ParkSolve time 37:43 (including a very slow hungover Parkrun along the banks of the Torrens)
I’ve been in an internet-free zone for a few days and haven’t had a chance yet to catch up on solving or blog-checking so I don’t know what the general mood around here has been. Whatever the case I’m sure Hurley has brightened your Saturday morning with this well-crafted and well-targeted (I think) Quickie. If double definitions are your thing you’ll be half-finished the puzzle before you’ve begun, with no less than six of them on offer.
As always, please let us know how you fared. Meanwhile I’m off to the cricket (again) to see Australia presumably make a mess of another good start. Having driven 2,800 kilometres to witness the event first-hand I’ll be hoping for a good contest.
(In the clues, definitions are underlined and anagram indicators are in bold italics. In the explanations (ABC)* indicates an anagram of abc. Deletions and other devices are indicated accordingly, I hope).
| Across | |
| 1 | Plundering pit? (4) |
| SACK – Double definition
For the first def consider “the sack of Rome”. For pit you need to dig a bit deeper, but one of the many definitions is “a person’s bed”. |
|
| 3 | Sudden brightness turns bus around (8) |
| SUNBURST – (TURNS BUS)* | |
| 9 | Exercise clothing sign, later than expected, left unfinished (7) |
| LEOTARD – LEO (sign) + TARD [TARDY (later than expected) without the last letter (left unfinished)]
Invented by Jane Fonda presumably. |
|
| 10 | Sound of derision from Greek — loan not initiated (5) |
| GROAN – GR (Greek) + OAN [LOAN without the first letter (not initiated)]
Speaking of Greek, my entertainment of choice for the drive across the Nullarbor was Stephen Fry’s “Mythos”, read by Mr Fry himself on Audible. I can’t recommend it highly enough. |
|
| 11 | Unifying idea in article, extremely mundane (5) |
| THEME – THE (article) + ME [first and last letters of (extremely) MundanE] | |
| 12 | Opera the review welcomes to some extent (6) |
| RATHER – Hidden in (welcomed by) opeRA THE Review | |
| 14 | Pity isle route is arranged in far from varied manner (13) |
| REPETITIOUSLY – (PITY ISLE ROUTE)* | |
| 17 | Feature of wrestling in NW town (6) |
| NELSON – Double definition
The only holds I recall from World Championship Wrestling days were the half-nelson, the full-nelson and the boston crab. As the youngest of three brothers my job was to have these and others inflicted on me until I screamed in pain. Thank goodness they never mastered Kiler Carl Cox’s brainbuster. |
|
| 19 | Mysterious Eastern lake (5) |
| EERIE – E (Eastern) + ERIE (lake) | |
| 22 | Doing away with flavoursome coating? (5) |
| ICING – Double definition
To “ice” in the gangster context is to consign an enemy to “sleep with the fishes”. |
|
| 23 | Make unwelcome entry — intent, not half discourteous (7) |
| INTRUDE – INT (INTENT without the second half) + RUDE (discourteous) | |
| 24 | Present including Italian silver, legacy from past (8) |
| HERITAGE – HERE (present) including [IT (Italian) + AG (silver)] | |
| 25 | Eating place in confused state (4) |
| MESS – Double definition | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Having few companions, royalist in revolt (8) |
| SOLITARY – (ROYALIST)* | |
| 2 | Unpleasant task in centre, hot inside (5) |
| CHORE – CORE (centre) with H (hot) inside | |
| 4 | Grasping meaning of antonym of “overlying”? (13) |
| UNDERSTANDING – UNDER (antonym of over) + STANDING (antonym of lying)
Of course taking the antonyms of two components of a word doesn’t create an antonym of the whole word. But it’s just a bit of whimsy from the setter, hence the question mark. |
|
| 5 | Prejudiced person, important, on trial at outset (5) |
| BIGOT – BIG (important) + OT [the first letters (at outset) of On Trial] | |
| 6 | Starts trading again maybe — rep one’s seen excited (7) |
| REOPENS – (REP ONES)* | |
| 7 | Minute it’s brought up, New York provides support (4) |
| TINY – TI [IT reversed (“brought up” in a down clue)] “supported by” NY (New York) | |
| 8 | Exclusive right for period? That’s obvious (6) |
| PATENT – Double definition | |
| 13 | Combustible material seen going up mountain range (8) |
| PYRENEES – PYRE (combustible material) + NEES [SEEN reversed (“going up” in a down clue)] | |
| 15 | First Empire to reform, prosper at last (7) |
| PREMIER – (EMPIRE)* + R (last of prospeR) | |
| 16 | French girl’s poem, with oddly selected title (6) |
| ODETTE – ODE (poem) + TTE (oddly selected letters of TiTlE) | |
| 18 | Feel longing over time for spectacle (5) |
| SIGHT – SIGH (feel longing) over T (time) | |
| 20 | Wake up, there’s complaint — not good to begin with (5) |
| ROUSE – GROUSE (complaint) without the G (good) to begin with | |
| 21 | Overexcited, describing type of school (4) |
| HIGH – Double definition | |
Came in just under 10 minutes.
I started 1A with MINE… a mine is more of a pit than a sack surely haha though I had to go back and correct it when 1D was clearly SOLITARY.
Ditto!
Just over 10 minutes, with the “pit” meaning of SACK left unexplained until I read the blog, and LOI PATENT slowing me at the end until I saw how the clue worked (“what, not another DD?”). With Trelawney’s yesterday, a friendly end to the week after what I found quite a tough few puzzles at the start of it.
Many thanks Galspray for the blog
Cedric
I think the two expressions for bed tend to be used in different contexts, so a person may be said to be ‘in his pit’ but when he went there he ‘hit the sack’. I wouldn’t say that invalidates anything but perhaps prevents the synonym coming immediately to mind.
DNF as NHO NELSON in either context. Everything else done in about 8′ and spent 5′ on an alphabet trawl before giving up and coming here. Glad I didn’t persevere longer as I wouldn’t have come up with this, ever.
Am I the only one that thinks this is surprisingly obscure GK in an otherwise easy puzzle?
I also DNF’d on NELSON. After seeing the answer I do recall hearing the term in relation to wrestling, but never would have come up with it.
Would ‘half-nelson’ have been more familiar? I’d met it and personally experienced the hold long before I knew there was a whole one.
The half Nelso and the Chinese burn were the staples of my school days…..
Did you ever play Slaps or Knuckles?
The town is not well known either
Had you asked me to define ‘half-nelson’ before today I’d have guessed several things but not a wrestling hold…
A tie knot?
Some cricket-related slang?
Something related to admirals or the navy?
I just watched my first High School wrestling tournament, and LEOTARD is what came t mind.
NHO ‘pit’ for bed; fortunately, ‘plundering’ was easy. Similarly for Nelson; NHO the town [just looked it up; population ca. 30,000.], but the wrestling term was familiar (not that I know what it means, mind you). I can sympathise with JamesCheck, though. 5:13.
14 minutes delayed over my target by my LOI PATENT. I had convinced myself that the wordplay would involve replacement of something by the letter ‘R’.
I knew of NELSON in Lancashire from the name of the parliamentary constituency Nelson and Colne which was for 30+ years the seat of Labour MP Sidney Silverman. He was in the news a lot as he played a prominent part in the campaign to abolish hanging.
11:50 for the solve! Nice one from Hurley. Slowed up by having to write out REPETITIOUSLY and including “is” in the fodder and then have originally used -Eously ending which left me wondering where the Is and Es needed to go. Biffing ASBESTOS caused me some issue with the PYRENEES where I was trying to do something with the Andes. PATENT and HIGH the last couple where I resisted the temptation to bung in FISH for the latter. Didn’t understand PIT=SACK although my mother did used to refer to my bedroom as a bit of a pit!
Nice QC from Hurley and thanks to Galsprady for the blog 👍
I was very slow to get started on this one with my FOI being THEME and very few acrosses completed after my first pass. The downs proved a lot simpler and once I got going I finished in a rush, leaving me wondering why I’d been quite so dense at the start of the puzzle.
Finished with HIGH in 8.52.
Thanks to Galspray for the blog and Hurley for a top quality puzzle.
I can second Mythos as a great listen. Deliciously gory Greek legends, but probably not for young children or the faint of heart. Those ancients didn’t hold back.
DNF due to NELSON.
Pi
Nice puzzle giving us a rare foray out of the SCC at 19.39
Like Tina, started with mine for 1a the saw 1d must be an anagram with no m in sight so started again. After FOI groan, worked our way round clockwise until finishing with patent. Mrs RH is from Lancashire (NHO for me) and I knew the wrestling term (NHO for her)
COD to understanding, clever, thanks Hurley.
Thanks Galspray for the blog. We’re looking for something to use our next Audible credit so will look at Mythos
10 minutes. Straight out of the blocks I couldn’t get 1a and haven’t heard of SACK for ‘pit’ before. I could only get the ‘NW town’ thanks to the other def; thinking about it we may have had the town once before, though I’m more familiar with the NZ town of the same name (close to the NW coast of the South Island anyway) rather than the Lancashire one. I liked the ‘antonym of “overlying”?’ trick for UNDERSTANDING.
There’s a terrific Wikipedia page on “Professional wrestling holds”. Galspray, as well as Killer Carl Cox’s brainbuster (a blast from the past) you can only be thankful your older brothers didn’t subject you to the “stepover armlock camel clutch” or the “chickenwing over-the-shoulder crossface”.
Thanks to Hurley and galspray
Lots of anagrams made this a relatively easy QC. No problems today as I knew half-Nelson.
Thanks very much, Galspray.
Keep safe this weekend, westerly UK folk.
8.32. I hope that everyone keeps safe in the areas where the weather is due to be worse than here in NE England.
8.31
NELSON finally came – lots of DDs and long anagrams, not my fave typed of clue so happy enough with a sub-10 all green.
Thanks Galspray and Hurley
6:12. I took a while to convince myself of the second meaning of SACK, hence it was my LOI, COD to HERITAGE. Thanks Jimmy and Gallers.
Dnf…
I found this tricky and slowed down considerably as I went down the grid. In the end I had everything after 30 mins, but incorrectly put “Fish” for 21dn – not really understanding the connotation with “overexcited”. I probably thought of every combination of school apart from “High” – which is more akin to the USA or Scotland.
FOI – 2dn “Chore”
LOI – 17ac “Nelson”
COD – 4dn “Understanding”
Thanks as usual!
DNF
Beaten by MESS, which is particularly annoying as this is something of a chestnut which has come up before. Couldn’t think of an answer so made up SEDS on the basis of a hidden word. Otherwise would have been around 19 minutes.
So no Parksolve time today, but at least managed to find an event that didn’t succumb to Storm Darragh.
Re the cricket. I’m jealous of anyone who’s been along to either game. Money now on big wins for Oz and England.
Probably just over the half-hour for me, so not quite as straightforward as implied by our blogger. However, I maintained a steady pace more or less throughout … until PATENT, my LOI.
HIGH required an alphabet trawl and I wasn’t sure about ICING, even when I’d reduced it just to I_ING.
Many thanks to Hurley and Galspray.
All green in 15:11 – I found this a struggle and was held up in NW corner before eventually seeing COD LEOTARD and other COD contender PATENT.
Failed to understand LOI SACK but once POI CHORE had gone in there was little else it could be.
Imagine some of our international solvers may have struggled with NELSON.
Anyway surprised that most posters so far have reported a very gentle experience – no doubt my sluggishness will be reflected in the WITCH.
Thanks Hurley and Galspray – I’m going to read the blog and then don some appropriate outerwear for the short trip to Selhurst Park where hopefully the Eagles can weather both storms today.
Took a while to remember the required meaning of PIT but got there in the end. CHORE was FOI and MESS was LOI. 7:25. Thanks Hurey and Galspray.
Knew ‘half-Nelson’ but couldn’t have named the town. Stuck for quite a while on LOI SACK (the sack of Rome, of course, thanks galspray), otherwise all seemed fairly gentle today. Liked HERITAGE, and LEOTARD for the misdirection (for me anyway!).
Currently reading Mythos and loving every second!
Thanks all
9:57. A nice sub-ten. LOI SACK where the two meanings took a while to appear. I enjoyed the UNDERSTANDING device. COD the neat PYRENEES
12:30
Didn’t know the town of Nelson. I see on wiki it is where Jed Mercurio is from.
COD patent or Pyrenees.
thanks
13:31 with no errors so just outside my target of 700 points (13:23). Another enjoyable puzzle from Hurley. Should 22ac have made me laugh? (it did). FOI – RATHER, LOI – TINY (which I should have solved much quicker), COD – UNDERSTANDING with ICING a close second. Thanks Hurley and Galspray.
This took us an about on par 12:37 which fits the Quitch quite well. NHO that meaning of pit for SACK. Mrs T had what I thought at first was a sensible first suggestion for 17a of Oldham (‘old ’em) though the clue lacked a ‘we hear’ or similar at the end, confirmed by our later UNDERSTANDING.
12:30 Didn’t know pit=SACK or the NELSON in Lancashire. That one does seem to have 3 times the population of the Nelson I knew in British Columbia.
16:51 for this pleasant solve, but I spent four minutes (!) working on 17A NELSON before I realized I had somehow entered PRIMIERE. Now I know Nelson is a town and have acquired some more information about what is considered “northwest” in England. Liked PATENT best (and normally I don’t like DDs).
Thanks to Hurley and galspray! 2800 km in a car for cricket, I’m at a loss for words. I appreciate the enlightenment on “pit”, that meaning is foreign to me.
It’s actually 5,600 as I still need to drive home.
The mind boggles. Safe travels!
17:28 here, a bit of a struggle. I never got the “pit” meaning of SACK, and still don’t, TBH. I knew the wrestling hold – well, I knew the name of the wrestling hold, but had to take the existence of the town on faith.
Thanks to Hurley and Galspray.
Four across and four down mostly top right.
I missed some of the anagrams today.
Could do better.
Hopefully I will learn by reading this blog.
Thank you R
PS Where do the icon pictures pick up from please…
Somewhere on the home page of the blog there is a link where you can create an account if you don’t already have one. Once you have an account, you go to your account profile, click on “profile details”, and there’s a button to let you upload an image.
A hard fought 08:59, after a day fighting Stormy D (UK version). Didn’t parse “pit”, NHO Nelson as a town. HIGH for school and ICING for killing both had a transatlantic flavour. LEOTARD COD.
Many thanks gallers and Hurley.
28 minutes to do this entertaining puzzle. LOI ICING/HIGH/SIGHT LOI. Not aware of ICING in gangster context.
DNF. Very late to this after a long (and enjoyable) day and cancelled trains. All but NELSON done in 8 minutes and I gave up after 15. I have heard of a half-nelson but it might have taken days to surface. Thanks galspray and Hurley.
13:39, fast but held up with NELSON and PATENT. Thought SACK was pretty weak, lots of different double defs available without needing the obscure pit= bed, which I still don’t get.
COD UNDERSTANDING: a new clue type
Took my time with this one, hoping to make the train to Worcester go a little faster. Not the first time PYRENEES has held me up, not sure what my brain has against them as I’ve lived in both France and Spain and am very much aware of them.
We didn’t find this as straightforward as Galspray. We DNK the first meaning of ICING nor SACK for bed. We thought NELSON as a NW town was tricky and PATENT failed to yield to us.
FOI SOLITARY;
LOI ICING;
DNF – PATENT
COD 4D
Thanks very much Galspray and Hurley.