I find Pedro an interesting setter who offers puzzles which vary between the relatively straightforward and the devilishly chewy. This one seemed to me to be at the gentler end of his spectrum and I completed it in 8:56, though parsing the last two clues for the blog took a bit more time after the grid was completed.
I cannot spot a theme, though I never do, except that in the Statherby household I am the 8A, the 23A and even the 1A, but I hope not too 2D.
Thank you Pedro for a fine start to the weekend.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, deletions and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
| 1 | Kitchen device, attractive item, thing familiar to plumbers (10) |
| DISHWASHER – DISH (attractive item) + WASHER (used by plumbers). Slight surprise at Dish being referred to as an item; the term is more often used colloquially for an attractive woman, and is these days (according to my children) bordering on unacceptable. | |
| 8 | Partner’s assistance in securing computer peripheral (7) |
| HUSBAND – HAND (assistance) containing (“securing”) USB (computer peripheral). For a while when I had just the last two checkers I thought this might end in AID for assistance, but the H guided me home. | |
| 9 | A piano expert, playing allegro? (5) |
| APACE – A + P (piano) + ACE (expert) gives us APACE, a very good description of what the composer wants when he or she writes allegro, and overall a very nice musical surface. | |
| 10 | Mature, heading off complaint (4) |
| RIPE – A complaint is a GRIPE, from which one deletes the first letter (“heading off”). | |
| 11 | Targeted area roughly recalled in intellectual sphere (8) |
| ACADEMIA – A complex clue, with AIMED (targeted) + A (common abbreviation for area) + CA (for circa, ie roughly), and then all reversed (“recalled”). My LOI, biffed from the checkers and only subsequently parsed. | |
| 13 | A number of signs to identify old Ford car (6) |
| ZODIAC – A double definition, with either the Western or Chinese Zodiac for one meaning (both by coincidence containing 12 signs), and a model of Ford car for the other. The Zodiac was built between 1956 and 1972 and was at the luxury end of Ford’s range; many of the early versions had a two-tone colour trim, at the time considered quite the dernier cri. | |
| 14 | Mystery source of growth in a pit in recession (6) |
| ENIGMA – A MINE (a pit) containing G (“source of”, ie first letter of, growth), and then all reversed (“in recession”). | |
| 17 | Mathematical skill in new University getting me animated (8) |
| NUMERACY – An IKEA clue made up from N (new) + U (university) + ME + RACY (animated). | |
| 19 | Indian garment is folded back around half of rear (4) |
| SARI – SI (is “folded back”, ie reversed) around AR (half of reAR). | |
| 21 | Mountain range some can describe (5) |
| ANDES – Hidden in cAN DEScribe. There are many ways setters indicate hiddens; “some” (or “some of”) is one of the more straightforward. | |
| 22 | Meeting again in French territory (7) |
| REUNION – A double definition, the second referring to the French island of Réunion. Despite being in the Indian Ocean and well south of the Equator, it is a full “overseas Département” of France and thus considered to be part of European France – and so also part of the European Union. | |
| 23 | Profitable scheme developed my Mark One device, ultimately (10) |
| MONEYMAKER – An anagram of MY MARK ONE + E (the last letter of device, indicated by “ultimately”), with the anagram indicator being “developed”.
Moneymaker is also a type of tomato, much loved by amateur gardeners as it is a heavy cropper (hence no doubt the name). Mrs S considers them slightly short on flavour though and won’t have them in our greenhouse; in fact she might even use the answer to our very next clue for them! |
|
| Down | |
| 2 | Tasteless, if popular drink I had (7) |
| INSIPID – Another “build it from components” clue, made up from IN (popular) + SIP (drink) + ID (I’d, ie I had). | |
| 3 | Home Office careless, missing first scam (4) |
| HOAX – This time the components are HO (Home Office) + AX (lax, ie careless, with the first letter removed). | |
| 4 | Snatch sailor on Tube (6) |
| ABDUCT – AB (sailor, AB being short for Able Seaman) + DUCT (tube). | |
| 5 | Storing advertising spot? (8) |
| HOARDING – A straightforward double definition. | |
| 6 | 50 in 500 sheets identifying sphere of action (5) |
| REALM – 500 sheets of paper is termed a REAM, into which L (for 50) is inserted. Although Realm is often assumed to mean a Kingdom (as in the phrase “Defence of the Realm”), the wider meaning of “a field of activity or interest” is also well attested. | |
| 7 | Bank reduced levies, avoiding initial easing (10) |
| RELAXATION – We have to ignore the comma here in the parsing, as the clue is constructed from REL, from Rely without the last letter (ie bank “reduced”) + AXATION, from Taxation without the first letter (ie levies “avoiding initial”). My other one parsed only after entering the answer, as Rely for Bank did not come to me immediately, but the connection is rely on = bank on. | |
| 8 | Nothing like this answer, and that’s flat! (10) |
| HORIZONTAL – I was not sure whether to call this a double definition or an &lit clue, but I have gone for the latter: something that is flat can be horizontal, and the clue’s answer is certainly nothing like horizontal as being a down clue it is vertical. | |
| 12 | Soldiers on guard roar and sing horribly (8) |
| GARRISON – (roar sing)*, and a straightforward enough anagram indicated by the “horribly”. Except that if any soldiers on duty were roaring and singing something would have gone horribly wrong: that sort of behaviour is fine when they’re off duty in the mess, but not when they are on guard! | |
| 15 | Rock inverted in filling fireplace (7) |
| GRANITE – NI (inverted in) included in (“filling”) GRATE (fireplace). | |
| 16 | Rush small Indian meal? (6) |
| SCURRY – S (small) + CURRY (Indian meal). Cryptic clues do not get much simpler than this. | |
| 18 | Computer device offering verse in minutes? (5) |
| MODEM – ODE (verse) in MM (minutes). I suspect many of us are familiar with what a modem is, and almost all of us use them, but how many know that the name comes from “modulator-demodulator”, or that its purpose is to convert (ie modulate) information between analogue and digital formats so that your computer can talk to the internet.
These days AI bots can offer countless reams of verse not in minutes but in milliseconds if you ask them to … |
|
| 20 | Hard fruit served up with a fish (4) |
| TUNA – TUN (nut, ie hard fruit, “served up”, ie reversed) + A. Calling a nut a fruit is an old setter’s trick, as in fact all nuts are fruits. But not all fruits are nuts, and even some “nuts”, such as the cashew, the pistachio and the almond, are not technically speaking nuts either. | |
A very late comment from me, having only done this crossword on Sunday evening. It must have been quite easy because it only took me twenty minutes: a very good time for me.
I was delighted to see 22ac as my better half comes from the island of La Réunion, so named in 1793 to commemorate the joining of troops from Marseille with the Parisian national guard to take the Tuileries palace during the Revolution.
It is quite some way south of the equator, almost on the Tropic of Capricorn. Its main attraction for tourists is its spectacular mountainous interior, for there is little sand on its beaches. The neighbouring volcanic island of Mauritius has excellent sandy beaches but no mountains, because it appeared a few million years earlier giving time for erosion to do its work.