I was a bit slow on this one, but any perceived difficulty was down to cleverness of clueing and some non-obvious definitions rather than outright obscurity.
Hope you enjoyed it.
(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 | Worker on vegetables? Could be (7) |
| PEASANT – ANT (worker) on PEAS (vegetables)
Sort of an all-in-one self-referential semi-cryptic to kick us off. |
|
| 5 | Closed one large book (4) |
| TOME – TO (closed) + ME (one)
I only know TO = closed from crosswords. A fairly dated (or perhaps regional?) usage I think, but others here have commented previously that they use the expression. |
|
| 7 | Like a bloom locust oddly destroyed (3) |
| OUT – Even letters only (oddly destroyed) of lOcUsT | |
| 8 | Indoor footwear beginning to yield as it is on ice (8) |
| SLIPPERY – SLIPPER (indoor footwear) + Y (beginning to Yield) | |
| 10 | Share the view a deadly sin has no end (5) |
| AGREE – A + GREE |
|
| 11 | Reason for doing something on energy is sensitive (7) |
| EMOTIVE – MOTIVE (reason for doing something) on E (energy) | |
| 13 | Strange rant about the French horn (6) |
| ANTLER – (RANT)* “about” LE (“the” in French) | |
| 15 | Make changes to retain viewer’s backing? (6) |
| RETINA – (RETAIN)*
Viewer in this case meaning eye. |
|
| 17 | Incline vocally to give approval to painting on two panels (7) |
| DIPTYCH – DIP (incline) + TYCH [homophone (vocally) of TICK (to give approval to)
Possibly an obscure term? Or perhaps not, given the erudition of our little community here. I just inferred it from the more familiar (to me) triptych. |
|
| 18 | Go quickly small bird (5) |
| SCOOT – S (small) + COOT (bird) | |
| 20 | Underclothes hang around airer regularly (8) |
| LINGERIE – LINGER (hang around) + alternate letters (regularly) of aIrEr | |
| 22 | Front to shoe, ultimately (3) |
| TOE – &lit. Last letters (ultimately) of fronT tO shoE
On edit: I originally had this parsed as TO + E, with front as the definition. Cedric’s comment prompted a re-think and I’m more comfortable with this parsing. Nice clue actually. On further edit, I really like this clue. It has ultimately = “finally” for the wordplay, and ultimately = “at the most basic level” for the sake of the definition. (At the most basic level, the toe is the front to a shoe). Very elegant piece of clueing. |
|
| 23 | Concerning morning paper (4) |
| REAM – RE (concerning) + AM (morning) | |
| 24 | Retreat’s ghastly, not the last time (7) |
| HIDEOUT – [HIDEOU |
|
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Info that’s spread on behalf of heathen father (10) |
| PROPAGANDA – PRO (on behalf of) + PAGAN (heathen) + DA (father)
We don’t hear “Da” much down here, but it always reminds me of Christy Brown as portrayed in My Left Foot. “Respect for Da” is the line he utters before instigating a pub brawl from his wheelchair. Great stuff. |
|
| 2 | Rubbish about rising thespian (5) |
| ACTOR – [ROT (rubbish) + CA (about)] all reversed (rising)
For the newcomers, CA (or C) for circa, meaning “about” gets a guernsey in every second crossword, so it’s worth being aware of. |
|
| 3 | Rule as yet misguidedly in a severe manner (9) |
| AUSTERELY – (RULE AS YET)* | |
| 4 | Kept an eye on temperature — felt unwell (6) |
| TAILED – T (temperature) + AILED (felt unwell) | |
| 5 | Money for waiting at table? Mine’s raised (3) |
| TIP – PIT (mine) reversed (raised) | |
| 6 | Damage can with one cocktail (7) |
| MARTINI – MAR (damage) + TIN (can) + I (one) | |
| 9 | Term pedant confused in specialised area (10) |
| DEPARTMENT – (TERM PEDANT)* | |
| 12 | Buy too much — lots of deliveries await settlement (9) |
| OVERSPEND – OVERS (lots of deliveries) + PEND (await settlement)
An over in cricket is a set (or a “lot”) of six legitimate deliveries. |
|
| 14 | Kills fish on ship’s upper deck (7) |
| TOPSIDE – TOPS (kills) + IDE (fish) | |
| 16 | Wartime PM’s not bad for organised religion (6) |
| CHURCH – CHURCH |
|
| 19 | Top garden party? (5) |
| OUTDO – OUT DO (“outside” or garden party)
Not sure you’d ever talk about hosting an “out do” but this is Crosswordland after all. |
|
| 21 | Stick up easy target (3) |
| GUM – MUG (easy target) reversed (up)
For anyone but Yoda, the clue taken on its own leads more to MUG than to GUM. Thankfully we have the checkers to put paid to any doubts. |
|
6:13
Straightforward, no problems. Joker has made a number of clues more QC-like, including phrases he might well have omitted in a 15×15: large (5ac), indoor (8ac), at table (5d), wartime (16d).
Well, it was hard for me. I did fairly well for a while, but just couldn’t get started in the SE – hideout, scoot, department, outdo. Those took longer than the rest of the puzzle.
Time: 9:58
12 minutes. My only query was TOPSIDE which I was unaware can be a nautical term – though not particularly surprised. I knew it only as a cut of beef. SCOOT was my LOI.
A better week of QCs for me with 2 solved within 10 minutes and the other 4 within 15 minutes.
SCC Dipstick!
TAJAG
I found this quite chewy, taking 14:17, but always enjoyable. I did not parse TOME in flight – the answer was clear from the checkers but neither closed = to nor one = me registered. And da for father was new to me even if very guessable. As for TOE, I misparsed it completely, taking it to be the last letters of fronT tO shoE – which left me wondering how the definition was part of the wordplay.
LOI was OUTDO, for which I needed all 3 checkers (for a 5 letter word!); not a phrase I would ever think of for a garden party.
Many thanks Galspray for the blog and a good weekend to all.
I’d say the question mark on “garden party?” is critical here – it’s a just a cryptic hint. Agree that no-one would ever use it in real life
Thanks Cedric. That’s had me looking at TOE again, and I now think it’s an &lit. Tbh I wasn’t very happy with front as a definition anyway. I’ll update the blog accordingly.
A couple of tricky bits but all fairly clued.
I tried very hard to make the unknown (or forgotten) DIPTYCH start with ‘bi’ and it wasn’t until I finally unravelled the excellent PROPAGANDA that I saw the light. PEASANT also took time to solve as did the parsing of TOME.
Started with OUT and finished with EMOTIVE in 8.23.
Thanks to Galspray and Joker