Following on from Wednesday’s ordeal I’m as relieved as Uncle Yap yesterday to have got off quite lightly on my blogging day. This is mostly straightforward stuff with only one unknown but easily gettable answer and a couple of clues that leave something be desired if I have understood them correctly. Otherwise it was quite a lively solve and I’m grateful to the setter for not burying everything in a lot of unnecessary verbiage.
Across | |
---|---|
1 | DINOSAUR – A, SON (boy),I inside RUDe (not completely disrespectful) all reversed. |
6 | PROUST – PapeR, OUST (get rid of). |
9 | SPAT – S (succeeded), PAT (slick). |
10 | INJUNCTION – IN (batting), JUNCTION (meeting). |
11 | QUEENSWARE – NSW (part of Oz), A (area) inside QUEER (unusual), E (English). I can’t say I’ve heard of this but it seems the most famous examples are in the Wedgwood range which I am familiar with and just didn’t know its name. I bunged in ‘Queensland’ here early on and lived to regret it. I suspect I was not alone in this. |
13 | ALLY – pALLY |
14 | RECORDER – RECORD (CD), ER (Queen). This is one of two clues I’m not overly happy with as I can’t see that a recorder necessarily has anything to do with charts, but possibly there’s a meaning or context I have not thought of. |
16 | ONE-TWO – Anagram of WENT inside 0-0 (game without goals). The definition is ‘passing move’, a reference that presumably can be applied to many sports. |
18 | STYMIE – ST (way), then I’M reversed inside YE. This can simply mean ‘obstruct’ now but according to SOED its origin is in golf rather than snooker as mentioned in the clue, although of course that’s pefectly valid. |
20 | ULTIMATE – gUiLt TrIp, MATE |
22 | AFAR – A, RAF (service) reversed. |
24 | SADDLEBACK – S (second #1), ADDLE (confuse), BACK (second #2). |
26 | FREEBOOTER – BEER (drink) reversed inside FOOTER (game). |
28 | TAIL – TAmIL |
29 | LESSON – Definition: ‘example’, sounds like ‘lessen’ (shrink). This is the other clue I’m not happy with as it’s surely possible to make a perfectly valid case for LESSEN — or vice versa if applicable. |
30 | PROTRUDE – ROT (more pants!) inside PRUDE (prig). |
Down | |
2 | IMPRUDENT – IMP (whippersnapper) followed by anagram of TURNED. |
3 | ON THE GO – ON (over), T (time), H (husband), E GO (I). |
4 | ARIES – cARIES (tooth decay not caught at first). |
5 | RAJ – JAR (clash) reversed. |
6 | PENTECOST – PE (gymnastics) followed by anagram of CONTEST. |
7 | OUTRAGE – AmusinG, inside OUTRE (bizarre). |
8 | SEOUL – Sounds like “soul” (music). The capital of South Korea. |
12 | AGROUND – Anagram of ON A DRUG. |
15 | DRESS DOWN – DRESS (comb), DOWN (floor/on floor). |
17 | WITH CHILD – H (heroin) inside ITCH (long) inside WILD (furious). |
19 | MARVELS – The poet Andrew MARVELL (1621-1678) with his second L changed to S. |
21 | MOBSTER – MO (second), anagram of BEST, Robin. |
23 | FURZE – Sounds like ‘firs’. |
25 | LARGO – LARGe (mostly great), O (over). Handel’s famous Largo is taken from “Ombra mai fu” the opening aria in “Serse” or “Xerxes”. |
27 | TOP – Double definition. |
I share Jack’s mystification over RECORDER and [on edit] the word order and the phrasing (where ‘for’ may be interpreted as ‘to receive [the answer]’) would seem to support LESSON at 29. Since I did’t do this online, though, I have no idea what the mandated solution is.
Enjoyed this – just glad to finish after the last two days – with WITH CHILD (where I was trying to work around ‘wood’ the golf club) just bumping out the excellent anagram AGROUND.
Edited at 2013-02-08 06:46 am (UTC)
Unfortunately I was also seduced by Queensland and further impeded by a hasty “intimate” instead of “ultimate” so a DNF.
I am now writing a hundred lines “I must read the clue properly”
Edited at 2013-02-08 07:55 am (UTC)
I had LESSEN, so yes, perfectly valid.
I allow I shrugged at RECORDER: one such might just as well make charts as anything else, but it did seem a bit loose. Some of us fogeys will go on calling these new fangled CD things records indefinitely, even though it’s difficult to keep the stylus on track.
Just about every clue was a hold-up on the way to crossword Nirvana today: apart from the two above, PROUST needed a fair bit of churning and makes it as my CoD, though MARVELS was a rare smile inducer.
I’ve never been sure how to pronounce SEOUL – it usually comes out a bit Clousseau and not much like “soul”. I’m grateful to the cryptic for getting the Y and I right in STYMIE.
Edited at 2013-02-08 09:06 am (UTC)
I wrote LESSO/EN in the grid for 29A – could be either so far as I can see. I trust all regular readers got FURZE after my tip off a couple of weeks ago!
I thought 21D MOBSTER a nice clue. 20 minutes to solve.
Rob
QUEENSWARE was unknown, and I very much wanted to bung in QUEENSLAND. Fortunately I hestiated.
I was puzzled by RECORDER too, but like Jimbo took it to be a reference to a pop star.
I initially put in STIMEY, which slowed me down a bit.
I don’t think 29ac is ambiguous: the “talking” clearly applies to “shrink”. If you construe the clue the other way round the “talking” bit would have to apply to “for example”, which might give you “as”, but doesn’t give you “lesson”.
Edited at 2013-02-08 10:26 am (UTC)
The more I think about it, the more I think LESSON is to be favoured, but if you put in LESSEN you might parse it as:
“Shrink”(=definition)
“talking for example” means “a way of saying a word which means example”. It ignores the punctuation, of course, but that is quite normal in dissecting a clue.
I’m not necessarily entirely convincing myself with this, but I think it’s at least possible, if rather contorted…
Eventually decided correctly on LESSON, as ‘for’ could only be parsed as indicating the definition, as keriothe has said.
In any event, there are two possible interpretations of this clue: one which parses perfectly clearly, and the other which requires an interpretation of the wordplay which is stretched at best.
I would bet quite a lot of money on the outcome.
I wondered about 29 briefly, but the comma steers one to LESSON, and keriothe has given a convincing explanation why LESSEN cannot be right. Without the comma a case could have been made for LESSEN.
17 & 19 were excellent clues.
I notice ‘pants’ yet again. Seems to be going viral, as they say.
Incidentally, my dictionary (Chambers) has QUEENS WARE has two words.
Andy B.
For a long time I couldn’t rid my mind of Queensland for 11A even though I knew it was wrong. That caused inordinate delay getting Pentecost. I’m another who wrongly chose Lessen at 27A.
Some excellent clues today – in particular Aground, Ally and One-Two to name but a few.
I can see a glimmering of a case for lessen, but given the choice, lesson surely does fit a lot better?
I have long suspected that our comments here do have some effect on setters, though not always perhaps in the way hoped for. I am certain that a rash of dodgy homophones was put in last year as a specific response to various compaints about demiotic schwas etc etc (or whatever 🙂 – and I now think the current pants pandemic is our doing too..
But ignore me, just the back talking no doubt; it is better today, but I am told I mustn’t spend time sitting down, which makes using the desktop (and other things) a tricky operation!
Edited at 2013-02-08 04:39 pm (UTC)
Had to sneak scribbles in this during meetings this morning but rather liked it – very crafy clue for QUEENSWARE, my last in, and made me start looking for a pangram but it appears we’re an X short (maybe the Times rejected X-PAT).
Rare morning – QUEENSWARE was the only one that went in from wordplay alone.
I guess I’ll be last today.
There really is no alternative to LESSON for 29ac. Anyone who imagines they’d get away with arguing that “talking for example” = “a way of saying a word which means example” in the Championship is living in cloud-cuckoo-land!
Some nice clues.
This appears to be a fairly recent usage and it hasn’t even reached the latest OED that I have access to on-line yet, but it is in the Concise Oxford amongst other recent dictionaries.
“Pants” has turned up quite a lot in Times puzzles of late and has been the subject of some comment, even some complaint, from contributors here, hence my writing “more pants!” in my explanation in the blog.
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