I finished this one in 18:32, but never felt like I achieved any sort of rhythm. Anagrams are not my strongest clue, and we had eight of them today, so that’s probably why this one didn’t hit the sweet spot for me.
When I submitted, I had my fingers crossed because I wasn’t 100% convinced by my parsing of SNATCH for 23a. So I wasn’t entirely surprised to see that I had a mistake. But I WAS surprised when I found that SNATCH was right, and BEYOND was wrong for 15d. I don’t normally look at the Snitch before publishing the blog, but I just broke my rule and so far 4 of the 12 reference solvers have got errors, so I think I’m not alone.
I thought we were going to have a pangram, but there is no J in the grid.
Definitions underlined, synonyms in round brackets, wordplay in square brackets and deletions in strikethrough. Anagram indicators italicised in the clue, anagram fodder indicated like (this)*.
| Across | |
| 1 | A calf I massaged in cosmetic treatment (6) |
| FACIAL – (A CALF I)* | |
| 4 | Sporting figure in Lord’s hat? (6) |
| BOWLER – A double definition, the first referring to a cricketer playing at the cricket ground in London called Lord’s. | |
| 8 | Vault I have for record collection (7) |
| ARCHIVE – ARCH (vault, as in a ceiling), I’VE (I have).
Ah, that sort of record collection. Nice one. |
|
| 10 | Same rare quality’s captured (5) |
| EQUAL – Hidden in [captured] rarE QUALity. | |
| 11 | European probe reported? (5) |
| CZECH – sounds like [reported] “check” (probe). | |
| 12 | Praise adult I trained on piano (7) |
| PLAUDIT – P for piano + (ADULT I)*
I didn’t do myself any favours here by pencilling in the P at the wrong end of this word on my first pass. |
|
| 13 | Ultimately hilarious punning in cutting performance? (9) |
| SWORDPLAY – last letter [ultimately] of |
|
| 17 | Test applied, odd parts ignored for instance (7) |
| EXAMPLE – EXAM (test) + the even letters [odd parts ignored] of aPpLiEd. | |
| 19 | Characteristic of revolutionary paintings etc with it (5) |
| TRAIT – ART (paintings etc), reversed [revolutionary] + IT (from the clue). | |
| 20 | Oil for cooking half of very green fruit? (5) |
| OLIVE – (OIL)* + half of VE |
|
| 21 | Versatile kitchen set (7) |
| THICKEN – (KITCHEN)*
Very neat. |
|
| 22 | Sweet piece of music entertaining lower classes, primarily (6) |
| DULCET – DUET (piece of music), containing [entertaining] the first letters [primarily] of L |
|
| 23 | Pilfer handful of notes (6) |
| SNATCH – A double definition, I think. The “handful of notes” definition as in “a snatch of song”. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Intended to work in cafe (6) |
| FIANCE – (IN CAFE)* | |
| 2 | Bird bites as nip infuriated dog (6,7) |
| COCKER SPANIEL – COCKEREL (bird) contains [bites] (AS NIP)* | |
| 3 | Sneeze in a sneeze catcher, did you say? (7) |
| ATISHOO – Sounds like [did you say?] “a tissue” (a sneeze catcher). | |
| 5 | Greek character, old and big (5) |
| OMEGA – O (old), MEGA (big). | |
| 6 | Place for dirty habits? (7,6) |
| LAUNDRY BASKET – A cryptic definition, which works well if you’re in a monastery. | |
| 7 | Tell English story about being led by king (6) |
| RELATE – E for English + TALE all reversed [about], following [being led by] R (rex, king). | |
| 9 | One going in deep next, where swimming appropriate (9) |
| EXPEDIENT – (I DEEP NEXT)* | |
| 14 | Remarkably valiant European (7) |
| LATVIAN – (VALIANT)* | |
| 15 | Further back (6) |
| SECOND – A double definition. The first as in “to promote, to further”, the second as in “to second a motion”.
Huh. I think BEYOND works just as well, and once the phrase “back of beyond” had popped into my mind, nothing was dislodging this answer. |
|
| 16 | Beginning to sense fish smell badly (6) |
| STENCH – First letter of [beginning to] S My Shorter Oxford English Dictionary marks the intransitive verb usage of “stench”, meaning “to stink”, as “rare”. Certainly I’ve never come across the verb form before. And it isn’t in my copy of Chambers, which only has a transitive verb usage, meaning “to cause to stink”. |
|
| 18 | Slice pastry, case unfilled (5) |
| PIECE – PIE (pastry) + the outer letters [unfilled] of C |
|
Not liking expedient as appropriate either. Expediency is conveniently a means to an end and can often be inappropriate.
Never gave a second thought once I put beyond in. Shame.All good otherwise.
A late in the day and relatively fast for me 9:01. It felt faster. Slight discomfort with second = further but never considered beyond. Likewise with stench as a verb but really didn’t hesitate once I saw tench. LOI SWORDPLAY. Thanks, Doofers and Mara.
No qualms with EXPEDIENT here.