Solving time: 26 mins, no books – 2 mistakes
I’ve added a penalty minute to my previously quoted time for changing my mind about the answer to 1A. Definition quotes below are Copyright Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd: The Chambers Dictionary 2003; The Chambers Thesaurus 2004. One wordplay for some kind passer-by to explain at 24D.
Apologies for the epic white space below – I hope to remove it when I’ve remembered what blogger’s cock-up causes it. The report is down there somewhere.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | WAGE,N,BOOM – a S Afr tree whose wood is used to make wagon wheels (no wonder they taste so grim, ho ho). I originally put WAGES-BOOM, with the putative def. “growth”, wondering “where does the S come from?” |
| 11 | G(N/A)R. – a barred-grid cliché answer, this one. |
| 12 | FURCRAEA – Ur in (a farce)* – one of my mistakes as I had FURCAREA, which made me wonder about the R in ‘ARSIDIA’ at 8D… |
| 13 | PIRELLI – (I’ll, E = “at last enclose”, R.I.P. = farewell wish), all rev. |
| 14 | ES(c)=key,SEX=relations – only spotted the Esc key part while writing this – when of course I’ve got one under my nose … |
| 16 | O(BEA,HIS)M – more fiendish wordplay identified while writing this – by heck this blogging is good for you – “dim woman” means “diminutive woman” = Bea for Beatrice. Intonation = “Om” = “a sacred syllable intoned as part of Hindu devotion and contemplation, symbolizing the Vedic scriptures, the three worlds (earth, atmosphere and air), and the Absolute” – just about anything, then … |
| 17 | H(A)IT,H=Hotel (radio alphabet). Scots for “by my faith”, by my faith. |
| 20 | IT-GIRL – (rig(h)t) rev. in IL, using two IVR abbrevs in the one clue. |
| 23 | TELL,US a tell is “in Arab lands, a hill or ancient mound formed from the accumulated debris from earlier mud or wattle habitations.” Tellus is the Roman earth goddess and the Earth. |
| 25 | HOB,ART “hob” = “top of the range” is very good stuff. I can’t quite see “bauty perhaps” in the def of ART, but I’m not going to worry as I saw it easily enough when solving. |
| 27 | FRAIL – 2 defs – I was perhaps lucky not to guess another ?RAIL word here. |
| 29 | BUCK,A,ROO as in roo-bar – Aussie road equivalent of the US railroad cowcatcher |
| 31 | ELIAS – E for A in alias. An alternative to Elijah or Elisha, I guess – I don’t have the books to check right now. |
| 32 | A(POST)IL – a marginal note/td> |
| 33 | AV(E.R.’S)ION – avion = aeroplane is in C as well as your O-level French vocab book. |
| 34 | SEED – 2 defs, one a dialect version of ‘saw’ |
| 35 | WINEBERRY – a plant, as is the tutu. ‘Wineberry’ can mean tutu or makomako, another repetitive NZ plant |
| Down | |
| 2 | ANI,MATED – remembered that the ani is a bird from previous barred-grid experience |
| 4 | EREC=cere rev.,TILE |
| 5 | BULBUL = “sweet singer”s or another kind of bird. I wonder whether the online clue is a word short. “Rising, twice cut off sweet singer” doesn’t say what’s ‘cut off’ to make ‘lub’, and LUBE looks like the only possibility. |
| 8 | B,A(SID)IA – as you may have guessed from 12A, I didn’t realise that this was {black, (chap embraced by nursemaid) } rather than {(black, chap) embraced by nursemaid } |
| 10 | WAX MYRTLE – the ‘candleberry tree’ in the US. (L,try) rev. in w=with,exam*. |
| 15 | WHITE (chess player),BEAM |
| 18 | EN BROSSE – ‘(of hair) cut short and standing up stiffly’ – Ross ( James Clark Ross of ice shelf fame) in been* |
| 19 | VERIFIER – (1,fir) rev. in VEER |
| 21 | G,LACIER – lace being made of loops |
| 24 | SPRAIN – apart from quiet = P, the wordplay bassles me here. |
| 25 | HOOP,O,E – a brightly-coloured bird which very rarely makes it to our shores. I saw one last summer on the Dnieper or in the Danube delta. |
| 26 | LASSI – Ass. = Associate in LI = Long Island |
| 28 | AFTER – wordplay baffled me while solving, but rafter (vb.) is to plough in a particular way. |
| 30 | ULVA – hidden word – an edible seaweed – must be a new trendy kind, as it’s not in my old 1988 Chambers but has been added since. |
“Rising twice cut off..” = BUL(l)BUL(l)
Bill