For me this was a puzzle that was harder to parse than it was to solve just from the definition and crossing letters. A good example of this was my last in 4d, which was a matter of filling in the blanks with all the crossing letters in place. I bunged in the answer to 21d without much thought, but a few alternative explanations occurred to me on writing up the blog and I’ll be interested to see what others think.
A good QC level in my book, although I’ve only ever seen 6d in crossword land and I was close to needing Cole Porter’s advice for 5d. Finished in 07:29.
Thanks to Orpheus
Definitions underlined in bold, letter deletions and letters in the wordplay not appearing in the answer indicated by strikethrough.
| Across | |
| 1 | This writer’s eating cold ham, say, and spicy pie filling (9) |
| MINCEMEAT – MINE (‘This writer’s’) containing (‘eating’) C (‘cold’) then MEAT (‘ham, say’)
Not an easy one to start with. Several possibilities for ‘This writer’s” and the filling for an eg cottage pie isn’t necessarily ‘spicy’. However the MINCEMEAT sense being referred to is the filling for the mince pie Christmas treats, a spiced mixture of sugar and chopped dry fruits but, despite the name, not usually meat. |
|
| 6 | Young boxer perhaps, and what a swindler may sell him? (3) |
| PUP – Cryptic hint from the expression “To sell a PUP“, meaning to “inveigle someone into a specious bad bargain” (Chambers) which sounds better than the more prosaic “to swindle”.
PUG was my first thought, covering both the canine and pugilistic angles, but it clearly doesn’t work. My COD. |
|
| 8 | The Times initially led by society girl on list of aristocracy (7) |
| DEBRETT – T I thought it was “Debrett’s”, but the non-genitive form is apparently OK as an abbreviation for “Debrett’s Peerage”. From Wikipedia, first published as “The New Peerage” in 1769 by John Almon, a publisher for whom John Debrett worked. Looking at their website, they still sell various handbooks and etiquette guides but not a “Peerage and Baronetage”. The last hard copy edition was published in 2019 and the online “Peerage and Baronetage” database is only available by subscription. I wonder if anyone here cracks a mention? |
|
| 9 | Subject of article by yours truly (5) |
| THEME – THE (‘article’) ME (‘yours truly’) | |
| 10 | Small detached territory one’s hired out (5) |
| ISLET – IS (‘one’s’) LET (‘hired out’) | |
| 12 | Girl and boy digesting university yearbook (6) |
| ANNUAL – ANN (‘Girl’) AL (‘boy’) containing (‘digesting’) U (‘university’) | |
| 14 | Port boss beginning to haunt bower and flowing stream (7,6) |
| HARBOUR MASTER – H |
|
| 16 | Food flavouring that’s red-hot but sounds cool? (6) |
| CHILLI – Aural wordplay (‘sounds’) of CHILLY (‘cool’) | |
| 17 | Live among His Majesty’s wives and concubines (5) |
| HAREM – ARE (‘Live’) contained in (‘among’) HM (‘His Majesty’) | |
| 19 | It goes round and round and to and fro (5) |
| ROTOR – ROTOR is a palindrome, ie a word reading the same going backwards and forwards (‘to and fro’) | |
| 20 | Try a casual worker in borders of Tibet (7) |
| ATTEMPT – A (‘a’) then TEMP (‘casual worker’) contained in (‘in’) T |
|
| 22 | Bill’s companion? That’s a surprise (3) |
| COO – ‘Bill’s companion?’ as a cryptic hint. From the term “Bill and COO“, meaning “to behave or talk in a very loving or sentimental way” (ODE). | |
| 23 | Spring bloom bringing Lowry fame somehow (9) |
| MAYFLOWER – Anagram (‘somehow’) of LOWRY FAME | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Power to restrict terrible din when many are asleep (8) |
| MIDNIGHT – MIGHT (‘Power’) containing (‘to restrict’) anagram (‘terrible’) of DIN | |
| 2 | In Paris, good backing for a VIP (3) |
| NOB – BON (‘In Paris, good’) reversed (‘backing’) | |
| 3 | Occurrence involving archdeacon in film (5) |
| EVENT – VEN (‘archdeacon’) contained in (‘in’) ET (‘film’)
Collins has VEN as an abbreviation for VENERABLE as specifically applying to ‘archdeacon’ in the C of E. |
|
| 4 | Special pointer’s last to index array in a different order (13) |
| EXTRAORDINARY – Anagram (‘in a different order’) of Definitely a biff. A few potential anagram indicators and it was difficult to work out the letters and words going to make up the anagram. |
|
| 5 | Giant initially impressing a Shakespearean fairy (7) |
| TITANIA – TITAN (‘Giant’) then I The Queen of the fairies in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. I spent a while trying to make ‘impressing’ a containment indicator. |
|
| 6 | Inferior writer, one sampling Edgar Allan? (9) |
| POETASTER – Cryptic hint. A POE TASTER could be (‘one sampling Edgar Allan’ (Poe))
The etymology for this word was not in my ken, but looking it up, the OED notes it as being used by Erasmus in 1521, with the first quotation in English in 1601. Derived from “poet” and the suffix “-aster”, the latter with the sense of “expressing incomplete resemblance, hence generally pejorative” (OED 2nd edition). I like the “a mere versifier” OED def. |
|
| 7 | Not many reported? Thank goodness for that (4) |
| PHEW – Aural wordplay (‘reported?’) of FEW (‘Not many’) | |
| 11 | River in US city slum moving fairly slowly (9) |
| LARGHETTO – R (‘River’) contained in (‘in’) LA (‘US city’) and GHETTO (‘slum’)
‘Moving fairly slowly’ in a musical sense. |
|
| 13 | Sponsor distributing more port (8) |
| PROMOTER – Anagram (‘distributing’) of MORE PORT
I think of a PROMOTER more as someone who publicises and a ‘sponsor’ as someone who provides financial backing for eg a sports event, but there is some crossover between the two roles and an organisation or individual can do both. Orpheus also has support from the dictionaries; for sense 2 for PROMOTER, Collins has “a person who helps to organize (sic), develop or finance an undertaking”. |
|
| 15 | Fuel container lido developed? Strange (3,4) |
| OIL DRUM – Anagram (‘developed?’) of LIDO then RUM (‘Strange’) | |
| 17 | Having high temperature, the Spanish lodging-place (5) |
| HOTEL – HOT (‘Having high temperature’) EL (‘the Spanish’) | |
| 18 | Dangerous reptile caught enormous bird in legend (4) |
| CROC – C (‘caught’) ROC (‘enormous bird in legend’)
ROC as a giant bird of prey originating in Middle Eastern mythology, mentioned in stories from the “One Thousand and One Nights”. |
|
| 21 | Seagull almost makes noise like cat (3) |
| MEW – MEW MEW (also MEW gull) for ‘Seagull’. The ‘makes’, rather than ‘make’, suggests the alternative parsing is less likely, as ‘almost’ usually indicates the deletion of only one letter. Tricky, as the ‘makes noise like cat’ could be referring to either MEWL (verb) or MEW (noun or verb) and I wondered if this might be the def. However, for ‘Seagull almost’ to be wordplay, ‘almost’ would have to be acting as a deletion indicator for not just a single letter but a separate word, ie MEW On edit: Thanks to those who have commented below about this and pointed out a few possibilities which had not occurred to me. |
|
20 minutes of fun, steady solving with the EXTRAORDINARY HARBOURMASTER crossing giving me lots of useful prompts: Shakespearean fairy ending in A had to be TITANIA, and the red-hot food flavouring CHILLI! Like others I started with BEN as Bill’s companion, but when LARGHETTO fell, I began to wonder about (Doctor) Who: did he have a companion called Bill? CROC resolved that one! My cod was ISLET: very clever. Thanks Orpheus and Bletchley.
Certainly seem to recall Peter Capaldi’s companion in his final series circa 2017 was called Bill. Possibly Bill Potts. Don’t think there were any before that although Hartnell’s Doctor in the mid 60s had a companion called Ben (along with Polly).
14:33 here, about my average time. Was grateful for the crossing letters on TITANIA, as I would probably have got the spelling wrong without them.
Thanks to Orpheus and BR.
Enjoyed this – like some, BILL triggered BEN (my older brothers were regularly roped in by our loving parents ‘to play Bill and Ben’ in the garden, with rakes and buckets for leaves…I was sent off to find ‘other’ WEEDS’). Cannot believe that we did not see through this ruse….
POEMASTER new to us, likewise MEW.
Last two in – MINCEMEAT (had no idea until blog) and MIDNIGHT – approached it at totally wrong angle for several minutes . All done 15.15
Blog much appreciated.
Although I thought 1a must be MINCEMEAT, I couldn’t parse it initially, so moved to 1d and did a good number of the down clues in order. Perhaps I should do that more often, because it all went very smoothly! There were a couple of bits of vocab that I wouldn’t have known before doing crosswords – POETASTER and LARGHETTO particularly jump out (and maybe more often found in the biggie?)
I too knew SMEW as a sort of duck, so questioned the mention of gulls in the clue, but couldn’t make anything else fit. I never knew the common gull was also called a MEW – definitely a bit of unknown vocab there (if that is indeed the parsing, which seems most likely).
7:06 FOI and COD Midnight (I wish I had that power) LOI Larghetto
Thanks Orpheus and BR – an excellent blog!
Poetaster I got but NHO, but COO annoyed me… and especially as I tried to fit ghetto in at some point but settled on COR and DNF
Thanks all
John
We romped through this one.. and then stumbled at 7D. Thank you Bletchleyreject and Orpheus
A faster than average 9:22 helped by there being perhaps two or three two many overly susceptible to biffing. On the other hand the NHO POETASTER had to go in solely from wordplay. Same puzzlement over MEW as others.
14 minutes.
Ok, but nothing to write home about given it was relatively straightforward. Saw the low Snitch score, put pressure on myself to do a quick solve and did a headless chicken act for a few minutes.
Still behind the competition.
Fell short on 15 x 15 by one incomplete clue (3 letters to be precise). It was gettable but I couldn’t see it. A fail is a fail.
LARGHETTO and COO provided a tricky end to what had been a relatively smooth solve up and till then. At 46 mins it was a similar solve time to yesterday
Is it my imagination or do the letters ET get clued by ‘film’ with surprising regularity? See 3D.