Breezed through most of this enjoyable puzzle from Teazel until I was left with the 18a / 19d pairing at the end, which took me an age to work out. (Well, once 18a was finally cracked then 19d really couldn’t be anything else – but the obscurity of 19d contributed to my troubles in resolving 18a).
Not sure why 19a was so elusive – having eventually got it, I kicked myself for making such a meal of it. Maybe it’s because I tend to think of said currency in terms of notes rather than coins, or maybe the ‘initially’ referring to the following – as opposed to previous – word threw me, or maybe I was just having a bad hair day. Who knows. Anyway, that’s how it was for me.
Some good stuff in here, most notably (as I see it) the ambitious and very well disguised hidden at 13d, which gets my COD.
Look forward to seeing how you all got on. I’m locked away in an all day ‘head down bum up’ event today so may not be able to field comments until late evening, so apologies for that.
Thanks to Teazel for a very nice puzzle.
Definitions underlined: DD = double definition: anagrams indicated by *(–): omitted letters indicated by {-}
| Across | |
| 1 | Thus swallow one’s pride? (3,6,3) |
| EAT HUMBLE PIE – Cryptic definition, with ‘swallow’ pointing us to a phrase that might have something to do with ingesting | |
| 9 | Month with alien group (5) |
| OCTET – OCT (month) + ET (alien) | |
| 10 | Machine controller wrongly alerted (7) |
| TREADLE – *(ALERTED) with “wrongly” signalling the anagram | |
| 11 | Irritable-sounding carpenter (7) |
| CHIPPIE – Sounds like “chippy”. i think ‘chippy’ for ‘irritable’ is in pretty wide usage, but I’m not sure – we shall see… | |
| 12 | Second drink for pig (5) |
| SWINE – S (second) + WINE (drink) | |
| 14 | But a grey also may be so unfancied a runner (4,5) |
| DARK HORSE – Cryptic definition based on the fact that a dark horse does not actually have to be, well, dark | |
| 18 | Angry about receiving initially unusable coins (5) |
| EUROS – SORE reversed (angry about) with U (initially Unusable) inserted (receiving) | |
| 20 | Biographer’s book’s half excellent, Americans say (7) |
| BOSWELL – BO[ok} (book’s half) + SWELL (excellent, Americans say). I invite our USA correspondents to tell us whether Americans do actually still say “swell” – or is it a bit like stating that the English say “top hole”? | |
| 21 |
Country where actor fails — rival oddly failing to follow (7) |
| CROATIA – *(ACTOR) – with “fails” signposting the anagram – and IA (rIvAl oddly failing – i.e. every other letter missing) | |
| 23 | Pressure on public transport, so have long walk (5) |
| TRAMP – P (pressure) goes ‘on’ TRAM (public transport) | |
| 24 | Critical what biography covers (4-3-5) |
| LIFE-AND-DEATH – If something is critical then it can be said to be a matter of life and death. ‘What biography covers’ is also intended to give us a steer towards the answer, although sticklers for precision might point out that there are an awful lot of biographies of living people out there which (unless they are engaging in morbid prrescience) do not deal with death as such. But hey, this is crosswordland so let it pass… | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Achieve reversing revolutionary loss of rights (9) |
| ATTAINDER – ATTAIN (achieve) + RED reversed (reversing revolutionary) giving a word I dimly recollected from A level history in terms of Bills of Attainder issued by despotic monarchs (or bodies under their sway) to deprive named individuals of their legal rights, usually rersulting in a most unhappy ending for said individuals | |
| 3 | Percy associated with Tottenham (7) |
| HOTSPUR – Sir Henry Percy, generally known by his nickname Hotspur to generations of schoolboys (and girls I’m sure) bored rigid by enforced study of Shakespeare’s Henry IV. And then there’s the football team who are doing rather well these days. | |
| 4 |
No food in her cupboard? Do them rhubarb, stewed (6,7) |
| MOTHER HUBBARD – *(DO THEM RHUBARB) with “stewed” indicating the anagram | |
| 5 | City shelter — doss on the outside (5) |
| LEEDS – LEE (shelter) + DS (outside letters of DosS) | |
| 6 | Cushion in one’s flat? (3) |
| PAD – Two definitions, the main one being cushion but with ‘flat’ also giving us a steer | |
| 7 | For hearing, one that’s leaving city (6) |
| EXETER – Sounds like (for hearing) EXITER (one that’s leaving) – depending on your pronunciation, I suppose. But I’ve come across looser homophones in these here parts before now so let’s not get unduly excited about this one. | |
| 8 | Purse lip finally: that hurt (5) |
| POUCH – P (liP finally) + OUCH (that hurt) | |
| 13 | Fine leg anticipates cut that’s awkward (9) |
| INELEGANT – Hidden in (cut) fINE LEG ANTicipates. And a very fine hidden it is, too. | |
| 15 | Prize flower over centre of pattern (7) |
| ROSETTE – ROSE (flower) goes ‘over’ (in the context of a Down clue) TTE (centre of paTTErn) | |
| 16 | Page nice to edit at length for writer (6) |
| PENCIL – P (abbrev. page) + *(NICE) – with “to edit” suggesting the anagram – + L (length) | |
| 17 | Incline to spill liquid over end of table (5) |
| SLOPE – SLOP (to spill liquid) goes ‘over’ (in the context of a Down clue) E (end of tablE) | |
| 19 | Spruce, as kit is reorganised (5) |
| SITKA – *(AS KIT) with “is reorganised” pointing to the anagram. This tree was totally unknown to me, but the anagram fodder was pretty obvious so with all the cross checkers in place it was unlikely to be SKTIA. | |
| 22 | Old fines cancelled (3) |
| OFF – O (old) + FF (fines – more than one F, the abbreviation for Fine) | |
Edited at 2018-04-18 03:08 am (UTC)
I was also thrown a little by 11ac which seeks to make a distinction of spelling that doesn’t in fact exist, as the preferred spelling of your friendly carpenter is also CHIPPY. Where CHIPPIE is listed in the usual sources it is as an alternative spelling which I suspect came from people not realising that the plural ‘chippies’ should have its ending changed -y when used in the singular.
Those QC solvers who aspire to graduating to the main puzzle are recommended NOT to attempt the one available on-line today as it’s from the archive (1965) and works somewhat differently from the orderly rules and conventions that we are used to today. It requires more lateral thinking and more guesswork and in many cases, even when one may have a correct answer, it’s not possible to confirm it from wordplay.
But the first Qualifier for the 2018 Championships may be worth a try if you want to test your progress. It has to be solved on paper: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/puzzleclub/crosswordclub/puzzles/crossword/38827
Edited at 2018-04-18 05:35 am (UTC)
Also struggled with boswell and chippie and LOI attainder.
Bit of a slog.
COD Life and death.
6:24 with ATTAINDER a bit of a sting in the tail.
SITKA, on the other hand, should provide encouragement to novice solvers developing the knack of entering unknown words with complete confidence that they have to be right. That said, getting the S from Euros requires seeing through the misdirection of “receiving initially” and lifting & separating unusable from coins.
Let’s hope tomorrow is easier when I’m blogging. I’m ashamed to say that my time this morning was the wrong side of 20 minutes.
PlayUpPompey
15:45, with an annoying 4 mins on LOI, EUROS. Thanks for help on parsing LEEDS, although was an easy city from checkers, unlike EXETER.
Was pleased to know the words ATTAINDER and SITKA. COD (always a double def for me) DARK HORSE.
Thanks for the blog
Very enjoyable puzzle, a fairly gentle solve except ATTAINDER – my LOI and source of some pen chewing.
Lovely blog, Nick, thanks. Hope your head and bum are now reversed.
Templar