I enjoyed this one a lot. It took me 11:23, about 3 minutes faster than my average, so if my experience is typical, this would be slightly towards the easier end of the scale.
Long anagrams usually beat me, but today I was able to get 1ac first, which gave lots of lovely starting letters for the down clues. I wasn’t quite as lucky with 1 down, which held out until most of the crossing letters were in place, but then that came with a lovely penny-drop moment and caused an audible snort of laughter, so that’s my clue of the day.
If anyone is new to this site – welcome! – and there’s a very helpful glossary in the links that explains a lot of the lingo and abbreviations that you’ll see in use, such as PDM and COD, both of which I wrote out in full in the previous paragraph.
Definitions underlined, synonyms in round brackets, wordplay in square brackets and deletions in strikethrough. Anagram indicators italicised in the clue, (THIS)* indicates that the included letters are anagrammed.
| Across | |
| 1 | Sad tormentor needs to change, one protests (12) |
| DEMONSTRATOR – (SAD TORMENTOR)*. | |
| 8 | Invigorating snack (just a bit) (5) |
| CRISP – A double definition, the first in the sense of “a crisp winter day”, and the second in the sense of “potato crisps”.
I think the “just a bit” part of the clue is telling you to drop the ‘s’ from “crisps”, but that seems a bit unnecessary to me: one crisp may not be much of a snack, but it still counts. |
|
| 9 | Bill said less than expected in dramatic scene (7) |
| TABLEAU – TAB (account, bill), then a homophone [said] of “low” (less than expected). | |
| 10 | Accurate recipe cooked with hint of salt (7) |
| PRECISE – (RECIPE + S)*
Initially I thought “hint” was a bit sneaky to mean “first letter of”, but then I thought of those salt & pepper shakers that are identical except for “S” and “P” written on them, where the “S” is a hint that salt is inside. But perhaps that’s just me and Hurley really did just mean “take the first letter”. |
|
| 11 | Male heir finally changes royal domain (5) |
| REALM – Take MALE and the last letter [finally] of |
|
| 12 | Deal with physical challenge at rugby (6) |
| TACKLE – Another double definition. | |
| 14 | Back horse after winner? (6) |
| SECOND – And another one! The horse after the winner in a race has come second.
This was my last one in: I was trying to think of short words for “horse” that I could reverse, but it’s simpler than that. |
|
| 17 | Seaport that uses newest industrial systems principally (5) |
| TUNIS – first letters [principally] of T |
|
| 19 | First-class paper under discussion? (2,5) |
| AT ISSUE – A (first-class), TISSUE (paper). | |
| 21 | Finished with preliminary race, having missed start — pig out (7) |
| OVEREAT – OVER (finished with), then |
|
| 22 | Claw, vital one to some extent (5) |
| TALON – hidden in [to some extent] viTAL ONe. | |
| 23 | Easy to understand employer, sociable (4-8) |
| USER-FRIENDLY – USER (employer), FRIENDLY (sociable).
Not that it matters, but I added the dash as indicated by the clue. The online puzzle has a solid bar between the words. |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Make light of plight with this approach? (12) |
| DECAPITATION – Remove the head from “plight” to make “light”. Very neat. | |
| 2 | State of confusion about island crop (5) |
| MAIZE – MAZE (state of confusion) around I for island.
The noun definition of “maze” in my dictionary that is defined as “state of bewilderment” is also marked as “archaic, except dialect”. But then there is also the sense of “a maze of regulations” and the word play was friendly, so I’m not going to complain to the management. |
|
| 3 | Referring to wedding, not quite platinum, in new way (7) |
| NUPTIAL – all but the last letter of PLATINU |
|
| 4 | Tense furry animal in unsteady walk (6) |
| TOTTER – T for tense, OTTER (furry animal).
T for tense is used in dictionaries and works of linguistic analysis, apparently. Fortunately I remembered it this time because I think I queried it the last time it came up. |
|
| 5 | Team beret displays colour (5) |
| AMBER – Hidden word: teAM BERet displays it… | |
| 6 | Love exotic orange herb (7) |
| OREGANO – O for love (as in tennis), then (ORANGE)*. | |
| 7 | Bad-tempered crone, ugly, mud thrown? (12) |
| CURMUDGEONLY – (CRONE UGLY MUD)*. | |
| 13 | Admit argument against, finding evidence seems satisfactory at first (7) |
| CONFESS – CON (argument against, the opposite of “pro”), then the first letters of F |
|
| 15 | Letter eastern saint put in pile? (7) |
| EPISTLE – E for eastern then ST (saint) in PILE. | |
| 16 | Provide food about noon — no great hurry! (6) |
| CANTER – CATER (provide food) around N for noon. | |
| 18 | Scornful remark from son? Never getting disheartened! (5) |
| SNEER – S for son, then NE |
|
| 20 | Alas, on way up, daughter’s no hot meal (5) |
| SALAD – ALAS reversed [on way up], then D for daughter. | |
3:46, my new fastest ever, yet held up for a full 30 seconds trying to conjure up SECOND. Outside of that I nearly wrote everything in on first pass!
7:07
CRISP & especially LOI DECAPITATION slowed me down. Some months ago, hyphens disappeared from the grids, to be replaced by bars, so that a hyphenated answer looks like a two-word answer; I find this annoying.
Solved in stages between interruptions, so no actual time but suffice to say it would have been substantially longer than those registered above. DECAPITATION took an age and I required the blog to understand it, and CURMUDGEONLY was also slow to arrive even after resorting to pen and paper. Otherwise all good, thanks to Hurley and the Doof.