This is one of those puzzles that you make heavy weather of but can’t really see why. Some of the definitions are a bit left-field I suppose, e.g ‘payment’ for ‘punishment’, ‘way of communicating’ for ‘drawl’, but generally it all seems quite fair in hindsight. 8 minutes for me
| Across | |
| 1 | Ostentatiously perform maybe leading to boos — what? (8) |
| SHOWBOAT – anagram (‘maybe leading to’) of BOOS WHAT | |
| 5 | Advantage garnered by landed gentry (4) |
| EDGE – hidden word | |
| 8 | Encountered aluminium as example of this? (5) |
| METAL – MET + AL | |
| 9 | Choice era for feathers (7) |
| PLUMAGE – PLUM + AGE | |
| 11 | More than anything else, poet’s first plain lyric recollected (11) |
| PRINCIPALLY – anagram (‘recollected’) of P for poet + PLAIN LYRIC | |
| 13 | Not getting deserved praise, a French paper, good (6) |
| UNSUNG – UN (‘A’ in French) + SUN (paper) + G | |
| 14 | Great excitement in fairground game (6) |
| HOOPLA – double definition | |
| 17 | Friendly reception from this lot? I pay unfortunately (11) |
| HOSPITALITY – anagram (‘unfortunately’) of THIS LOT I PAY | |
| 20 | After musical work not completed, advanced money, being rich (7) |
| OPULENT – OPU[ |
|
| 21 | Current agreement, perfect (5) |
| IDEAL – I + DEAL. Chestnut | |
| 22 | Gosh! That’s not half a made-up story (4) |
| MYTH – MY (gosh!) + TH[ |
|
| 23 | Criminal in the end bringing worry, I hesitate to say (8) |
| GANGSTER – G (end of ‘bringing’) + ANGST + ER | |
| Down | |
| 1 | House in Home Counties, north of motorway (4) |
| SEMI – SE + MI | |
| 2 | Powerful organisation’s wretched cop-outs (7) |
| OCTOPUS – anagram (‘wretched’) of COP OUTS. I wasn’t aware of this meaning of the word but it’s in Chambers | |
| 3 | Invoice topping island anger — who could afford it? (11) |
| BILLIONAIRE – BILL (invoice) + IONA (island) + IRE | |
| 4 | Look — take steps to include supper regularly (6) |
| ASPECT – ACT including SPE (alternate letters of ‘supper’) | |
| 6 | Sketch — ultimately novel way of communicating (5) |
| DRAWL – DRAW + [ |
|
| 7 | Routine all week long? (8) |
| EVERYDAY – double definition, though the second should be two words | |
| 10 | Middle of June concert — I perform number with little hope of success (11) |
| UNPROMISING – [ |
|
| 12 | Greek character, quiet, with space to grow rapidly (8) |
| MUSHROOM – MU + SH + ROOM | |
| 15 | Vote for men to enter physical training as punishment (7) |
| PAYMENT – AY (a vote for) + MEN inside PT | |
| 16 | Part of Roman tradition that’s repeated often (6) |
| MANTRA – hidden word. Another chestnut | |
| 18 | Encouragement over time to move faster (5) |
| SPURT – SPUR + T | |
| 19 | Insulting remark, so low, upset rector initially (4) |
| SLUR – acronym | |
Top half whizzed along but much slower below the belt. FOI SHOWBOAT (why else was a peculiar word like boos there but for the anagram?) but HOOPLA and MUSHROOM very slow and L2I. COD PRINCIPALLY. Thanks all.
I ran into several breezeblocks here, finally finishing in 18:23. Along the way I had the following internal monologue:
“Oh come on, there must be a gentler definition of OCTOPUS that doesn’t give it away immediately. I’ll say as much in my TftT comment.”
“If you do that, some awkward sod is going to invite you to come up with one. Can you?”
“No.”
So there we are. Thank you for the blog!
Awful performance (judging by the solvers I usually compare myself to) capping a horrendous week:
M – 16 mins
T – 14 mins DNF
W – 12 mins DNF
Th – 10 mins
F – 25 mins
Not once this year have I achieved my weekly target, due largely to an embarrassing number of DNFs.
Did ok on big crossword, although I suspect it was ‘easy’ on the Snitch.
PS The symbol for SPECTRE in the Bond films was an octopus.
DNF and very slow so not admitted to the SCC today. NHO the first definition of HOOPLA, nor PAYMENT = PUNISHMENT so completely failed on those two. Never mind, there’s always next week.
I seem to have set my bio-clock out of kilter at the moment, but nevertheless, apu, I enjoyed this Hurley teaser. As a perennially slow solver I tend to make a meal out of every clue, chewing and sniffing out each wrinkle until, with an ‘Ah’ of satisfaction I commit pen to paper, or, rather, dab finger to phone.
Dwelled on Octopus, sensing it was an all encompassing organisation (rather than Energy Co), but liked MYTH, GANGSTER and much more, as said by others.
Thanks Curarist and Hurley.