Greetings, barred-grid fans.
Another fun 90-degree grid from Paul McKenna this week, and a classic pun across the top row. Not too difficult, but some really fun wordplay this week.
Away we go…
| Across | |
| 1 | Foretell women’s score for Scots against England (5) |
| WRITE – W (women’s) RIT (score) next to E (England) | |
| 5 | No good getting into mere story, daughter snarled (7) |
| TANGLED – NG (no good) inside TALE (mere story), then D (daughter) | |
| 11 | Insecticides spoiled no trees, no? (9) |
| ROTENONES – anagram of NO,TREES,NO | |
| 12 | With penny for it, thrilled being cut off no longer (7) |
| EXCIDED – D (penny) replacing ‘T (it) in EXCITED (thrilled) | |
| 13 | To some extent “swoun” begins to cease to exist in Hardy (4) |
| UNBE – hidden inside swoUN BEgins | |
| 15 | Joint that’s cooked? Name’s lost for good (5) |
| JIGOT – anagram of JOINT with N (name) replaced with G (good) | |
| 16 | With the little grey cells leading steer towards eastern mass of stone (12, two words) |
| HEAD FOREMOST – HEAD FOR (steer towards) , E (eastern), M (mass), O (of), ST (stone) | |
| 17 | Measure of book’s power, but with left-hand side in short (7) |
| EIGHTVO – WEIGHT (power) minus W (with), then VO (verso, left-hand page) | |
| 20 | Paste is twinkling outside (4) |
| MISO – IS with MO (twinkling, short time) outside | |
| 22 | Touch of driver, for instance (4) |
| DREG – DR (driver), EG (for instance) | |
| 23 | One under control after being pitted (7) |
| ENSILED – I (one), LED (under control), after ENS (being) | |
| 24 | Hastily erect an entry for celebration (12) |
| TERCENTENARY – anagram of ERECT,AN,ENTRY | |
| 26 | Assume old-fashioned interest having been cut by pence (5) |
| USURP – USURY (old fashioned interest) minus the last letter, then P (pence) | |
| 29 | Interest succeeded being held for contracted denial (4) |
| ISNT – INT (interest) containing S (succeeded) | |
| 30 | First sources could be somehow true before Christ and Son (7) |
| URTEXTS – anagram of TRUE, then XT (Christ) and S (son) | |
| 31 | Soldier who follows sermon on new life (9) |
| SERREFILE – SER (sermon), then RE (on) and an anagram of LIFE | |
| 32 | Undoubtedly captured by duff promises (7) |
| ASSURES – SURE (undoubtedly) inside ASS (duff) | |
| 33 | No more experience tea, almost unknown (5) |
| ASSAY – ASSAM tea minus the last letter, then Y (unknown) | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Retired, Henry fills Wednesday being twisted by Spenser (7) |
| WRETHED – RET (retired) and H (Henry) inside WED (Wednesday) | |
| 2 | Desire to make fast husband free (4) |
| ITCH – HITCH (to make fast) minus H (husband) | |
| 3 | Incline to retain one tax for the Scots (5) |
| TEIND – TEND (incline) containing I (one) | |
| 4 | In a strange way define the pro as bawdy (12) |
| END-OF-THE-PIER – anagram of DEFINE,THE,PRO | |
| 5 | Darned time with dictionary (4) |
| TOED – T (time) and OED (dictionary) | |
| 6 | Fireside rest? What’s more robust? (7) |
| ANDIRON – AND (what’s more), IRON (robust) | |
| 7 | Ceanothus is gathered early on island and mostly dark blue (12, three words) |
| NEW JERSEY TEA – NEW (gathered or harvested early), JERSEY (island) and TEAL (dark blue) minus the last letter | |
| 8 | Sort of varnish is left beside grand hamper with no top (7) |
| LONG-OIL – L (left), ON (beside), G (grand), then FOIL (hamper) | |
| 9 | Blooming Boers’ mess — they raise in relief (9) |
| EMBOSSERS – anagram of BOERS,MESS | |
| 10 | Chas and Dave, eg, in proper limits of talent (5) |
| DUETT – DUE (proper) then the external letters of TalenT | |
| 14 | Male anger upended old tax — we’re likely to get loads (9) |
| HEIRESSES – HE (male), IRE (anger), then SESS (old tax) reversed | |
| 18 | Inter alia, loving and leaving, for instance, turned up on Scots lists (7) |
| GERUNDS – EG (for instance) reversed, then RUNDS (lists) | |
| 19 | It’s uncertain for an undertaker to sniff at old practice (7) |
| VENTURE – VENT (sniff) then URE (old practice) | |
| 21 | This epic Karen could be donkey’s years in trouble (7) |
| ODYSSEY – anagram of DONKEY’S YEARS minus KAREN | |
| 24 | I must get into swimmer’s form of massage (5, two words) |
| TUI NA – I inside TUNA (swimmer) | |
| 25 | Shakespearean puds, fine when prepared on Sabbath (5) |
| NIEFS – anagram of FINE, then S (Sabbath) | |
| 27 | Ascendant sister, Reformed Episcopal, falls from grace (4) |
| ERRS – reversal of SR (sister) and RE (Reformed Episcopal) | |
| 28 | Inverted stanza in pushing along fixed line (4) |
| AXIS – reversal of SIXAIN (stanza) minus IN | |
I can see how 17a works now but my scientific mind didn’t permit an equivalence of POWER with WEIGHT. In a lay sense they are synonymous. So this drove down the path of taking MIGHT as power and LEVO- as left-hand. Drop the left-hand side of both the insert the remainder of the former into the remainder of the latter. Of course the wordplay doesn’t justify that complicated explanation. I wasn’t happy with it either. So I’m rather relieved to discover a much more straightforward explanation. Thank you ghc.
21d was the other clue that kept me thinking for a some. Eventually the penny dropped (in my case an old penny -d).
I was thinking mathematically – that eight was a power, being 2 cubed – but that didn’t explain “but”. URTEXTS took me a while (not having a dictionary to hand to look up URTE–S); I was wondering about Urtechs (being some kind of original IT thinkers?) and then, looking at -CIS for 28dn, my brain somehow substituted X for C and came up with Sixain/Axis and it all became clear.
One quibble: TEAL (7dn) is not really dark blue – it’s a dark greenish blue, the green element being key, I think.
‘Dark greenish-blue’ is exactly how Chambers defines TEAL. But greenish-blue is, by definition, a kind of blue, no?
The timer on the crossword club is glitching and saying that I did this in 00:00. I don’t think I was that quick…
I could be wrong but I thought the colour teal was taken from the bird whose primaries have the characteristic colour. This seems to be more of an iridescent blue than green.
The Eurasian teal, which we have in the UK, is also known as the green-winged teal. There is a blue-winged teal, but only in America. (Info courtesy of RSPB and Wiki!)
I had an entry for the clue-writing competition chucked into the rejects for using PENNY to signal D. Interesting to see it’s now allowable.
That’s appalling (to have had D thrown out). Being born in the 50’s l’m afraid good old L.s.d. was far too ingrained (along with yards feet and inches and stone, pounds and ounces) by 1971.
Oddly enough I was wondering the other day whether d would ever make an appearance instead of p in crossword clueing.
I did wonder if “penny” here signified ID (or 1d), replacing IT. But I don’t see why it would need to be 1d to be acceptable if p alone is accepted.
This was going smoothly but I had set it aside and just now finished. Was glad the devilish clue for ODYSSEY, where you get another word when you anagram it with “Karen,” did not remain unparsed. Seems a type somewhat peculiar to Mephisto.