A stiff challenge from Teazel today. Some easy ones but rather more of the tricky ones, plus a few obscurities (to me) in ANNEAL, BEARER and HADJ (spelt that way). This pushed me out to 10:37, but then Teazel is often my nemesis and maybe you found it easier. How did it go?
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 7 | Prosecutor with face covering: silk? (6) |
| DAMASK – during Covid I did a 4 week trial in which masks were compulsory unless speaking; I used silk ones, since I found them so much more comfortable. We won. I digress. DAMASK is a heavy cloth with a woven pattern; it is often but not necessarily made of silk, hence the question-mark to indicate that this is a definition by example. The “prosecutor” here is an American one, being a DA (District Attorney), + MASK. | |
| 8 | Very narrow lane in a hollow (6) |
| VALLEY – V for “very” + ALLEY for “narrow lane”. | |
| 9 | No one for turning out in the morning (8) |
| FORENOON – it took me a second visit to realise that this is an anagram (indicated by “turning out”) of “no one for”; to begin with I was trying to fit something into AM. | |
| 10 | Double praise returned (4) |
| DUAL – “laud” backwards (“returned”). Very neat. | |
| 11 | Stunner swallowing drug is a problem (6) |
| TEASER – I liked this, COD from me. The “stunner” here is not a good-looking person but a TASER (which would stun you) containing (“swallowing”) E (ecstasy, “drug”). I’ve learned a lot of drug slang since I started doing crosswords more regularly (honest mum). Collins sense 3 for TEASER is “a difficult question”. | |
| 13 | Beginning to crumble stone (5) |
| ONSET – an anagram (indicated by “to crumble”) of “stone”. Either this was well-concealed or I’m a twerp, because it was my POI. Opinions on these alternatives are not invited. | |
| 14 | A football team maybe back in French city (3) |
| AIX – A = “a” + IX which is XI backwards (“back”). XI is eleven in Roman numerals and there are eleven players in a football team (and in teams for other sports too, such as cricket and hockey, which is why the clue says “football team maybe“). Aix-en-Provence is a lovely city just north of Marseilles, founded by the Romans and then constantly changing hands between the Saracens, the Franks and the various Kings of Aragon, Burgundy and Naples until finally becoming permanently French in the late C15. (Sorry to bang on, I was there last October and had an enthusiastic guide.) | |
| 15 | Gem right to fit into ring (5) |
| PEARL – a GEM is any precious or semi-precious stone used in jewellery. R for “right” goes inside PEAL for “ring” (as in bells) – clever deception from Teazel. | |
| 17 | Servant once about to be eaten by wild animal (6) |
| BEARER – Collins has “(formerly, in Africa, India, etc) a native carrier, esp on an expedition; a native servant”. The wordplay is RE (“about”) inside (“eaten by”) BEAR. I found this tough and it was my LOI – as the famous stage direction in A Winter’s Tale has it, “Exit, pursued by a bear(er)”. | |
| 19 | Good to have academic dress (4) |
| GOWN – G for “good” + OWN for “to have”. | |
| 20 | Without children stuffy, we hear (8) |
| HEIRLESS – sounds like (“we hear”) “airless”, which is “stuffy”. A rather clunky surface, if I may say so. | |
| 22 | Messenger from goddess, extremely loud (6) |
| HERALD – the “goddess” is HERA, Queen of Olympus, both the sister and the wife of Zeus (deities, eh?). To her we add LD, being the “extremes” (first and last letters) of “loud”. | |
| 23 | Silenced, or made a joke (6) |
| GAGGED – a double definition, the second one in the dictionaries but perhaps rather artificial. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Go limp, with nothing for starch (4) |
| SAGO – SAG (“go limp”) + O (“nothing”). According to Collins, SAGO is “a starchy cereal obtained from the pith of a sago palm, used for puddings”. According to every schoolchild of my era, SAGO pudding was “frogspawn” (because it came in little balls or pearls which became translucent when cooked). Oh how I hated it. Apparently children were given it because it’s an excellent source of calcium. I’d rather have had no bones. | |
| 2 | A loving touch, and worries initially soothed (6) |
| CARESS – CARES are “worries” + S as the first letter (“initially”) of “soothed”. Lovely clue. | |
| 3 | Fine enclosure as place for shootout (2,6) |
| OK CORRAL – OK = “fine” + CORRAL = “enclosure”. The Gunfight At the OK Corral is the stuff of cowboy legends and has inspired innumerable books and films (including Burt Lancaster/Kirk Douglas in 1957 and Val Kilmer as a brilliant Doc Holliday in 1993). | |
| 4 | Part of Provence that cooks (4) |
| OVEN – hidden inside “PrOVENce”. | |
| 5 | Grand woman’s name (6) |
| GLADYS – G = “grand” (as in “thousand”) + “LADY’S” = “woman’s”. The Random Name Haters Club gains a few more members. My mother had an Aunt Gladys and I’ve never met another one, which makes sense because according to Google the name peaked in 1901 and is now about as popular as the Post Office. Sorry to any Gladyses out there, but the stats don’t lie | |
| 6 | In religious education improperly repeat witticism (8) |
| REPARTEE – Inside RE (“religious education”) we have an anagram (“improperly”) of “repeat”. | |
| 12 | Used manoeuvre to enter eastern sea (8) |
| EMPLOYED – “manoeuvre” = PLOY, and that enters E (“eastern”) MED (“sea”). I found this tricky because I assumed that MED would be at the end. Never assume. | |
| 13 | Combined places to study old, unknown card game (8) |
| OXBRIDGE – the wordplay is O (“old”) + X (“unknown”, as in algebra) + BRIDGE (“card game”). If you’d managed to solve ONSET and AIX then this began OX and so was a bit of a gimme, but the definition seems a bit loose to me – they aren’t actually combined places to study, it’s just a portmanteau word. | |
| 16 | Old queen with a finally foul temper (6) |
| ANNEAL – I took a punt on the NHO ANNEAL meaning “temper”, which fortunately it does (“to temper or toughen (something) by heat treatment”). The wordplay is ANNE for the “old queen” + A + L for “finally foul” (ie the last letter of “foul”). Obscure, to me anyway. | |
| 18 | Maintain alcoholic drink is about litre, say (6) |
| ALLEGE – ALE is often the setter’s favoured “alcoholic drink”, and here it goes around (“is about”) L for “litre” and EG (as in “for example”) for “say”. | |
| 20 | Took Jack for pilgrimage (4) |
| HADJ – the HADJ (more usually spelt HAJJ) is a pilgrimage to Mecca which all Muslims are supposed to make at least once in their lives, wealth and health permitting. HAD for “took” + J for “Jack” (as in (Ox)bridge). I knew this alternative spelling because back in the day my sister-in-law used to fly jets full of pilgrims from Indonesia to Mecca. She found it both amusing and infuriating that it was fine for a woman to operate a Boeing 737 but she then couldn’t hire a car. | |
| 21 | One with runners was at the front after second (4) |
| SLED – LED = “was at the front”, which comes after S for “second”. | |
A late-night solve at 13mins
Is sago still a thing? I’d assumed it went the way of elasticated snake belts and sherbet fountains.