Oh my. At 4:20 pm California time this afternoon (12:20 am UK time), the Times app on my phone still wasn’t showing the “Crossword Club” tile, which is where I normally solve these. I reluctantly pulled out the laptop, even though I don’t know how to use the web interface very well. So I was all discombobulated when I started solving this one. Things did not get better for me from there on.
As I have mentioned in previous blogs, anagrams are my least favourite type of clue, and we have a bumper helping today, including both the answers that span the grid.
As well as the anagrams, I struggled today with clues that on other days would have been fast: SHERRY, TUDOR, BREAST and BOREDOM were among the culprits.
My last one in – by a mile – was AMERICA (where I live, d’oh! – although no-one here actually calls the country “America”). I had a total brain freeze, and after my time went over the 30 minute mark, I allowed myself to look at Chambers’ Word Wizard, which told me there were no words that match A_E_I_A. Well, thanks a bunch, Chambers. After that I started trying to remember fictional countries, until in desperation I turned to the bloggers’ WhatsApp group, where I got the answer in seconds.
Ultimate time: 32:56, one of my slowest times ever, and almost definitely the slowest when I’ve been writing the blog. Sometime you just have one of those days.
I wasn’t so grumpy that I didn’t think about a Clue of Day: my vote goes to NUMBER, because I do like a good pun.
Apologies if this is all self-indulgent “oh poor me”-ing. But everyone struggles sometimes, even those of us who write these columns. And to those of you who check whether you were faster than the blogger, you’re welcome 😉.
Definitions underlined, synonyms in round brackets, wordplay in square brackets and deletions in strikethrough. Anagram indicators italicised in the clue, anagram fodder indicated like (THIS)*.
| Across | |
| 1 | Pull dependant back (4) |
| DRAW – WARD (dependent), reversed [back]. | |
| 3 | Scholar’s account interrupted by media broadcast (8) |
| ACADEMIC – ACC (account) containing [interrupted by] (MEDIA)*. | |
| 9 | Old and short, quite wrinkled (7) |
| ANTIQUE – AN |
|
| 10 | Jargon in advance written on back of manual (5) |
| LINGO – IN (from the clue) and GO (advance) after the last letter [back of] |
|
| 11 | Vessel in amphora, or tankard (5) |
| AORTA – Hidden in amphorA OR TAnkard.
A blood vessel, of course. |
|
| 12 | Fluff found in modest drink (6) |
| SHERRY – ERR (fluff, as in lines) in SHY (modest). | |
| 14 | Ultimate ban on rocky peak that’s flat (5,8) |
| TABLE MOUNTAIN – (ULTIMATE BAN ON)*.
I spotted that “peak’s that flat” has 13 letters, so spent too long trying to make that anagram work. Once I got the N from NUMBER I realized that couldn’t be right. But did I ever bother counting the letters in “ultimate ban on”? I did not. |
|
| 17 | For example, some chicken run circled by wild animal (6) |
| BREAST – R for run (cricket), contained in [circled by] BEAST (wild animal).
I think “For example” at the start just makes this clue harder by adding another piece that looks like a cryptic element but ends up having to be part of the definition. |
|
| 19 | Bird beginning to make a raucous cry (5) |
| MACAW – first letter [beginning] of M |
|
| 22 | Strange tour taking in back of terraced house (5) |
| TUDOR – (TOUR)* containing the last letter [back] of As in House of Tudor. Which took me a long time to spot. |
|
| 23 | Country song featured in musical (7) |
| AMERICA – double definition. The second definition is a reference to the song from West Side Story.
Oh dear oh dear. I spent 10 minutes gazing at A_E_I_A with nothing coming to mind. As mentioned above, the bloggers’ WhatsApp group came up trumps for me: many thanks to glheard. I was so convinced this would be a word for “song” contained in the name of a musical that I never even considered the possibility of a double definition. |
|
| 24 | Revolutionary made it with no control (8) |
| DOMINATE – (MADE IT NO)* | |
| 25 | Everything going past bat originally — for example, a bouncer (4) |
| BALL – ALL (everything) after B A bouncer is a type of delivery in cricket. |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Tarnished tin made a shiny material (8) |
| DIAMANTE – (TIN MADE A)*. | |
| 2 | Remove top of beam later (5) |
| AFTER – Follow the instruction and remove the top of |
|
| 4 | Cook at once sees hot snack (6,2,5) |
| CHEESE ON TOAST – (AT ONCE SEES HOT)*
Clever anagram, but to be honest I had had my fill of anagrams by this point. |
|
| 5 | Five hundred pixies shortened burrow (5) |
| DELVE – D (five hundred in Roman numerals), plus ELVE That’s the verb sense of “burrow”, as a rabbit does. |
|
| 6 | Main rock almost formed island (7) |
| MINORCA – (MAIN ROC |
|
| 7 | Animal scoffing hot dog (4) |
| CHOW – COW containing [scoffing] H for hot. | |
| 8 | Fuddy-duddy in shape (6) |
| SQUARE – Double definition, the first being perhaps slightly dated. | |
| 13 | Mushroom, advocaat and lemonade (8) |
| SNOWBALL – Another double definition.
My first thought on reading this clue: “Ugh, what a terrible recipe.” |
|
| 15 | State showing little interest in colour during time of prosperity (7) |
| BOREDOM – RED (color) during BOOM (time of prosperity). | |
| 16 | One, perhaps, is less sensitive (6) |
| NUMBER – Another double definition.
This time it is “number” in the sense of “more numb”, but also watch out for “number” to mean “anaesthetic” or “anaesthetist”. |
|
| 18 | Protective garment worn regularly after month in spring (5) |
| APRON – APR (standard abbreviation for April), and then |
|
| 20 | Strike beginning to affect country (5) |
| CHINA – CHIN (strike), plus A |
|
| 21 | Learning, no end, for macho man (4) |
| STUD – STUD A pair of mirror image clues to finish the downs. |
|
I didn’t have too many problems with the anagrams (with the exception of TABLE MOUNTAIN, which came late) (and I didn’t know it was an anagram) but the lower half was a challenge for me. I didn’t know chin could mean strike, for a start, so rejected CHINA from the get-go. I also didn’t remember AMERICA being a song, and in the end hold-ups like these gave me a finish time of 10.42. Some of these clues (ANTIQUE, for instance) would not have been out of place in the 15×15 – not that there’s anything wrong with that. I enjoyed it, thanks to Mara and the Doof.
Maybe this puzzle actually is hard. I had to guess that snowball might be some bizarre drink, and cheese on toast might be a thing. Diamante? Never heard of it. And yes, I struggled with America.
Time: 13:02
Maybe the biggest and most famous production number in West Side Story?
A quite chewy but enjoyable puzzle, I thought. I agree with Lindsay that some of the clues could be escapees from a biggie. The ones that held me up were BREAST (Duh!), SHERRY and DIAMANTE. AMERICA was a write-in so that’s my ear worm sorted for a while. Liked ANTIQUE and LINGO. Thought BOREDOM was going to be a geographic state until I finally saw it. COD to TUDOR when I realised the type of ‘house’ required.
Thanks D and setter.
8:58
Biffed ACADEMIC, LINGO, TABLE MOUNTAIN, SNOWBALL, & AMERICA, parsed post-submission–except AMERICA, which I never figured out. I knew the song, didn’t know its title. Also DNK SNOWBALL; I suspect that even without the mushroom I’d say, ‘Ugh, what a terrible recipe’.