Great fun today from my oldest adversary Teazel, and I would say more fun than challenge (at least as far as I was concerned). What says the court of opinion? Several anagrams, well signposted, as noted, and nothing really that gave me pause apart from the finch as mentioned at 13A. But even that went in pretty quickly because as I say, it was PERCHING there somewhere on the outskirts of my knowledge. I think my problem is that whenever I see an ornithological clue I tend to QUAIL (sorry, end of ornithological puns) automatically because I know I am usually teetering on the brink of one of my many GK black holes, so that I have a bit of delay even if I know the answer. Many thanks to Teazel.
FOI was 1A, LOI the famous bird at 13A and COD probably 22A just for the bad joke.
At the end of the day of my last blog I was still posting as I often do last thing when I do a final check to see if anyone has said anything else. In this case there was a comment which involved the hoary old subject of the differences in nuance between British and American English. This reminded me of a conversation I once heard in the bar of Glasgow airport between two Americans which I though would be worth mentioning in this forum. (I would have posted it in the comments for my last blog but at that time of day it is a bit like the tree falling in the forest with nobody there to hear it and it would have been a waste of effort. Of course that may be the verdict of all of you now, but at least some of you will see it. If I need to make a claim for some sort of spurious topicality then I would point out that at least it concerns football, and as I understand it there was some sort of ‘important’ fixture played out yesterday.)
So, these two Americans go into a bar at Glasgow airport and are overheard by this Brit as follows:
1st American: Hey, How’re ya doin’?
2nd American: Great! Just been spending some time in little old Glasgow!
1st American: Awesome! Do anything special?
2nd American: Well, I went and took in a soccer game the other day.
1st American: You don’t say! Who’d ya see?
2nd American (hesitating): Oh, now let me think, was it the… the Rangers and, erm, the Celtics?
Just intersting to me how there has to be a definite article (as in the Steelers, the Dolphins, the Globetrotters, the Red Sox etc) and also a plural. ‘Celtic’ just wouldn’t make sense.
Definitions are underlined and everything else is explained just as I see it as simply as I can.
Across | |
1 | Snooker ball on playing surface in complete dark (5-5) |
PITCH-BLACK – BLACK (snooker ball, worth 7 points, the last to be potted in a clearance game) on PITCH (playing surface). | |
7 | Note big jug is more fresh (5) |
NEWER – N (note) + EWER (big jug). | |
8 | Make lines on paper that child can play with (3,4) |
RAG DOLL – RAG (paper) + DO (make) + LL (lines) | |
10 | Are they tricky for actor to learn? Too bad (4,5) |
HARD LINES – cryptic definition. HARD LINES may be ones that are difficult to learn. | |
12 | Flap about, does it? (3) |
BAT – TAB (flap) ‘about’ (i.e. reversed). This gives BAT which is the ‘it’ of the clue that may well flap about thus making it an &lit. | |
13 | Bird one’s seen in the flesh (6) |
SISKIN – I’S (one’s) ‘seen in’ SKIN (the flesh). As I have said before I am no ornithologist, but this type of finch was somewhere in the back of my memory and the cryptic was clear. | |
15 | Priest’s circle needing reorganising (6) |
CLERIC – straight anagram of CIRCLE (‘needing reorganising’; I guess you’ll probably never see a clearer anagrind than this, short of “take all the letters of this word and mix them up”). | |
16 | Took a meal back for Greek character (3) |
ETA – ATE (took a meal) ‘back’ giving the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet. | |
17 | Box here perhaps showing my amusing broadcast (9) |
GYMNASIUM – another straight anagram: MY AMUSING ‘broadcast’. Broadcast here in the sense of ‘scattered abroad’. Box here ‘perhaps’, because there are many other places where you could potentially practice your Queensberry Rules. | |
20 | One with obsession to cool attic, but only one time (7) |
FANATIC – FAN (to cool) + AT |
|
22 | Be liable for where dog’s dinner might end up? (5) |
INCUR – as it happens our dog is going through a funny phase at the moment where he sometimes doesn’t eat his dinner. But when he does it goes IN the CUR. Geddit? | |
23 | Wine daily, and no holding teacher! (10) |
CHARDONNAY – CHAR (daily as in CHARWOMAN or I suppose CHARPERSON nowadays) + NAY (no) ‘holding’ DON (teacher (in a university)). |
Down | |
1 | Might of monarch supporting prisoner of war (5) |
POWER – in this down clue we have the monarch (ER) ‘supporting’ (i.e. under) POW (prisoner of war). | |
2 | Exciting hour in allotment work (9) |
THRILLING – HR (hour) ‘in’ TILLING (allotment work). | |
3 | Drug, not one for eater of fish (5) |
HERON – HERO |
|
4 | Record mathematical operation (3) |
LOG – double definition (log = logarithm, commonly either to base 10 or ‘natural’, to the base e). Richard Feynman, the Nobel prizewinning physicist, used to have fun cracking the safes of his colleagues by guessing that the number combinations they would use would probably have a mathematical connection, and that first choice would probably be a common irrational number (and therefore a string of endlessly unpredicatable digits except to those in the know, such as him of course) such as e. | |
5 | In vehicle, after argument start to brandish heavy implement (7) |
CROWBAR – the defendant used a CROWBAR to gain entry, m’lud, and the vehicle in question was the usual CAR. Having gained entry he inserted ROW (argument) + B (‘start’ to Brandish) to obtain the heavy implement which is the subject of this enquiry. I rest my case. | |
6 | Too long unmarried, but presumably immediately available? (2,3,5) |
ON THE SHELF – slightly cryptic definition, hence the ‘presumably’. Without that I suppose it could just be a straight double definition. | |
9 | Delayed arrivals scare motel silly (10) |
LATECOMERS – anagram city! SCARE MOTEL ‘silly’. | |
11 | This army so valiant in conflict (9) |
SALVATION – and another one. SO VALIANT ‘in conflict’. | |
14 | Stem offering firm support (7) |
STAUNCH – double definition. As in to STAUNCH the bleeding (stem the flow) and also as in a STAUNCH friend and ally. | |
18 | Aggressively masculine revolutionary embraces church (5) |
MACHO – MAO is the revolutionary embracing CH (church). | |
19 | Not at first spiteful, but irritating (5) |
ITCHY – |
|
21 | Put on protective coat — start in the middle (3) |
TAR – sTARt ‘in the middle’! Can’t say plainer than that. |
I did have a little trouble remembering the siskin.
I didn’t think the wordplay was particularly helpful because ‘flesh = skin’ are not synonymous to my mind, however Collins allows it specifically in this context: You can use flesh to refer to human skin and the human body, especially when you are considering it in a sexual way.
Edited at 2021-07-12 04:34 am (UTC)
RAG DOLL took a bit of brain time to work out.
A good start to the week.
Diana
Thanks to Astartedon
FOI: 1D POWER
LOI: 21D TAR
Straightforward start to the week.
Thank you, astartedon and Teazel
Edited at 2021-07-12 07:35 am (UTC)
LOI: 13a.
Time to Complete: 53 minutes
Clues Answered Correctly without aids: 21
Clues Answered with Aids: 3
Clues Unanswered: Nil
Wrong Answers: Nil
Total Correctly Answered (incl. aids): 24/24
Aids Used: Chambers
This took almost all my one-hour target. Not too difficult save for a small number of tricky clues that took me a while to work out.
I answered 23a. with CHARDONNAY, though I was unable to work out how the answer was obtained until I had finished and come here.
However, I am happy that I completed it.
I also like your new avatar pic. It gives me a much better idea of what a poison wyvern looks like if ever I should run across one in the flesh. Or skin as the wordplay of 13A would have it!
… and all done in 11 enjoyable minutes. I did not know the bird at 13A Siskin — the list of birds I don’t know is immensely long — but it was generously clued. LOI was 8A Rag doll, but only because despite biffing the answer in the first pass, I could not immediately parse it and left it for later … which ended up being much later as I nearly forgot to put it in at all!
7A Newer also took a moment or two as I ran through all 7 musical notes (Aewer, Bewer, Cewer …) before deciding that this time, Note = N. At least I didn’t also run through the Sol-fa scale as well.
Many thanks to Don for the blog
Cedric
I just checked the RSPB page, if I saw one, I would for sure identify it as a Greenfinch. At least I know what a Heron looks like.
I did’t really understand BAT, and was worried about BUT/TUB.
COD LATECOMERS, nice surface, very clean anagram
Edited at 2021-07-12 08:29 am (UTC)
Otherwise few hold-ups and a number of good clues. FOI LOG.
COD to GYMNASIUM.
David
BW
Andrew
Some nice anagrams. Big smile at INCUR.
Thanks all, esp Don.
Slight delay for LOI 5d “Crowbar” , not sure why because I had all the elements but perhaps for a while I was thinking of a word beginning CA and ending in R.
COD 11 ac “salvation” — Shaw’s Major Barbara was a member of that army, I believe. Also liked the surface of 8 ac “Rag Doll”.
Thanks to the Don for an entertaining blog and to Teazel.
We used to have siskins in our garden when we first moved here 28 years ago (and bull finches too) but now it’s mostly woodpigeons 🙁
FOI Pitch black
LOI Staunch
COD Incur – very witty
Many thanks Teazel and Don
Normally I do all the across and then all the down and don’t move on until I have parsed each one
But this one I raced through without parsing and after 6 mins had all but 13a
After 45 mins I still had all but 13a and gave up
A bit like England so close to pb (7:50) but in the end so far
FOI 1ac PITCH BLACK
LOI 12ac BAT
COD 17ac GYMNASIUM
WOD RAG DOLL from ‘The Four Seasons’ from Lincoln – excellent ‘Ivy League’ impersonators
The 15×15 is on the easy side it took me just 14min and there were personal bests!
Edited at 2021-07-12 04:01 pm (UTC)
SISKIN was dredged/constructed, but otherwise it all went in pretty quickly.
Favourite probably INCUR.
3:45
Edit: I just read the blog properly and realised that BAT was a big old biff…
Further edit: I popped the answers in the crossword club, then pressed submit without waiting for the clock to tick round to 3:45, so to my shame, I’m a neutrino, albeit a neutrino slower than some real solvers and with the same time as Verlaine.
Edited at 2021-07-12 02:22 pm (UTC)
Apologies to anyone who thought it was obvious, but how fitting is 11dn “salvation” as an anagram of “so valiant”?
My last two in were 13ac “Siskin” and 14dn “Staunch”. The former coming somewhat easily due to living on an estate when I was younger whose streets were all named after birds of prey. I lived on Merlin Drive, whilst Siskin Avenue was just off Kestrel Drive 😀.
FOI — 1dn “Power”
LOI — 14dn “Staunch”
COD — 8ac “Rag Doll”
Thanks as usual!
Anyway, I must have had three times as much ‘fun’ (?) as Mrs Random, as she polished it off in just 16 minutes, today. Here’s a strange question: Given that both Mrs R and I find Orpheus and Wurm particularly difficult, and that we both find Hurley and Trelawney comparatively straightforward, why would one of us (Mrs R) generally find Teazel relatively easy, whereas the other (me) invariably find him really hard to crack? Might it be something to do with this mysterious ‘wavelength’ thing? If so, how could I lock into it?
Many thanks to Teazel and astartedon.
FOI: PITCH BLACK
LOI: SISKIN
COD: INCUR (lol!)
Thanks to Teazel and Astartedon
1. Mr R reads out the first clue.
2. Mrs R solves the first clue.
3. Mr R writes in the answer to the first clue.
4. Mr R reads out the second clue.
5. Mrs R solves the second clue.
6. Mr R writes in the answer to the second clue.
7. Mr R reads out the third clue.
8. Mrs R solves the third clue.
9. Etc, until the whole puzzle is solved (entirely by Mrs R).
However, we do sometimes work together on the 15×15 or Saturday Jumbo, although our efforts are a little too embarrassing to report (even for me) at the moment.
This is actually a bit slower for some puzzles than solving independently, but we each solve most clues ourselves. It is a bit of an admission of failure on those occasions when one or the other of us says ‘OK, what’s the answer’.
Otherwise nothing to report.
FOI PITCH-BLACK, LOI BAT, COD SALVATION, time 07:49 for 1.6K and a Very Good Day.
Many thanks Teazel and Don.
Templar
FOI PITCH-BLACK
LOI BAT
COD STAUNCH
TIME 2:48
And from my schoolboy French vocabulary I seem to remember faire = to make or to do. So refracted through a French lens it has always made sense to me.
But I’m struggling to do the trick with the English present tense.
I suppose it works in the culinary sense: “What’s for dinner?” “I’m doing/making a casserole”.
Does that bring your eyebrow down at all?
Edited at 2021-07-12 08:19 pm (UTC)
FOI – 1ac PITCH BLACK
LOI – 14dn STAUNCH
COD – 22ac INCUR
Edited at 2021-07-12 09:06 pm (UTC)