As straightforward as I remembered it when I re-solved for this report after losing my original copy – I originally took about 18 minutes which seems worth about 6 on a daily puzzle. Why so easy? Probably just definitions that weren’t too hard to see, and some fairly easy anagrams – I didn’t think I saw any of the tricks used to make anagrams harder, like including abbreviations or splitting the fodder into separate parts.
As always, ask if you’re stumped by one of the clues I haven’t listed here.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | APOCRYPHA – the slight exception to my claim above – (Y(ou),approach)* |
| 12 | UP=raise (as in ‘up the ante’),DATE=fruit |
| 16 | BUTTER=goat,SCOTCH=put an end to |
| 17 | FOR MY MONEY – double definition |
| 19 | REST ON ONE’S OARS = (reasons to snore)* – this expression was so new to me that when solving I carelessly decided it meant “snore” rather than “cease working”. Corrected post comment |
| 24 | A,WAKE,N – “stretch of water” for WAKE seems a rather weak def. |
| 26 | SWORD – which is “used for fencing”, and just over half of ‘crossword’ = “this work” |
| 36 | KNOW = ken – reversal of wonk=’a serious bloke’ (N American, derogatory and informal) |
| 39 | COR(r)AL – pen = corral |
| 42 | (K,R)=”two kings”,ONE,R=queen – R stands for both rex=king and regina=queen. ER=queen is there to confuse you, but not what you need to be thinking about this time |
| 44 | ALIGHTED = “a lie Ted” – a cheeky homophone but in context unlikely to cause any difficulty |
| 46 | GERMAN=European,SHE=lady,P(HER)D. |
| 54 | D(EA.,FEN)ING – simple structure, but relatively unusual meanings like sound=DING and marsh=FEN, combined with “very loud”=FF as a decoy, make it quite tricky |
| 55 | I’M = I am,POSER=a problem |
| 57 | DESERT,RAT – two words for “defect” |
| Down | |
| 9 | SOLOMON’S = king’s, SEAL=approval – the only down starting on the top row which I didn’t solve immediately in my re-run |
| 18 | B=black,ROACHES=fish – broach = bring up = “Raise (a difficult subject) for discussion: he broached the subject he had been avoiding all evening” (ODE) |
| 20 | SC=Special Constable,AVENGER=Fury – scavenger used to mean someone employed to clean streets |
| 21 | E=note,YEW=tree,IT,NESS=loch |
| 23 | CHAP=bloke,FALLEN=killed in battle – chapfallen is one of those words we no longer use, which they love to save up for Times xwd answers |
| 27 | ORD(I)NANCE – this probably ties with IMP(R)UDENCE as the classic single letter insertion/deletion pair |
| 28 | PIG-IN-THE-MIDDLE – easy but fun, from PerPIGnan |
| 34 | MUCK=spoil,A BOUT = “a fight” – on the resolve I initially put “MESS ABOUT” and have a nasty feeling I did it first time around as well |
| 38 | C,REP=slaesman,EP=record,APER=copier |
| 41 | UNMARR(I)ED – same trick as at 27, but I haven’t seen this one so many times |
| 43 | C,HO(O)SIER – I wonder if I’ll ever see “Cold person from Indiana is harder to please” in the Times puzzle? (Hoosier is a rather puzzling name for people from this state) |
| 50 | DEGAS – e.g. = “for instance”, in rev. of SAD=blue |
| 52 | BEAR – easy enough as long as you see that “transport” is a verb in the wordplay and know about the bear from darkest Peru |
I’d never heard of ‘pig in the middle’, but with enough checking letters I finally figured, What else?
I’ve never seen, or used, ‘inter’ as a word (in the sense intended here), as opposed to a prefix. Is this a Brit thing, or am I just out of it? (You needn’t answer that.)
Apparently you may know ‘pig in the middle’ as “keep away“
Re ‘inter’: As Gary Larson would say, can they DO that? I.e., use a non-word–a prefix–as a definition? ‘inter’, of course, by chance has a homonym that is an actual word; but is that all that’s keeping a setter from using, say, ‘intra’ as the definition for a clue the solution of which is ‘within’?