Sunday was a strange day – I had a bunch of stuff to do to get ready for a trip on Monday. So I was hoping that the Sunday crosswords wouldn’t take that long – and it was the case, both Azed and Mephisto I thought were on the easier side. I had a lot of doodled question marks, which usually means I’ve gotten wordplay without definition or definition without wordplay, but I think they’re all resolved now.
There’s three pieces of chemistry hidden away in the clues, so maybe Don Manley was throwing me a bone.
Away we go!
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | ALABASTRINE: BALA reversed, then A,STRINE (both Australian) – I didn’t know Lake Bala, but it’s in Wales |
| 11 | GRANOLA: A LOG reversed containing RAN – very common name here for sweet muesli |
| 12 | HAUME: sounds like HOME |
| 13 | RUMEN: ME in RUN – cow’s internal organ. I learned something weird about cows this past year – you can feed a cow magnets to stop accumulated metal getting past the first stomach. These magnets (they call them cow magnets) are really strong – about the strongest magnets you can buy in the US without a permit. So now I have a stack of cow magnets for when I want to do science demonstrations |
| 14 | OATS: GOATS (wicked people) without the G |
| 15 | ENCLOUD: (CLUE,DON)* |
| 18 | STOPED: or STOP ED |
| 20 | NAHT: The National Association of Head Teachers – and THANK(blame – as in “who’s to thank for this?” reversed and shortened |
| 21 | AILS: SAIL with the S moved to the end |
| 23 | LATTEN: hidden |
| 27 | SPULE: S(houlder) then PULE – a new word for wail (come to think of it a new word for shoulder) |
| 29 | UNLASTE: (ALE,NUTS)* |
| 30 | 1,RID |
| 31 | BIOME: sounds like BUY ‘OME |
| 32 | REGGAE: RA with EGG inside, then E(Eastern) |
| 33 | IS,0,BARE: hey there rarely used chemical term – isobares can mess up mass spec analyses, it’s two nuclei with the same mass but different numbers of protons. |
| 34 | TRACASSERIE: CART reversed then ASS and a lake I know much better than Bala – ERIE |
| Down | |
| 1 | ABHORS: old word for protests against A then H in BORS(a knight of the round table) |
| 2 | ANATTO: A NATO around the end of BelfasT |
| 3 | B, |
| 4 | ARMIGERS: anagram of MARRIGAGES without A(are) |
| 5 | TRENAIL: (IN,LATER)* – that was close in the mind, as its friend TREENAIL was in a recent Listener |
| 6 | INULIN: INSULIN without the S(ugar) |
| 7 | NOMOS: got this from the wordplay – SOLOMON reversed minus LO |
| 8 | ELEUTHERIAN: another one from wordplay – E(English), then another E(energy) in LUTHER(reformer), IAN(Scot) |
| 9 | PAN,DIT |
| 10 | REACTIONIST: (IS,CERTAIN,TO)* |
| 17 | REALNESS: sounds like REEL(swirl) then NESS(loch) |
| 19 | DIPTERA: anagram of DESPERATION – ONES |
| 21 | ANUBIS: SI,BUNA(rubber) all reversed – lots more chemistry |
| 22 | SHAMBA: SAMBA with H inside – I really liked this clue, I like the image of a farm sambaing |
| 24 | TURGOR: UR in (GROT)* |
| 25 | NA-DENE: anagram of MAN,NEEDS – MS(manuscript) |
| 26 | FLOOR – double def – the only one in this crossword! |
| 28 | EIGNE: hmmm – it’s meant to be a homophone of something – EIN perhaps? |
I did most of this really quickly (which for me means less than two hours) but then got completely bogged down in the NW. I had to cheat (using the iPad Chambers app) to get ANATTO and then HEAUME.
15ac is a nice cheeky clue.