Solving time: not recorded but pretty slow – maybe 2-2½ hours.
As you can gather I found this very tough. One reason was missing what should have been a very straightforward anagram at 34A, another a hasty answer at 2D. The rest I can only explain as crafty wording from the setter and possibly a selection of more words than usual from the parts of Chambers I haven’t been to before. And I now see that I had a wrong answer at 18.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | RAD,O’,M.E. – “rad”=radical=excellent is (esp and orig US) slang. O’ = of, as in “John O’ Groats” is no surprise, but C also has o’ as a short form of “on” (example gratefully received). Radomes protect microwave radar antennae. They’re like Brobdingnagian versions of Jimbo’s golf balls |
| 6 | MUSK,E.G. – easier wordplay, and I recognised the answer though without recalling the meaning – a Canadian word for a swamp/bog/marsh, from Cree. |
| 12 | IRONGLANCE – G=grand in cornelian*. I’m usually good on the rocks in these puzzles, but took a while to remember that there are various ores ending in ‘glance’. Worth remembering when the wordplay makes a -ITE ending impossible. |
| 13 | E(R)ST – possibly my first answer, appositely. Simple wordplay, unless “est” being Latin “is” is news to you. |
| 14 | FRE(C,K.L.)E – clever disguise here, “spot” being the def. That’s just for starters – [free = indecent] is quite tricky, as is the abbrev. C for cloudy. I think there are some other weather ones in C, but not very consistently – S=sun but not snow, and R is not rain. |
| 15 | SA’=save (obs.),MO,S,AS=when – using the toughest bit of wordplay at the start makes this pretty fiendish. |
| 18 | THIL(l),(wor)K – def. is “in places this” – thilk (or thick or thicky) being a dialect word for “this”. I spotted shaft=THILL, which I’d seen before, and assumed this was the answer, with wordplay I was too (dialect for “this”) to understand. Moral – in cases like this, look at a few entries either side of the word you recognise. |
| 20 | ALE,pH – sneaky def (“A Hebrew”) but the rest is not too bad – [“ale”=a feast or festival] may be new to you, but isn’t as bizarre as thilk=this, which I promise to stop going on about. |
| 22 | DIS,PERS(on),E – clever wordplay, but all the components are daily paper stuff, so should be relatively easy. |
| 24 | INS(CU(L)P)T. – nearly ditto ditto ditto – only the def. is obscure |
| 25 | PEA(R)L – there seem to be many C words for fish at different ages, so peal=young sea trout was new but not surprising. If take=R is a new trick for you, read mark and learn from the “r.” entry in C. |
| 27 | DS=”document signed”,OM=sacred syllable,O=over(s) (cricket). Alphabet soup giving one of the forms of that old favourite verbal chameleon, the zho – another C entry to check if this yak and something cross-breed is new to you. |
| 30 | ENTER=admit,ON=playing (theatre, music, cricket and probably more). The enteron (for humans at least) is the alimentary canal. Possibly more familiar as guts = entera, though that’s strictly the guts of several people rather than one person’s guts. |
| 32 | C,RESTED – daily paper clue |
| 33 | P.(I)O.,Y – another of those words so odd-looking that you have to make yourself check it. Like peeoy and pioye, it’s a Scots home-made firework. |
| 34 | MISS THE BUS = (she submits)*. I certainly did, having to get this from checkers. I suspect my first few readings were too hasty to notice “(10, three words)”. |
| 35 | END=death,EAR=to plough or till. The second half of the wordplay is another for beginners to remember |
| 36 | R(IT,(ma)T(ch)),ER. A bit of a wordplay maze, this one. “The ne plus ultra” = IT – see it1. Then the chess pieces are part wordplay (rook & Queen), and part def., a ritter being a knight. |
| Down | |
| 2 | AR.=Arabic,RAH(u)=a Hindu demon which swallows the required heavenly body during an eclipse. This was my real downfall as I remembered old xwd setter Afrit, who took his name from an Arabic demon, and again ignored my inability to make sense of the wordplay. Matching half the checking letters, this took a long time to identify as a dud answer. |
| 3 | DISM(I.S.S.)AL – yes, ISS=International Space Station – surprised I’ve not seen that before. |
| 4 | MOSS – hidden word, clued by its verbal meaning which matches “weed” |
| 5 | EN FAMILLE = (Milan flee). It means “at home” and therefore “in” – another sneaky def. |
| 7 | ULE=crude rubber,MA(t) – an ulema is one Islamic theologian or a group thereof. Both ule and ulema are common barred-grid fare. |
| 8 | SACKLESS – Scots for dispirited, indicated by “Rab C” (Nesbitt). With apologies to overseas solvers, a nice change from Jock or Ian. And a gag about lacking wine=sack. |
| 9 | (ni)EC(LIPS)E – a deliquium is (inter alia) an eclipse. And your rubies are your lips – not rhyming slang for once, just from the colour. |
| 10 | GEE,P=Pastor – a geep is an artifical goat/sheep cross created from DNA |
| 11 | CESTUI = “that one” in legal jargon. (is cute)* – fairly fiendish clue, as an anag of (cute if) also fits the cryptic reading. |
| 16 | SU(e),SPENDER – I think – but can’t see “try to sell” as a def of SUE, so may need another SUx word. |
| 17 | HERBORIST = R.I. in brothers* – pretty easy as RI or RE are safe bets for “religious study”, and if so the def. must be at the start, which in turn suggests the -IST ending. After that, you can’t really miss HERB at the start and the job is done. |
| 19 | LA,CROSSE(d) – daily paper clue, though on the hard side |
| 21 | AN(EUR.)I,N – ani = [a bird known as “black cuckoo”] is another barred-grid cliché for beginners to note. |
| 23 | E(PONY)M – as per 19D. |
| 26 | LY(T=tense,T=time)A(m). Next barred-grid cliché is lyam/lime/lyme, all optionally with -hound, = a bloodhound |
| 28 | MOOVE = Moose with S/V letter swap. The Loyal Order of Moose are an American secret fraternity. Loyal to who or what? Part of the secret I suppose. Moove is an old (and actually more helpful) spelling of “move”. |
| 29 | AC(M)E – apart from acme=crisis, another daily paper clue |
| 31 | TABI = (I bat) rev. Seen eventually though I’d initially tried TIHI. Not a plural of the fake Latin “tabus” which I invented, but both singular and plural of tabi = a Japanese sock for wearing with sandals. |
Agreed a tough old puzzle but they give the greatest sense of achievement when you finally get there. I think as you have indicated that experience helped a good deal with this one and I suspect the newer solvers may have struggled.
I was a bit lucky in places. I have lived in Japan so TABI went straight in. As a lawyer CESTUI is familiar (legal English came originally from French and the settlor of a trust was the CESTUI QUI TRUST). Coincidentally I had been reading Borges story “El ALEPH” the previous night. DSOMO and other variations of ZO are familiar to Scrabble players. (Two hybrid animals by the way at 10 and 27.)
As for LYTTA, many many years ago having discovered Ximenes I tried making my own barred crossword, and LYTTA is in my grid, (It has some nice words in but is not a good grid and I’ve never got around to clueing it.)
So far today’s puzzle is much tougher.
There is a lame joke in there somewhere, about thilk and thatin.