11:23, which is pretty good for me on an Izetti.
Lots of great surfaces which read completely naturally, and a great one at 13d. But the two cryptics didn’t quite work for me today.
Across
| 8 | Proper tea arranged for archbishop (7) |
| PRIMATE – PRIM (Proper) + (TEA)*
An archbishop is a primate — the senior bishop of a region, a new one was just installed last week in Canterbury, and was given her title of Primate of All England. |
|
| 9 | Superior meal in the evening without a starter (5) |
| UPPER – {s}UPPER
As in the UPPER Classes. |
|
| 10 | Golf attendant, bad guy, starts to diddle you (5) |
| CADDY – CAD (bad guy) + D{iddle} Y{ou}
The standard spelling in Golf (and those guys are sticklers for rules) is Caddie. This spelling is for tea. |
|
| 11 | House mother finally catches insects (7) |
| HORNETS – HO{use} + {mothe}R + NETS (catches)
HO is the official abbreviation for house, (H is for Hotel). You don’t often see HO, because houses look either like odd derivatives of Westward Ho!, Heave Ho!, or something a rapper might say. |
|
| 12 | Quiet relaxation before performing in city (7) |
| PRESTON – P (quiet) + REST (relaxation) + ON (performing)
ON=performing is common in crosswords, and is justified by the theatre expression “She is ON tonight.” |
|
| 14 | Correct this writer in margin (5) |
| EMEND – ME (this writer) contained in E^ND (margin)
AMEND/EMEND sound similar, the difference lies in whether you are fixing an error or making a change. You amend a constitution, but you emend a typo. |
|
| 15 | Something that could get one carried away (5) |
| SEDAN – Cryptic clue
The excellently-named Sir Saunders Duncombe patented the sedan chair in London in 1634. It was a little booth carried on two poles, and kept the upper classes out of the dirt. In 1911 the Speedwell Motor Co. in Ohio used the name to describe a fully enclosed car body, an innovation at the time. |
|
| 17 | Learner enthralled by puzzle-maker — one ensconced in new territory? (7) |
| SETTLER – L{earner} contained in SETT^ER (puzzle-maker)
Izetti being humble here, not using a self-reference for Setter. |
|
| 19 | Add to workers in month, having let us go (7) |
| AUGMENT – MEN (workers) contained in AUG{us}T | |
| 20 | Outfit needed by the Spanish star (5) |
| RIGEL – RIG (outfit) + EL (“the” in Spanish)
Rigel is the brightest star in Orion. I asked my AI what were the most famous stars, it came up with 1. The Sun, 2. Sirius, 3. Polaris, 4. Betelgeuse, 5. Alpha Centauri, 6. Vega, 7. RIGEL, 8. Antares |
|
| 22 | Smallest line with particular direction (5) |
| LEAST – L{ine} + EAST (a particular direction) | |
| 23 | Strange quality that fifteen will show (7) |
| ODDNESS – Cryptic clue
I mean 15 is an odd number, is that it? A Rugby Union team is pretty weird when they start grabbing each other by the shorts. |
Down
| 1 | Eastern picture — a large-scale film? (4) |
| EPIC – E{astern} + PIC{ture} | |
| 2 | Sort of coloured garment restricted you once (3-3) |
| TIE-DYE – TIED (restricted) + YE (“you” once, in Olde English) | |
| 3 | Woman and boy ending in Torquay (4) |
| LADY – LAD (boy) + {torqua}Y | |
| 4 | Fantastic cash in no time, with introduction of a movement abandoning manual processes (13) |
| MECHANISATION – (CASH IN NO TIME)* including an extra A
At first I was looking at words with MACHINE in them, and also an extra M (introduction of Movement). So Something like MACHINE-ISM |
|
| 5 | Greek character on river eating one nourishing substance (8) |
| NUTRIENT – NU (Greek character) + TR^ENT (river) containing I(one) | |
| 6 | Domain that has no edges (6) |
| SPHERE – Cryptic clue
A sphere has no edges. Um, that’s it. |
|
| 7 | Salvation Army limited by less sophisticated evangelist (8) |
| CRUSADER – SA contained in CRU^DER (less sophisticated)
I’m not sure how much evangelising those 12th century knights were doing in the Levant. I mean, when they captured a city, they didn’t exactly sit them all down and have an Alpha Course. |
|
| 12 | Dad’s dark colour or fair? (8) |
| PASSABLE – PA’S (Dads) + SABLE (dark colour)
Sable (black) one of those colours that exists in heraldry and nowhere else, like Gules and Or. I found this one hard, it was my LOI, I couldn’t get Pastel (fair) out of my mind. |
|
| 13 | Toilet surmounted by brown lines (8) |
| TANGENTS – GENTS (toilets) preceded by TAN (brown)
Best surface today! |
|
| 16 | Party attire that is folded over (3-3) |
| DOG-EAR – DO (party) + GEAR (attire)
This is the noun, which I don’t think I’ve ever heard. the adjective “dog-eared” is more common. |
|
| 18 | Made a note of unusual old egg (6) |
| LOGGED – (OLD EGG)* | |
| 20 | Impolite daughter getting in Parisian’s way (4) |
| RUDE – D{aughter} contained in RU^E (street in Paris/France) | |
| 21 | Girl in glasses (4) |
| LASS – Hidden in glasses |
DNF, which is a shame after getting on better with Izetti of late. That’s two failures in a row, can’t remember when that last happened. A bit discouraging but I’ll see what happens tomorrow.
Thank you for the blog!
Lots of great clues here I thought, though it felt like it had taken longer than our final 10:23. We hesitated with PRESTON because we didn’t think it was a city. It has been since 2002 apparently so we must have heard about it at the time. LOI DOG-EAR took us quite a while though we liked it a lot once the penny dropped. Thanks, Merlin and Izetti.