Jimmy is an excellent addition to the Setters’ Common Room and this was another cracking puzzle, full of wit, sparkle and sly devices. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Fast solves have been eluding me of late but this one entertained me for only 05:38, so I am expecting some blistering times from the MVPs.
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 1 | Rue passion running wild in Jane Austen’s work (10) |
| PERSUASION – anagram (“running wild”) of “rue passion”. PERSUASION was Jane Austen’s final novel, published posthumously, and is a magnificent work. Before anyone harrumphs about early C19 novels not being the way to attract millennial solvers, Netflix filmed PERSUASION in 2022 (starring Dakota Johnson no less), so there. | |
| 8 | Reportedly get hold of father’s capital (7) |
| BAGHDAD – aural wordplay (“reportedly”) for “bagged” (got hold of) “dad” (father). | |
| 9 | Wanderer, sane in Glasgow? (5) |
| NOMAD – “Ah’m no mad“, a Glaswegian might insist when their sanity was questioned. Ho ho! COD for me, I do love a cracker joke. | |
| 10 | Swear word from husband on go-kart at regular intervals (4) |
| OATH – H for husband, which goes on every other letter (“at regular intervals”) of “go-kart“. | |
| 11 | US novelist from outskirts of Maine left French town (8) |
| MELVILLE – ME (“outskirts of Maine“) + L (“left”) + VILLE (“French town”). Herman Melville’s best known novel is of course Moby-Dick, although it was not particularly well received on publication and in his lifetime made him less money than his previous works. | |
| 13 | The setter in Panama, say, and one Caribbean country (5) |
| HAITI – I for “the setter” inside HAT (“in Panama, say” – the “say” indicates that this is a definition by example) + I. | |
| 14 | Soldier eccentrically accepting scouting mission (5) |
| RECCE – hidden (“accepting”) inside “Soldier eccentrically”. With a son in the Light Cavalry, who are recce (slang for “reconnaissance”) troops, this was a gimme for me. | |
| 16 | Enter taxi by home, a wooden hut (3,5) |
| LOG CABIN – LOG for “enter” + CAB for “taxi” + IN for “home”. | |
| 17 | Stick a knife in bananas from the east (4) |
| STAB – reverse STAB (“from the east”, ie reading from the right) and you get “bats”, which is “bananas”. | |
| 20 | Kind of heron, for example, by river banks in Egypt (5) |
| EGRET – EG is “for example” +R for “river” + ET for the first and last letters of Egypt (“banks in Egypt”). EGRETs are rather lovely (well the white ones are anyway). | |
| 21 | Dissolute rake receiving a fine, singing in bars? (7) |
| KARAOKE – I wonder if he was singing an Adele song? Or maybe it was Blur. Anyway, an anagram (“dissolute”) of “rake” with A OK (for “a” and “fine”, respectively) inside it (“receiving”). The origin is from the Japanese kara empty + ōkesutora orchestra [awaits correction from Kevin!]. According to The Times on Tuesday (Gabriella Bennett’s article about a day out in Tokyo with no human interaction), “30 per cent of all karaoke patrons go alone”. | |
| 22 | People who study biology GCSE toil so terribly (10) |
| ECOLOGISTS – anagram (“terribly”) of “GCSE toil so”. My house is awash with ECOLOGISTS at the moment because we are doing some works which will disturb the roosts of five bats. This has so far cost £1,600 per bat in surveys and licences. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | A lot of old bread brought up for Picasso, say (5) |
| PABLO – I thought this was a tough clue to parse, though easy to biff (which I did, and then chewed my pencil over why it was right) because Picasso is a pretty well-known Pablo. Reading it backwards (“brought up”, this being a down clue) you get OL for “a lot of old” + BAP for “bread”. If anyone didn’t “biff then parse”, take a bow. | |
| 2 | Footballers, those on the blue side hoping to defeat the Reds (5-7) |
| RIGHT-WINGERS – double definition, the second one a rather good cryptic jest. Made me chuckle. [On edit – perhaps I should have explained that in the UK the Conservative party (right wing) is traditionally associated with the colour blue and the Labour party (left wing) with the colour red, so that “the blue side hoping to defeat the Reds” = the Conservatives = the RIGHT WINGERS.] | |
| 3 | Cancel a Parisian party (4) |
| UNDO – UN for “a Parisian” (ie the indefinite article in French) + “DO for “party”. | |
| 4 | Wet turf above animal’s lair (6) |
| SODDEN – SOD for “turf” + DEN for “animal’s lair”. | |
| 5 | More vino ordered for unfussy consumer (8) |
| OMNIVORE – anagram (“ordered”) of “more vino”. Lovely definition. | |
| 6 | Suggestions of corrupt politicians pocketing millions (12) |
| IMPLICATIONS – anagram (“corrupt”) of “politicians” with M inside (“pocketing millions”). | |
| 7 | Stick of jade uncovered in this place (6) |
| ADHERE – sneaky one because you need the verb to stick, not the noun as the clue suggests. AD is “jade uncovered” (because you remove the first and last letters to leave “ad”), and HERE is “in this place”. | |
| 12 | Some splendid act I cited teaching a lesson (8) |
| DIDACTIC – hidden (“some”) inside “splendid act I cited”. | |
| 13 | Stopped Henry meeting Theodore (6) |
| HALTED – HAL for Henry (think Prince Hal) + TED for Theodore (think Theodore “Ted” Logan, so movingly portrayed by Keanu Reeves in the seminal Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure). | |
| 15 | Steal heartless earl’s cash abroad (6) |
| NICKEL – NICK for “steal” + EL for “heartless earl” (“heartless” indicating that you take out the middle letters). | |
| 18 | Give priestly approval to the grade below A minus (5) |
| BLESS – B is “the grade below A” and LESS is “minus”. | |
| 19 | Black tails of woodpecker, skua, lapwing and crow (4) |
| BRAG – this is another super sneaky one. I spent a while trying to understand why RAGW (the last letters of all four birds) meant “black”. Eventually I went back to the drawing board and realised that the definition was at the other end: the word play is in fact B for “black” + RAG for the last letters (“tails”) of the first three birds. Maybe this should have been COD because it was very good, it being almost irresistible to take “crow” as avian given the preceding three but too late now, I have cast my vote. | |
Some really fun clues.
All done happily
Boringly difficult and not fun. I don’t say this often as the whole idea is supposed to be fun. But this one has made me wonder if I can be bothered to try again. After years of trying.
This was a first class puzzle in my book! Thank you Jimmy and great blog Templar.
I haven’t read all the comments but there does seem to be a lot of solvers who agonise over being quicker. I’ve been solving for years and enjoy the challenge, sometimes it can take all day but the reward is in the trying and eventually (but certainly not always!) getting the answer. Just relax and enjoy each puzzle without worrying about how fast it’s completed.
Enjoyed this no end. Thanks for this from our newish setter. Please dont think this sexist but hard ones lately are putting my wife off! She hates asking me for help and zapped this one in20’mins.
An ok-ish 12 mins but a stupid spelling mistake cost me a good time.
Got about 80% of big crossword in roughly 90 minutes.
10:48 – just adding to get it to register on Quitch