Another tricky one.
NOSH went in quickly enough, but the next five acrosses were all unyielding, and a fairly patchy solve continued right up until a bit of a stare at my last two of HARARE and CHECKOUT.
So 9:30 on the money, which is one of my slowest solves in a while (although I didn’t get a chance to try yesterday’s).
We were treated to a wide range of interesting clues and some lovely surfaces, and I very much liked it – many thanks to Jalna!
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Boy sent back hospital food (4) |
| NOSH – SON (boy) “sent back”, H(ospital) | |
| 3 | Investigate where payments can be made (8) |
| CHECKOUT – and to CHECK OUT is to investigate | |
| 8 | Heartless fighter lacking experience around conflict (4,3) |
| BOER WAR – BOXER (fighter) “heartless” = remove the heart/centre, RAW (lacking experience) “around” = reverse | |
| 10 | Bit of quiet on a podcast (5) |
| PIECE – sounds the same (ie, heard on a podcast) as PEACE (quiet). BIT and PIECE can both mean COIN, as well as a generic scrap, etc. | |
| 11 | What magnificent mum does, everybody repeats (11) |
| ALLITERATES – ALL (everybody) ITERATES (repeats) | |
| 13 | Greeting king in a doorway every now and then (3,3) |
| KIA ORA – K(ing) I n A d O o R w A y “every now and then”. Literally “good health” in Maori, and also (with the irony typical of what we would now call a UPF) a brand of fruit juice concentrate that seemed to advertise quite a lot back in the 80s – owned by Coke and defunct in the UK as of 2019. | |
| 15 | Schoolkids about to make mistakes (4,2) |
| SLIP UP – PUPILS (schoolkids) about = reverse | |
| 17 | Pick up certain card in Monopoly or choose Risk? (4,1,6) |
| TAKE A CHANCE – double definition | |
| 20 | Language with individual cases (5) |
| HINDI – is “cased” by witH INDIvidual | |
| 21 | Look to comprehend what others are saying? (3-4) |
| LIP-READ – cryptic definition, tricky without checkers. | |
| 22 | Suspect thug in back yard is affected by wind (8) |
| DRAUGHTY – anagram (suspect) of THUG in a reversal (“back”) of YARD | |
| 23 | Payment finally agreed for satellite broadcast, perhaps (4) |
| FEED – FEE (payment), D (“finally” agreeD) | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | State banks are overhauled (8) |
| NEBRASKA – anagram (overhauled) of BANKS ARE | |
| 2 | Great surge (5) |
| SWELL – double definition | |
| 4 | Race around river area in city (6) |
| HARARE – HARE (race) around R(iver) A(rea). It’s in the top ten least desirable cities to live on the planet, apparently, just in case you were thinking of relocating there on a whim. | |
| 5 | Sort of characters making up RNVR in naval vessel (7,4) |
| CAPITAL SHIP – CAPITALS are the “sort of characters making up RNVR”, HIP = in/cool/etc. News to me. The RNVR is the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, if you’re wondering, and a capital ship is simply the largest and most powerful ship in a fleet, only coined fairly recently (in naval terms) in 1909. | |
| 6 | Old writer — with drink — starts speaking candidly (5,2) |
| OPENS UP – O(ld) PEN (writer) with SUP (drink) | |
| 7 | Those people ultimately dealt with ample criticism (4) |
| THEM – the “ultimate” letters of the rest of the clue | |
| 9 | Weirdly awe-striking sport (5-6) |
| WATER-SKIING – anagram (weirdly) of AWE STRIKING | |
| 12 | Added software programme shut down (8) |
| APPENDED – APP (software programme) ENDED (shut down) | |
| 14 | One feels soldier maybe upset the Queen at some point (7) |
| ANTENNA – ANT (soldier, maybe) and then “upset” or upend ANNE (the Queen, at some point) | |
| 16 | Story time incorporating book and iPad? (6) |
| TABLET – TALE (story) T(ime) incorporating B(ook) | |
| 18 | Relative from Greece infrequently heading north (5) |
| NIECE – “from” greECE INfrequently “heading north” | |
| 19 | Dull noise so endlessly deafening at first (4) |
| THUD – THUS (so) “endlessly”, D (Deafening “at first”) | |
I found this difficult, but not impossible, and as a solver of Pangakupu’s puzzles, I’m used to a little Maori now and then, if the cryptic is kindly. I did start out with dahl, but soon erased it – that can’t be right, and it wasn’t. Once I had nosh, Nebraska was obvious, and I was back on track. Take a chance was a nice giveaway clue to open up the middle.
Time: 9:27
This goes down as a 22 minute solve but although it was hard I made things worse for myself by carelessly writing THUS at 19dn (thinking of the wordplay) which made 22ac impossible to solve until eventually I spotted my error. That must have added at least 5 minutes to my time.
Despite its Mauri name KIA-ORA was an Australian brand that launched in the UK in 1917 and the Australians sold the British rights to Schweppes in 1929. I became aware of it as an orange drink in my childhood in the 1950s. Schweppes became Cadbury Schweppes in 1969 and it was from then on that KIA-ORA became an iconic cinema drink. The Coca Cola Company bought them out in 1998 and that was when the decline started.
Time 13:13. A nice puzzle. LOI CAPITAL SHIP, which I got from the parse but hadn’t heard of.
Three on the first pass of acrosses and it stayed hard from there. 3,3 starting with K only brought kowtow to mind so I was glad to get WATER SKIING and ANTENNA to remind me KIA-ORA was more than squash with a catchy tune. CHECKOUT held out to the end only falling when the R of BOER WAR showed me where the second R went, then I had cricket to thank for the answer. All green in 17.21.
Although just above my average time, I’m quite pleased with my 12:02 finish on this tricky puzzle. I had vaguely heard of KIA ORA but did not know it was specifically a greeting – we had Welsh earlier this week, and now Māori, every day’s a schoolday – and I needed all the checkers for Harare. I’m surprised it is considered so undesirable a place – it may not be quite the place it was in the past (I confess it is 40 years since I was there) but I can think of many worse places, not least the various warzones of the world, and when the jacaranda trees are in bloom it is most attractive. LOI though was FEED; I often find short clues with common letters as checkers tough, and the definition here was far from obvious.
Many thanks Roly for the blog.
Put me down for a DAHL too, along with COLD WAR, set me off on a warped tangent for far too long despite suspecting 1D was an anagram. Tricky one.
Nosh and Nebraska went straight in followed by about 5 minutes of head scratching. This took a lot of perseverance and I’m glad we had the time to finish in 30.04. Lots to enjoy and clanging PDMs for several answers well hidden in plain sight!
Very much liked alliteration
Thanks Roly for the blog, and parsing of piece which eluded us, must remember podcast as aural wordplay
Thanks Jalna
12:59. Held up by LOI CHECKOUT.
Knew KIA ORA, just got back from NZ myself.
COD ALLITERATION