About average difficulty, this one. It took me an hour in two sessions, plus a bit longer to sort out 14dn owing to the dictionary error mentioned below, and to contemplate 22dn in a vain attempt to understand the wordplay. SW corner was the last to go in. I find the level of difficulty of these Club Monthlies is remarkably consistent. Presumably it is the same setter each month, which would help. Whoever he/she is, they are inventive and devious.. the standard of clues is relentlessly high.
I’ve had a difficult month and have left this blog to the last minute, rather, so if it’s a bit terse in places I apologise and will be happy to answer any queries anyone may have. I also apologise for the huge empty space between these comments and the entries below, I don’t know why it is there and cannot seem to eradicate it. Now corrected, with thanks to Koro!
Across | |
---|---|
1 | jalapic – nick = JA |
5 | pan-Slav – state = PA + LAV = “throne room,” ha ha, containing poles = NS. I confess I smiled at this, one is never too old, it seems, to appreciate a bit of toilet humour. |
9 | Jack Sprat – cards = JACKS + PRAT = fool, Jack being the one who would eat no fat |
10 | Negev – greens = VEG + EN |
11 | bhuna – cake = BUN + A, containing H = hot, to make the traditional curry choice for the wimps who daren’t enter the vindaloo races.. |
12 | implanted – rascal = IMP + L + ANTE = “Caesar’s before,” ie Latin + D = daughter. |
14 | manrikigusaris – (I arming Russia)* containing K = a thousand, to make an obscure Japanese weapon, seldom seen outside the Bruce Lee genre of films (and also Kill Biil vol.1, if I remember aright). The really fascinating thing about this clue is that in my 2003 9th edition of Chambers, this word is misspelt as “MaUriki…” This is the only typo I recollect seeing in a top line dictionary. My other Chambers, the 10th (2006) edition, has corrected it. Before you move on, gentle solver, pause to admire the beautifully smooth surface which results in such a horrific word. Masterly stuff by the setter. |
17 | hapax legomenon – fortune = HAP (as in mishap, hapless etc) + AXLE + GO ON containing people = MEN to make a useful way of describing a word that appears once and once only in a given work, usually a doorstep like the bible or Ulysses. This word itself appears only once in this blog, but that hardly counts I suppose.. |
21 | synizesis – “gives a measure of” = SIZES + one’s = IS containing YN = “Extremely naturally fitting back” |
23 | culty – |
24 | qui-hi – QUI |
25 | whiffling – “XI’s predecessors” = WH + IF = “one following” + FLING = pitch. This is a clever clue, which I think is absolutely sound technically, albeit the surface reading might be thought just a little stretched. |
26 | eoliths – what’s = EH’S containing O + LIT |
27 | kolkhoz – K |
Down | |
1 | jojoba – Another clever clue; “Orleans girl” = Joan of Arc, dropping new = JOA |
2 | lactuca – (ACTUAL)* containing C “covered initially” |
3 | piscatrix – (A SCRIPT I)* + X = by as in 2 by 4, making “casting female with line” – not a word you would need very often, 99.99% of all fisherfolk being male in my (limited) experience |
4 | carsickness – touch = CARESS containing so = SIC + KN = “keen to be energy free,” the rather attractive definition being “Being green, perhaps, on transport.” I have the most vivid memories of negotiating Park Lane, Marble Arch & Edgware road in our old Hillman Minx, with my 4 year old daughter (she is now 36!) being violently sick all over the back seat. |
5 | pit – advice = TIP, rev. |
6 | nanna – the last letters of “Canaria on vacation: sea, sun,” climbing ie rev. Gran being the definition |
7 | lighter – LITER, the volume measure of Americans including Mr Poe, when they aren’t using cups or gallons, containing GH, the “origins of gothic horror.” |
8 | vividest – sex, as in sextet I suppose, = VI + VIDE |
13 | pigeons milk – ages = EONS contained in gorge = PIG + exploit = MILK, to make an imaginary liquid (at least so far as Tesco are concerned) which children are sent to buy by sad people who think they are funny, but are not. |
15 | speechful – = (PUCE FLESH)* |
16 | physique – resentment = PIQUE containing |
18 | pennill – write = PEN on NILL = love, repeating last” |
19 | oilfish – O |
20 | kyrgyz – the “hides” = the outside letters of “zany ginger yak” rev. Tortuous, but ingenious |
22 | zoist – I can’t fathom this one. It seems pretty certain that “Zoist,” a follower of the doctrine of Zoism, a doctrine so obscure that it defeats Wikipedia, is what we are looking for. But how to extract it from “so ouzo’s out!” is a mystery to me. Ideas, anyone? |
25 | wis – Hidden, reversed, in wySIWyg |
I have the same problems as you Jerry and was looking to you for enlightenment!! At 27A I thought the setter might mistakenly have thought that KHz meant kilohertz per second. At 22D I’m completely lost. I tried to turn “zest” into “zoist” but to no avail. I’m not aware of any real alternatives to “ouzo” other than brand names possibly – a mystery.
I’ll get back to you on the Khz thing as I do not have the puzzle to hand just now (and no, I cannot access it from the www from here 🙂 )
So far as KOLKHOZ is concerned, indeed 1KHz = 1,000 cycles per second, so “a thousand cycles in very short time” is an accurate, even thorough, definition of that part of the answer..