This one was not too bad, although a bit harder than Paul’s usual. After much struggle, I kept saying I should have seen that one right away. The wordplay often pointed to the right answer, but then I had a lot of trouble justifying it – quick grass and Mearns were particularly elusive, and as a US solver I had to think a little about Bulldog.
| Across | |
| 1 | Racket involving rupees is shut down (5) |
| SCRAM – SC(R)AM. The literal refers to shutting down a nuclear reactor. | |
| 5 | Clip’s uninteresting with director shifting boring moss (7) |
| BULLDOG – B(DULL with the D moving to the end)OG. A clip found only in the UK, apparently. | |
| 10 | Fish once with a ranging rod (10, two words) |
| OCEAN PERCH – Anagram of ONCE + A, then PERCH. | |
| 11 | One of a few rulers shut up chief (8) |
| PENTARCH – PENT, ARCH. | |
| 13 | Scots search hoarder having disposed of last two items (6) |
| SQUIRR – SQUIRR[el]. | |
| 14 | Scots mizzle circling round west of Ullapool’s conifers (5) |
| RIMUS – RIM(U)S, where the enclosing letters are SMIR backwards. | |
| 16 | Congress on phoney title perhaps finding advantage (6) |
| PROFIT – PROF + IT. Why prof is a phoney title I leave to our readership. | |
| 17 | German success mostly on the turn for hybrids? (5) |
| GEEPS – G + SPEE[d] backwards. With genetic engineering, it’s hard to separate the sheep from the goats! | |
| 18 | Moulding seeds kill (7) |
| CORNICE – CORN + ICE. | |
| 21 | Old boy with mixed issue — he’s one to put himself out (7) |
| OBLIGER – O.B. + LIGER. | |
| 23 | Chest kept in by personal assistant’s coat (5) |
| PARKA – P(ARK)A. | |
| 24 | Spenserian became inhibited with retreat going west (6) |
| WOONED – |
|
| 27 | Dangerous children jog around Govan (5) |
| HOTCH – HOT + CH, giving a Scots word. | |
| 28 | Goat can go rancid to some extent (6) |
| ANGORA – Hidden in [c]AN GO RA[ncid]. | |
| 29 | A little slick note about filling Roman Catholic’s drink (8) |
| ARMAGNAC – A + R(MAG,N,A)C. A slick is a glossy magazine, according to Chambers. | |
| 30 | City steams? Possibly, this could be planned (10) |
| SYSTEMATIC – Anagram of CITY STREAMS. | |
| 31 | Familiar name for spotted swimmer going deep? (7) |
| HOMELYN – HOMELY + N | |
| 32 | A flipping wrong Near Eastern flavouring (5) |
| ANISE – A + SIN backwards + E. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Priest’s accepted affair — hard cheese! (7) |
| SAPSAGO – SAP’S + A + GO. Both a sap and a priest are cant terms for a bludgeon. | |
| 2 | Set of orders to pay? Question and discretely deplore cutting brass (10) |
| CHEQUEBOOK – CHE(QU)E(BOO)K, where discretely means the words for question and deplore are separately inserted. | |
| 3 | Protein doin’ duty (5) |
| ACTIN – ACTIN’, a write-in. | |
| 4 | Money gains an alternative for Kincardineshire (6) |
| MEARNS – M + EARNS. I struggled with the literal until I discovered that this is not a Scots word for an alternative – Mearns is an old name for Kincardineshire. | |
| 5 | Historical lists obstruct career (7) |
| BARRACE – BAR + RACE. The lists for the knights at the tournament, that is. | |
| 6 | Remove restrictions in court surrounding new cases (5) |
| UNCAP – U(N, CA)P. | |
| 7 | Many go by foot, feasible for start of trip (6) |
| LEGION – LEG I(-t,ON). | |
| 8 | Odd force in portentous artillery assault (8) |
| DRUMFIRE – D(RUM F)IRE. | |
| 9 | Grand crowd providing presence (5) |
| GHOST – G + HOST. | |
| 12 | Brief pressing nark, a troublesome weed? (10, two words) |
| QUICKGRASS – QUICK + GRASS. Given for couch grass in Chambers – quack grass is much more common. | |
| 15 | Condition of servitude that’s sadly hostile supported by money (8) |
| HELOTISM – Anagram of HOSTILE + M. | |
| 19 | Factotum from Fife arrives back in sultanate (7, two words) |
| ORRA MAN – O(ARR backwards)MAN. A biff for habitual Mephisto solvers. | |
| 20 | Each hunter gives pain (7) |
| EARACHE – EA + RACHE. | |
| 22 | Start request with verse being first in Catullus (6) |
| INCITE – IN(-v,+T)ITE. | |
| 23 | Wise for Latin woman to bear natural Christmas figure (6) |
| PINATA – PI(NAT)A. | |
| 24 | For some, silence from leaders in White House is hard (5) |
| WHISH – W[hite] H[ouse] + IS + H. | |
| 25 | Strut around? Gosh, one probably cannot lose from here (5) |
| DORMY – ROD backwards + MY. Golf fans will biff, everyone else will be totally bewildered. | |
| 26 | Going afloat here? (5) |
| OGGIN – Anagram of GOING, an &lit, since oggin is a slang term for the sea. | |
I worked about two-thirds of this surprisingly quickly last Sunday and finished on Monday. Started in the SE and ended up in the NW, with my POI being SAPSAGO and my final discovery being that “priest” can mean “bludgeon,” explaining the SAP.
Another one completed correctly, but not without questions.
Sorry about the BULLDOG CLIP, which is a well know item of UK stationery, though perhaps becoming dated.
16a PROF is phoney for definition 5 in Chambers and the relatively frequent use as a jocular form of address in the UK.
34a I don’t understand the equivalence of WOO with inhibited. Can someone explain?
29a thanks I didn’t know SLICK was a mag.
12d I think couch grass is the usual name for this gardener’s annoyance in the UK
25d Not a golf fan but the parsing was easy enough.
Bottom RH corner gave a good start with most words in common parlance. The pun raised a smile – I have mine on toast – but this wasn’t exactly a piece of toast.
I see now that I didn’t try to parse WOONED, and I can’t figure out WOO, wood that I cood…
Inhibited is WOODEN, then reverse the DEN
Was just about to say that, re. WOODEN.
4d: It’s usually The Mearns, rather than simply Mearns. Dead easy for an alumnus of Aberdeen.
Ah of course.
Thank you all
You know, it’s been a whole week. I remember parsing it now. The comment psyched me out.
I think if you try to woo someone you may feel inhibited to express your true feelings for fear of rejection. I struggled with this one and a number of others trying to parse.
See above.
I hope vinyl1 doesn’t mind the indiscretion, but I came to the blog to see if all my wordplay was correct, and the blog wasn’t up yet. About half an hour later I got a text asking about a parsing, so I feel justified in thinking this one tricky – I was looking a lot up for confirmation too. The pretence definition for PROF can be found under PROFESS.
It’s also under ‘professor’: ‘a title assumed by charlatans, quacks, dancing-masters, etc’. Edit: apologies it’s the same entry!
The implicit assumption about dancing-masters here seems a bit harsh.
I found this of medium difficulty. The pun is particularly delightfully awful this week.
WOODEN just seems wrong. The relevant meaning of ‘woon’ is ‘become accustomed’, not ‘become’. And it’s only noted as Spenserian by Chambers in the form ‘did won’ (was accustomed).
It appears that BULLDOG clips are found stateside, but you call them binder clips.
I deduced MEARNS from wordplay, didn’t find it in Chambers as a Scottish word for ‘alternative’, so rejected it until right at the end.
Agree re. the definition of WOONED. I thought for a while that it was a misprint, and that ‘inhibited’ should have been ‘inhabited’, which would just about have made sense. But then the wordplay would be incomplete. ‘Became’ by itself doesny hack it.
Thanks Paul and Vinyl1. Please could someone explain the pun to me- I havent seen it.
Richard’s comment about toast gave me the idea that it’s supposed to evoke “scrambled eggs.” >?!< Yes, Vinyl’s TITLE went right by me!
I do tend to play with Paul’s puns in the blog titles, unless I see something better.