This was a pleasant puzzle from John Grimshaw, a good challenge but not excessively difficult. There were some good starter clues, such as adorn, photo, satnav, stair rod, shrimp. I was actually able to biff ma non troppo, getting my solve off to a good start. There were some nice misleading literals – I particularly like conveyance of the law and fixing waterworks complaints.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Sunlamp deployed around a lounger (8) |
| PAULSMAN – Anagram of SUNLAMP around A. | |
| 7 | Trouble on second stage of HS2 project (4) |
| SAIL – [H]S[2] + AIL. This is sail(2), which means project or jut out, a completely different word from the sail on ships. | |
| 10 | Chief area introducing worthless food crop (9) |
| ARRACACHA – AR(RACA)CH A. Raca is an insulting Aramaic word, and arracacha is minor South American plant. | |
| 12 | Local hack staff who will trade in coal (8) |
| HOASTMAN – HOAST + MAN. Hoast is a dialect word for cough. | |
| 13 | Fool cutting most of the cotton for export (6, two words) |
| T CLOTH – T(CLOT)H[e]. | |
| 14 | Idiot to judge spiritual knowledge (5) |
| JNANA – J + NANA. A bit of Sanskrit for you. | |
| 15 | Perhaps still radioactive, covered in polonium (5) |
| PHOTO – P(HOT)O. | |
| 16 | Daughter concealing a very good opal (7) |
| GIRASOL – GIR(A SO)L | |
| 18 | Tumour again formed around edges of omentum (7) |
| ANGIOMA – Anagram of AGAIN around O[mentu]M | |
| 22 | Cuckoo mother answering in a lively manner (7) |
| ANIMATO – ANI + MA + TO. The ani is frequently found in vowel-hungry US crosswords. | |
| 23 | What was plucked orchid unfortunately died (7) |
| DICHORD – Anagram of ORCHID + D. | |
| 24 | Technique mostly holds right sound of bagpipes (5) |
| SKIRL – SKI(R)L[l]. | |
| 25 | Deck party held by Australian navy (5) |
| ADORN – A (DO) R.N. | |
| 27 | Yogurt-like cheese of small Greek island (6) |
| SKYROS – SKYR + O’S. | |
| 30 | Bread eaten by high Inca chiefs (8) |
| CAPITANI – CA(PITA)NI, where the enclosing letters are an anagram of INCA. | |
| 31 | Male potoo ran around bird’s-nest? (9) |
| MONOTROPA – M + anagram of POTTO RAN. Monotropa is a type of plant that includes bird’s-nest, so we have a DBE indicated by the question mark. | |
| 32 | File on the Royal Mile is coming between king and prince (4) |
| RISP – R(IS)P. The Royal Mile in Edinburgh is used to indicate a Scots word. | |
| 33 | Dog runs by where one sees lizards around noon (8) |
| KOMONDOR – KOMO(N)DO + R, referring to the Komodo dragon. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Agreement reportedly ready to go (4) |
| PACT – Sounds like PACKED. | |
| 2 | Like some mites damaged acorn and dahlia (11) |
| ARACHNOIDAL – Anagram of ACORN and DAHLIA. | |
| 3 | Fixing waterworks complaints our working record initially is competent (8) |
| UROLOGIC – Anagram of OUR + LOG + I[s] C[ompetent]. | |
| 4 | What might be left on a cross steer? (4) |
| LAZO – L + A ZO. A zo or a zho is a hybrid. I don’t like the literal, because lazo or lasso as a verb does not really mean steer. | |
| 5 | School admitted trouble in the playground? (7) |
| SCHTOOK – SCH + TOOK. | |
| 6 | French settler living a simple life, missing the centre of Paris (7) |
| ACADIAN – A[r]CADIAN, where R is the centre of [Pa]R[is]. They later became Cajuns. | |
| 7 | What has vehicle going around following street round area? (6) |
| SATNAV – S(A)T + VAN upside-down. A nice &lit. | |
| 8 | Odd MAGA thinking shows this more than once (4) |
| AGMA – Anagram of MAGA. A sound such as nk or ng, which is found twice in thinking. | |
| 9 | Aromatic liquid left in potato peel losing water (8) |
| LINALOOL – L + IN + ALOO + [pee]L. |
|
| 11 | Opera mate grasps story regularly, but not too much (11, three words) |
| MA NON TROPPO – MANON + OPPO around [s]T[o]R[y]. | |
| 15 | Canada’s wrong in present conveyance of the law (8, two words) |
| PANDA CAR – P(anagram of CANADA)R. | |
| 17 | Took steps endlessly about air flight safety item (8, two words) |
| STAIR ROD – ST(AIR)OD[e]. | |
| 19 | Religious convert once more round Scots isle (7) |
| MARRANO – M(ARRAN)O. One mo time? Just a mo…. | |
| 20 | Can material be in second language (7) |
| MISKITO – M(IS KIT)O. | |
| 21 | Easily overlooked one share supported by current MP (6) |
| SHRIMP – SHR + I + MP. With a nice whimsical literal. | |
| 26 | South African men accepting positive work (4) |
| OPUS – O(P)US. Yes, they have men who are all vowels down in South Africa, very handy for Mephisto setters. | |
| 28 | Take in short American story (4) |
| YARN – YA(R)N[k]. Although yarn is used equally in the UK and the US, the presence of American in the clue made me think at once of yarn. | |
| 29 | Northern cormorant missing last sea reef (4) |
| SCAR – SCAR[t], a Scots word. | |
If that was not excessively difficult I’d hate to se a hard one. Though I don’t normally do them, so who nose?
I wondered if LAZO might be an &lit, a ZO is a sterile male the Internet tells me, so might be a cross (hybrid) steer (sterile male cow). And he’d certainly be cross if you left a lasso on him! Indian food ALOO wouldn’t seem to need an A in the clue? Slightly discombobulated in adorn before realising we had to lift and separate Australian navy. And learnt that Miskito was the origin of Mosquito Coast, not the bitey bug.
Interesting and enjoyable and informative.
I agree that A is not needed for ALOO.
I had LAZO down as &lit.
Ditto on both counts.
Also agreed on both counts. A steer is a young ox, so I guess a young male ZO qualifies. It’s certainly a closer fit than ‘steer’ as a definition for ‘lasso’.
This was a delightful puzzle. I did most of it during a rehearsal of Haydn’s Creation. Given that I was the contrabassoon player I only had one note to worry about, which left plenty of time for the Mephisto. The musical references were much appreciated.
Further to 9 down I read ALOO as potato leaving peel without water giving the letter L.I didn’t see the A as needed in the clue.. I missed the point on 7 across and read s as second rather than the middle letter of HS2. I did spend some time wondering what sail had to do with HS2.
Couple of wee comments: 13ac, not shown as 2 words in the paper and Chambers shows it as hyphenated. 19dn: although MARRANO refers to a mediaeval convert, I took the “once” to refer to MO, which is an archaic form of more.
I found some of this straightforward, but some quite tough. I was solving mostly without a dictionary to hand, which made it slightly more challenging. Having subsequently consulted Chambers, I found it hard to believe there was a specific word for “a lounger in the middle aisle of St Paul’s”!
Yes agreed on MARRANO. Ironically ‘mo’ is actually a modern usage again now, but clearly the Chambers lexicographers are not familiar with The Notorious B.I.G.’s 1997 classic Mo Money Mo Problems.
A medium-difficulty puzzle but somehow I managed to type RASP. This was after parsing the clue fully, including looking up RISP in Chambers to confirm that it was a Scottish usage. 🙄
Been there, done that.
This was very interesting! I got a late start but am glad to have decided to finish up just now before reading this.
I eat Siggi’s SKYR yogurt at least once a week. It’s very good for gut health.
I eat Skyr regularly – but I never knew it was technically cheese! Just another entry on my “list of things I’ve learned from crosswords”…
Agreed. That’s how I took MO: the archaic form of MORE.