing arms about) | |
| 32 | THANKSGIVING – THANKS (TA – or rather Ta or ta) + GIVING (not taking). It took me a while to see through the misleading capitalisation, as I was convinced it was something to do with Crosswordland’s usual TA, the Territorial Army. | |
| 33 | MICROBREWERY – cryptic definition, playing on the micro- prefix and the fact that small beer is a low-alcohol beer as well an expression meaning unimportant | |
| 37 | SINE QUA NON – (USE + Q + IN)* + ANON (mystery author), definition “Must” (as a noun) | |
| 38 | SWARTHIEST – SWEATSHIRT* | |
| 41 | PRESS-GANG – PRESS (Reporters) + GANG (in Scotland go) | |
| 42 | SHOEHORN – homophone of SHOO (chase) + HORN (alarm), the definition being “Force (in Oxford?)”, where an Oxford is a type of shoe (low-heeled and laced) | |
| 46 | FELLINI – FELL IN I{t} – if someone fell in a pit, then they were evidently not successful in negotiating it | |
| 47 | AGATHA – AHA (triumphant expression) around GAT (pistol). Gat appears to be derived from Gatling gun (as seen at 49A), even though the two weapons are nothing alike. | |
| 48 | ELYTRA – initial letters of Extra Large Yet Then Relatively Average. A simple clue for what I would suggest is not a common word, though it did crop up in an Anax in the Indy recently. | |
| 50 | TABOO – A + B (bishop), all inside TOO (As well), the definition being “out” | |
| 52 | SWAP – reversal of PAWS | |
Grosgrain is a gimme for the Heyer fraternity.
Elytra gradually becoming familiar through repeated cruciverbal exposures.
Re 19ac, don’t you whizz things in a (food) mixer? Seemed rather a good anagrind to me. Mind you, so does pants, to me, despite its popularity 🙂
I didn’t understand FELLINI when solving and I still don’t. If falling in it is describing being not entirely successful in negotiating a pit, where’s the instruction to shorten the word IT? If ‘not entirely’ is the shortening instruction, doesn’t this leave falling in as being successful in negotiating the pit? I feel like I’m missing something obvious.
Edited at 2015-04-11 09:14 am (UTC)