Not too tricky, but plenty of interesting things on offer.
I made fairly straight progress through this, finishing up in 5:06, about a minute quicker than yesterday. There was some nicely quirky clueing and bits of deviousness spread throughout.
Many thanks to Mara!
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Using paw, dish finally in a lather — doing this? (7,2) |
| WASHING UP – anagram (in a lather) of USING PAW and H (disH “finally”) | |
| 6 | Tree the solver picked up? (3) |
| YEW – is “picked up”, or heard the same as you (the solver) | |
| 8 | Halloween item to get one’s own blood circulating? (7) |
| PUMPKIN – cryptic hint, with KIN = one’s own blood | |
| 9 | Superhero’s sidekick dressin’ (5) |
| ROBIN – ROBING = DRESSING | |
| 10 | Understand what to do — as 11 probably would? (4,3,5) |
| KNOW THE SCORE – double-ish definition, with 11d = WAGNERIAN | |
| 12 | Puritan swine claims right (4) |
| PRIG – PIG (swine) claims R(ight) | |
| 13 | Yen in Tokyo, currency here primarily (4) |
| ITCH – the “primary” letters of the previous four words, including that pesky little IN | |
| 17 | Eccentric hunting loner, ultimately (2,3,4,3) |
| IN THE LONG RUN – anagram (eccentric) of HUNTING LONER | |
| 20 | Defence from boxer with big cut (5) |
| ALIBI – ALI (boxer, as in Muhammed) with BIG in plain sight, “cut” | |
| 21 | Feeble executive in frogman’s outfit (3,4) |
| WET SUIT – WET (feeble) SUIT (executive) | |
| 23 | Appreciate archaeological site (3) |
| DIG – double definition | |
| 24 | Fresh herb and hollow nut in shop (9) |
| NEWSAGENT – NEW (fresh) SAGE (herb) and NT (“hollow” N |
|
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Clean nick, ceiling scrubbed (4) |
| WIPE – SWIPE = nick, “scrub” the “ceiling”, which in a down clue is the top or first letter | |
| 2 | Marines all at sea in conference (7) |
| SEMINAR – anagram (all at sea) of MARINES | |
| 3 | Type I like every so often (3) |
| ILK – I and L i K e “every so often” | |
| 4 | Indian leader partial to meditating, and high-born (6) |
| GANDHI – “partial to” meditatinG AND HIgh-born | |
| 5 | Cold fading away (9) |
| PERISHING – double definition | |
| 6 | Old bishop lad knocked over, thug! (5) |
| YOBBO – O(ld) B(ishop) BOY (lad) all knocked over, or reversed. YOB is “back slang” for BOY. Back slang was an early Victorian invention among market sellers so they could chit-chat right in front of customers without them understanding. As an example, “one butcher particularly disliked a certain customer; when he saw her coming he’d call to his assistant: ‘tuck the dillo woc a tib of dillo woc’ — ‘cut the old cow a bit of old cow’.” | |
| 7 | Footballer’s victory over Germany (6) |
| WINGER – WIN (victory) over GER(many) | |
| 11 | Waning era upset fan of composer (9) |
| WAGNERIAN – anagram (upset) of WANING ERA | |
| 14 | Tailoring unfashionable, make better clothes (7) |
| COUTURE – OUT (unfashionable) is “clothed” by CURE (make better) | |
| 15 | Bonzer bloke from Oz? (6) |
| WIZARD – double definition | |
| 16 | Dog in curtsey, I’m amazed! (3-3) |
| BOW-WOW – BOW (curtsey) WOW! (I’m amazed!). Originally the bark of a dog, before becoming a childish name for the dog itself. About the earliest appearance is in the Tempest: “Harke, harke, bowgh wawgh: the watch-Dogges barke.“ | |
| 18 | Freaky night for Addams Family character (5) |
| THING – anagram (freaky) of NIGHT | |
| 19 | Test failed, mark written in margin (4) |
| STET – anagram (failed) of TEST. Latin for “let it stand”, a direction written in the margin of a manuscript, etc, that something which has been altered or struck out is to remain uncorrected. Tricky little clue if you don’t know the word; it’s one of the things I’ve managed to remember from some dim and distant crossword. | |
| 22 | Drink character mentioned? (3) |
| TEA – sounds/is mentioned the same as TEE, or T, as in the letter. | |
Thought I was doing well until I checked my time of 25 mins and a DNF on wizard- really daft as I had the checkers and even thought of it when going through Oz characters. Thanks Roly and Mara
Did this on a sort of anti clockwise direction and on paper. When someone finds an ‘omnibus’ on Clapham let me know. Vocabulary changes.
About 10 mins.
4/4 so far this week
12 minutes. Happy with that until I came here and saw that most solvers found this easy and recorded much better times.
90 minutes on 15 x 15 and still 2 short. Still not happening for me compared to many. ☹️
58.49. Just under the hour.
Just at of an hour today.
Normally I am well into SCC territory but today I escaped! And it was nearly a top to bottom solve!!. Held up at the end by ALIBI (Oh that kind of defence) and WIZARD (Oh that Oz, not the one down under). And I too have written STET IRL so that went in very quickly. Happy day 😊
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
Started great and then slowed until I finished in 17:17. Wouldn’t have known STET but for previous appearances in these. Thanks all.
17 mins…
Just realised I didn’t record my time for this – must have got distracted at some point during the day.
FOI – 3dn “Ilk”
LOI – 10ac “Know the score”
COD – 14dn “Couture”
Thanks as usual!