Time: 06:34. A pleasant solve from Dangle today avoiding obscurities and complicated parsing.
Several quibbles and a couple of uncertainties but nothing of any great moment. For once the anagrams went in quite quickly and I didn’t have to do any alphabet trawls for the other answers. Once again, not having any cryptic defs helped. Favourties were the ‘City in South America’ and the ‘fresh fruit’.
Thanks to Dangle
Definitions underlined in bold, letters in wordplay not appearing in answers and deletions indicated by strikethrough.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Opinion about request for receptacle (6) |
| BASKET – BET (‘Opinion’) containing (‘about’) ASK (‘request’)
BET for ‘opinion’ as in “It’s my bet/opinion that it will be a wet summer this year”. |
|
| 4 | Twigs in underworld river picked up (6) |
| STICKS – Aural wordplay (‘picked up’) of STYX (‘underworld river’) | |
| 8 | Plunge into water containing killer whale to escape marriage (7) |
| DIVORCE – DIVE (‘Plunge into water’) ‘containing’) ORC (‘killer whale’)
A killer whale, in real life and crossword land, is more usually ORCA but the first sense for ORC in Collins is given as: “(rare) any of various whales such as the killer and grampus” |
|
| 10 | Struggle to follow second film (5) |
| MOVIE – VIE (‘Struggle’) after (‘to follow’) MO (‘second’) | |
| 11 | Music producer in prison room with Oscar (5) |
| CELLO – CELL (‘prison room’) O (‘Oscar’)
O for OSCAR in the NATO phonetic alphabet – this was new to me but it is also known as the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) alphabet. |
|
| 12 | Announced solver will record Christmas treat (4,3) |
| YULE LOG – Aural wordplay (‘Announced’) of YOU’LL (‘solver will’) and LOG (‘record’) | |
| 13 | Potential cause of vision problems certainly found in damaged retina (9) |
| EYESTRAIN – YES (‘certainly’) contained in (‘found in’) anagram (‘damaged’) of RETINA
Is EYESTRAIN a kosher medical diagnosis? Mm… – hence the ‘potential’ I suspect. |
|
| 17 | City in South American country primarily German in ancestry (7) |
| PERUGIA – PERU (‘South American country’) then G The surface reading indicates (to me anyway) that the def is most likely ‘City in South American country’ and my first thought was Bariloche, even though it has too many letters. You need to lift and separate out ‘City’ from ‘South America’. My COD. |
|
| 19 | Not willing to hide fabric (5) |
| TWILL – Hidden (‘to hide’) in I thought TWILL was cotton by definition, but apparently it can be made from wool, polyester or blended fibres. |
|
| 20 | Bones regularly displayed in Dublin café (5) |
| ULNAE – Alternate letters of (‘regularly displayed in’) |
|
| 21 | Bondage producing a lot of drool? (7) |
| SLAVERY – Definition with cryptic hint
If you were producing a lot of drool / saliva, you would be SLAVERY. |
|
| 22 | Football team of fantastic characters surrounding referee, in the end (6) |
| ELEVEN –ELVEN (‘of fantastic characters’) containing (‘surrounding’) |
|
| 23 | One looking intently as concerning vermin returned (6) |
| STARER – Reversal (‘returned’) of RE (‘concerning’) RATS (‘vermin’) | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Church supporting chap stealing one corset (6) |
| BODICE – CE (‘Church’) below in a down clue (‘supporting’) BOD (‘chap’) containing (‘stealing’) I (‘one’)
If this parsing is correct, ‘stealing’ (? in the sense of picking up) is an unusual containment indicator. |
|
| 2 | Overseeing all fresh fruit (7,6) |
| SEVILLE ORANGE – Anagram (‘fresh’) of OVERSEEING ALL
On first reading, what turns out to be the anagram indicator seems to be part of the def. |
|
| 3 | Nobleman with award from King that’s attached to him? (7) |
| EARLOBE – EARL (‘Nobleman’) OBE (‘award from King’)
Again, unless I’m missing something, a rather non-specific definition. |
|
| 5 | Almost a million guarding Sri Lankan, possibly (5) |
| TAMIL – Hidden (‘guarding’) in |
|
| 6 | Niece reliving struggles in Telford? (5,8) |
| CIVIL ENGINEER – Anagram (‘struggles’) of NIECE RELIVING
Referring to Sir Thomas Telford (1757-1834), the famous Scottish civil engineer who designed the Menai suspension bridge amongst many other bridges and canal and road works. The Shropshire town implied in the surface reading of the clue was named after him. |
|
| 7 | Butcher delivered winter transport (6) |
| SLEIGH – Aural wordplay (‘delivered’) of SLAY (‘Butcher’) | |
| 9 | I pay gents transforming Tutankhamun and Hatshepsut? (9) |
| EGYPTIANS – Anagram (‘transforming’) of I PAY GENTS
Both pharaohs in Ancient Egypt. |
|
| 14 | Pull wooden vehicle the wrong way in a race on the Isle of Man (7) |
| ATTRACT – Reversal (‘the wrong way’) of CART (‘wooden vehicle’) contained in (‘in’) A (‘a’) TT (‘race on the Isle of Man’)
Dangle is being generous here. TT for Tourist Trophy, a race or series of motorcycle races on the Isle of Man is a crossword favourite, often without ‘Isle of Man’ specified. |
|
| 15 | Special flower for wife, perhaps (6) |
| SPOUSE – SP (‘Special’) OUSE (‘flower’)
The River Ouse in North Yorkshire, another crossword favourite for the non-horticultural sense of ‘flower’. |
|
| 16 | Actor in film under pressure (6) |
| PLAYER – LAYER (‘film’) below in a down clue (‘under’) P (‘pressure’)
Our second ‘film’ of the day, this time non-cinematic, as in a layer of oil on the surface of water. |
|
| 18 | Birds my slave gutted (5) |
| GEESE – GEE (‘my’) S |
|
It doesn’t get any easier than this. Perugia was the only tricky one, but with the crossing letters in place I biffed it and then parsed it. The earlobe clue was novel and interesting, but needed a better literal.
Time: 5:18
One of these days someone will clue ‘flower’ as meaning a thing that blooms in the garden and we’ll all be in serious strife. Just on 10 for me WOE, I carelessly entered SLEDGE instead of SLEIGH based on the checkers without paying attention to the actual clue. Knowing who Telford was might have saved me a bit of time today but an enjoyable puzzle from Dangle. Thank you BR, though I think you’re being very generous on the BET = OPINION issue.
I have only just learnt to go to the river first for flower- but I still automatically assume ‘second’ is S, so MO is my next project
I didn’t find this particularly easy.
I always start by looking for low-hanging fruit which usually means tackling short answers first with a view to building from there, but today there are no 3-letter or 4-letter words.
Very short clues are another option, but there are none of those either, and in fact I found the whole set somewhat wordy for a QC with one Down clue apparently requiring 14 words to do its business!
It was quite hard to differentiate between definitions and possible wordplay and with all that going on I found my concentration starting to lapse and I nodded off, perhaps more than once, so I have no time to offer.
PERUGIA was my LOI.
All done in 15.20 but then needed to correct sledge to sleigh (I guessed that a sledge hammer would certainly butcher something!)
Enjoyed the PDM of earl obe, one that revealed itself when written down.
Thanks Dangle and BR
Meant to go back to ‘sledge’ but spent so long dislodging ‘Paragua’ as the capital of Paraguay – totally misdirected for ages – that I forgot to see what was going on. Plus is fitted and I’d been thinking of shambles and so much else. So not all green in a reasonable time. Monthly error count reaches a distressing 11.
Like Mendesest, I forgot to go back an parse ‘sledge’ so a big fat fail today.
Apart from that, I enjoyed the solve and didn’t find it too tricky althought the PERUGIA/SPOUSE combo put up some resistance at the end.
Thanks to BR and Dangle
14:13 wasn’t quick to see Perugia Attracts Slavery. Thought there might be an unseasonably Christmas theme for a second there.
Ta BRAD
8:31 for an enjoyable solve. Like our blogger I looked first for a South American city for 17A, and with the final A checker in place I tried Cordoba and Mendoza, both of which (like Bariloche) are in Argentina but (unlike Bariloche) have the right number of letters. But neither parsed of course.
Only other minor hold-up was the Orc in DIVORCE; NHO but the answer was so clear that I just assumed it was a legitimate variant of Orca and moved on. On reflection I think it is really not in keeping with the rest of Dangle’s fine puzzle – it is just a bit too obscure – and especially as Orc as a word does otherwise exist as a creature in Tolkien’s writings.
Many thanks BR for the blog.