Parksolve time = 36:57
This is the fourth time I’ve blogged a Teazel on a Saturday and all have been marked as tougher than average. Not sure what he’s got against lazy Saturday mornings!
Nonetheless it was an enjoyable puzzle to solve and to blog. My time wasn’t terrible, a couple of minutes slower than my median, but it felt like I was calling on a lot of experience to crack some of these. If you’re closer to the start of your cryptic crossword journey it might have been a bit of a handful.
Or have I (not for the first time) misread the room? I’m sure you’ll let us know in the comments. (Narrator: They did.)
(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 | Put down regular contribution required (6) |
| SUBDUE – SUB (regular contribution) + DUE (required) | |
| 4 | To eavesdrop is wrong, I wager (6) |
| EARWIG – (I WAGER)*
British slang according to most sources. |
|
| 8 | Discharges rents no longer available (4,3) |
| LETS OFF – LETS (rents) + OFF (no longer available) | |
| 10 | Winning group’s surprise result (5) |
| UPSET – UP (winning) + SET (group) | |
| 11 | This may attract attention of a barge (4) |
| AHOY – A + HOY (barge)
I didn’t know that hoy and barge could be synonymous but Wikipedia has set me straight. Sort of a semi-&lit clue as “ahoy” is generally reserved for nautical usage. |
|
| 12 | Masculine pride of chairman accepting church doctrine (8) |
| MACHISMO – MAO (chairman) “accepting” [CH (church) + ISM (doctrine)] | |
| 14 | A classy means of transport? (6,3) |
| SCHOOL BUS – Cryptic definition
School, classes, classy…geddit? |
|
| 18 | May have agitator at the start thrown out (8) |
| HAWTHORN – HA [first letters (at the start) of Have Agitator] + (THROWN)*
The May tree, or what you and I commonly call Crataegus monogyna, is also known as hawthorn. If you didn’t know that (and I only know it from crosswords) then I would imagine this to be a bewildering clue. |
|
| 20 | Serious dirt has no end (4) |
| GRIM – GRIM |
|
| 22 | Regretting collapse close to building (5) |
| RUING – RUIN (collapse) + G [last letter of (close to) buildinG] | |
| 23 | Food shop very briefly free (7) |
| DELIVER – DELI (food shop) + VER [very without the last letter (briefly)] | |
| 24 | Bent old tribesman died (6) |
| ANGLED – ANGLE (old tribesman) + D (died)
Germanic people who settled in post-Roman Great Britain. |
|
| 25 | Hurt Yankee with tight fist? (6) |
| STINGY – STING (hurt) + Y (Yankee)
Mean, miserly, parsimonious, stingy, tight-fisted. |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Mother unfortunately returned greeting (6) |
| SALAAM – [MA (mother) + ALAS (unfortunately)] reversed (returned)
An Arabic greeting involving a very low bow, which would have me reaching for the anti-inflammatories. |
|
| 2 | Does up page for pantomime (7) |
| BUTTONS – Double definition
A character in Cinderella pantomimes. |
|
| 3 | Unexpected flights from America interrupted by Foreign Office (4) |
| UFOS – US (America) “interrupted by” FO (Foreign Office)
Interesting surface. Don’t think things have quite reached that stage (yet). |
|
| 5 | American friend from New York cut drug use in emirate (3,5) |
| ABU DHABI – A (American) + BUD (friend from New York) + HABI [habit (drug use) “cut”]
Our American friends (buds) showing their versatility here. Flipped from US to A in the space of a single clue. |
|
| 6 | Insects used to be primordial slime originally (5) |
| WASPS – WAS (used to be) + PS [first letters of (originally) Primordial Slime] | |
| 7 | Cheap alcohol and grub regularly taken on gentle run (3-3) |
| GUT-ROT – GU [alternate (regularly) letters of GrUb] + TROT (gentle run)
I’m more familiar with the term rotgut but there’s support in the usual sources for both. |
|
| 9 | Preferred drinking litres with added taste (9) |
| FLAVOURED – FAVOURED (preferred) “drinking” L (litres) | |
| 13 | Capital article on fever going round hospital (3,5) |
| THE HAGUE – THE (article) + AGUE (fever) “going round” H (hospital) | |
| 15 | Fought street over rent (7) |
| STRIVEN – ST (street) + RIVEN (rent) | |
| 16 | Mountaineer in bad shape crossing first of ravines (6) |
| SHERPA – (SHAPE)* “crossing” R (first of Ravines) | |
| 17 | Obsequious sergeant-major leading fighting force (6) |
| SMARMY – SM (sergeant-major) + ARMY (fighting force) | |
| 19 | Squeeze tightly and call out loud (5) |
| WRING – Homophone (out loud) of RING (call) | |
| 21 | First home perhaps, not split-level? (4) |
| FLAT – Double definition
Sort of. |
|
Thanks galspray
DNF – put in POLE for AHOY – thought about attraction and barge – so couldn’t finish the NW.
Never heard of hoy.
Didn’t get Hawthorne either – didn’t know it was the Mayflower. So failed in the SW.
Too tough for me!
Thanks for the parsing.
I rated this puzzle as “Very Hard”. That’s one notch off my highest rating of “Extremely Hard”. I have rated four puzzles as Extremely Hard since July 2024: 2726, 2744, 2848, 2878. Although this puzzle took me until yesterday to finish it, I didn’t rate it as Extremely Hard because the delay was through my own mistake of writing Swarmy instead of Smarmy. If I hadn’t done this, I would have got LOI Grim much earlier. Nobody is paying me to solve these puzzles. If I didn’t think they were enjoyable and worthwhile, I would stop doing them.