The first piece of difficulty came when I woke up last Sunday, went to download the Mephisto and the crossword club was down, denying me both the Sunday Times and the Mephisto. So I couldn’t print this until Monday morning, when I was heading out of town for most of the week. I had one peek at it over lunch while I was in Ohio and got out a fair bit of the Texas corner, but was struggling to find answers. Of course when I get back I check and find it is my turn to blog it. It wasn’t until this morning that I managed to settle down with references and have a slog at it. I found this one really difficult, and some heavy dictionary hunt-and-pecking was needed to get through it. On top of all of that, there’s one I cannot explain… so here we go
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | ZAPS: P in SAZ reversed |
| 4 | FANTIGUE: N in FATIGUE. Easily found in Bradford’s, I like to think that it means that you’ve had enough of ceiling fans |
| 10 | EXACERBATING: EXACTING(hard) about (ARE,B)* |
| 11 | ROT,ARIANS: great surface there |
| 14 | HUE(=appearance),R: who watches the pilchard fisherman watchers? |
| 15 | B,A,SANT: a trawl through Chambers to find this one |
| 16 | NEVER,S: put it in and then was relieved to find there is a Nevers, France |
| 17 | LARKIN |
| 18 | MASS,A |
| 20 | SESSA: ASSES reversed |
| 23 | DACOIT: anagram of IMANABDUCTOR – BURMAN |
| 25 | AS,T,UTE: wondering for a while if there was a Tute tribe, always forget that “the” can be ‘T in mephistos |
| 26 | PULWAR: AWL reversed in PUR (the Jack in Post and Pair) |
| 27 | ECAD: hmmm… I think this is meant to come from DECADE but I can’t see how the DE is removed. D for date? |
| 30 | HALLIARDS: LIARD(grey) inside Frans HALS(painter) |
| 31 | INFOTAINMENT: cryptic definition? |
| 32 | STAY,LESS(minor) |
| 33 | HYKE: sounds like HIKE |
| Down | |
| 1 | ZERIBAS: (BRA SIZE)* don’t think I’ve seen “improved” as an anagrindicator before |
| 2 | PATH: hidden |
| 3 | SCALAR: CA(about), LA(indeed) inside SR(senior) |
| 4 | F,ERM: spotted in Bradfords |
| 5 | ARISTIDES: at least I think do – is it ARI,STIDES? And if so what is the definition? |
| 6 | TANDEM: AND(with) in MET(police force) reversed |
| 7 | GIGUES: GUE(old fiddle) in G.I.S |
| 8 | UNDER(short of),STAND(resistance) |
| 9 |
|
| 12 | O,PALE,SCENT: liked this one |
| 13 | ANNAPOLIS: NAPOLI in ANS. Capital of Maryland. Never been there |
| 19 | AGRASTE: (TEAR GAS)* in my first solve, not having a dictionary around, I guessed ARGASTE which messed up this part of the grid |
| 21 | STAFF,A |
| 22 | ATLATL: anagram of (NOT AT ALL) – ON |
| 24 | OLLAMH: M in HALLO – found this when I went to see if OLLEMH was a word |
| 25 | A,EG,IS: a youth reading fantasy novels not so misspent! |
| 28 | BINS: double meaning, one being short for BINOCULARS |
| 29 | FREY: another hat tip to Bradford’s. FREY is a god, and if you add GOD to him you get GODFREY |
C gives decad as obsolete variant for decade so you’re instincts were right about the substraction, but in this case only the d needs to be got rid of
paul
At 31A its IT surrounding an anagram of (an item of + n + n) where n=new so two of them are news!!! Great clue that was the subject of the Times Crossword Club Monthly Competition a while back.
Excellent puzzle that I really enjoyed. About an hour to solve. Well done Tim.