I don’t recall having the pleasure of blogging a Hawthorn puzzle before – but based on this offering, I certainly hope to have the opportunity of doing so again in the future.
Very enjoyable with some nice splashes of wit (particularly enjoyed 6d), no obscure GK (provided you were paying attention during history lessons covering the Tudor era), neat and economical clue constructions and a nice array of clue types.
Top notch QC, I reckon, so many thanks to our setter.
Definitions underlined: DD = double definition: anagrams indicated by *(–): letters omitted indicated by {-}
| Across | |
| 1 | Contact Queen following introduction to prime minister (8) |
| PREACHER – REACH (contact) + ER (queen) come after (following) P (introduction to Prime) | |
| 5 | Flower discovered in Fair Isle (4) |
| IRIS – Hidden (indicated by ‘discovered in’) faIR ISle | |
| 8 | Film award for Mr Hammerstein? (5) |
| OSCAR – DD, with a reference to the great Oscar Hammerstein who was responsible (amongst many terrific lyrics) for ‘The Lonely Goatherd’, a personal fave due to it’s fantastic rhyming (searching for rhymes with ‘goatherd’, he came up with several crackers including ‘men in the midst of a table d’hote heard’). Pure genius… | |
| 9 | Alleged grass gets put inside (7) |
| REPUTED – REED (grass) with PUT inside, just like our setter says… | |
| 11 | Towering form of ominous aunt (11) |
| MOUNTAINOUS – *(OMINOUS AUNT) with “form of” as the anagrind. Sounds like a Wodehouse character… | |
| 13 | Some jocularity concerning sightseers, perhaps (6) |
| OCULAR – Hidden inside (indicated by ‘some’) jOCULARity | |
| 14 | Meet eccentric around place or house of worship (6) |
| TEMPLE – *(MEET) – with “eccentric” as the anagrind – ‘around’ PL (abbrev. place) | |
| 16 | Keep mum in supportive braces for lower-leg complaint (4,7) |
| SHIN SPLINTS – SH (keep mum) + IN + SPLINTS (supportive braces). My last one in, probably because I’ve never had the misfortune to suffer from this ailment and it is just not on my radar, and I was convinced “keep mum” was the definition. Only finally worked it out with all the checkers in place. | |
| 18 | Leader means to make progress (7) |
| HEADWAY – HEAD (leader) + WAY (means – as in ‘is there a way / means to achieving this?’) | |
| 19 | Girl’s legwear (5) |
| JEANS – Straightforward DD… | |
| 20 | Release without charge (4) |
| FREE – …and another generous DD | |
| 21 | Cape on Lady Jane displaying dull quality (8) |
| GREYNESS – NESS (cape) goes after (on) Lady Jane GREY, the “queen for nine days” who I’ve always thought had a pretty rough deal | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Kitty in a puddle (4) |
| POOL – And another DD | |
| 2 | Get in touch after divorced spouse cast out of Church (13) |
| EXCOMMUNICATE – COMMUNICATE (get in touch) comes ‘after’ EX (divorced spouse) | |
| 3 | Tool for slicing item of junk mail was put into reverse (8,3) |
| CIRCULAR SAW – CIRCULAR (item of junk mail) + WAS ‘put in reverse’ | |
| 4 | Mistakes unusually rare: thanks! (6) |
| ERRATA – *(RARE) – with “unusually” as the anagrind – plus TA (thanks) | |
| 6 | Milestone to one side of alleyway read out (4,2,7) |
| RITE OF PASSAGE – Very droll cryptic homophone – “right of passage” being “one side of alleyway”. | |
| 7 | Miss start of show despite being organised (8) |
| SIDESTEP – S (start – first letter – of Show) + *(DESPITE) with “being organised” as the anagrind | |
| 10 | Group of lions added to Ms Adamson’s personal delight (5,3,3) |
| PRIDE AND JOY – PRIDE (group of lions) + AND (added to) + JOY (Joy Adamson, she of ‘Born Free’ – the ’60’s book and movie about Elsa the lion cub so the whole clue ties together very neatly). For anyone of my vintage this was a lovely clue – those lucky enough to be somewhat younger might be struggling with the reference… | |
| 12 | Cook focuses hard for his assistant? (4-4) |
| SOUS CHEF – *(FOCUSES) – with “cook” as the anagrind – and H (abbrev. hard) also thrown into the mix | |
| 15 | Actor quietly put on coat (6) |
| PLAYER – P(quietly) + LAYER (coat) | |
| 17 | Like the present given by a little sibling (2,2) |
| AS IS – A + SIS (a little sister). Nice neat clue to finish. | |
Your reflections, Nick, on the two 60s (sort of) clues (referencing The Sound of Music and Born Free) sent me back 15 years or so, when these were two of the films I bought for my toddler to watch.
While the former became an enormous hit with her – and perhaps contributed to her passion for musical theatre – Born Free left her cold. As did The Incredible Journey.
O tempora, O mores!
8.04
horryd Shanghai
Excellent crossword, by the way.
20 minutes here. I was aware of Born Free but didn’t remember It was Joy Adamson until I’d got the answer. My present day children also love The Sound Of Music.
I wasn’t sure about Cape=Ness either but assume it’s geographical feature as in Loch Ness?
LOI also 1 ac, struggled to get past the surface of cabinet minister
About 12 – 15 mins.
A Ness is an alternative word for a cape in Scotland. I am sure that I remember Cape Ness being one of the areas listed in the shipping forecasts when I was a kid so it came straightaway. I realise now that it is not one area but two, one called cape and one called ness that happen to be next to one another.
PlayupPompey
I remember being taken by my parents to watch the SofM when I was 12 and hated it, but they must have re-edited it, because I think it’s one of the best ever musicals now. . . Invariant
6.59 today but it felt longer as I jumped around the grid a bit.
Ness appears to be a SE term. Two I know from personal experience are shoeburyness in essex and dungeness in kent, both very much bottom right hand corner of the country