There was nothing too devious in the constructions, and no real obscurities as fas as I can see, although MINARET, SAUTERNE and the required meanings of BLOOMER are probably only known to me from crosswords.
Had some fun with the anagrams today, with no less than seven of them appearing in this puzzle. If you list all of the anagram indicators (or anagrinds, as Horryd insists on calling them), it reads like a haiku describing my university days:
 strangely
 slipping
 awfully
 desperate
 terribly
 drunk
 wrong
Makes you wonder just how many possibilties there are, doesn’t it? And how hard it must be to find one that hasn’t been used before.
Anyway, that’s not what I’m being paid for, so let’s get on with the parsing of the clues (which is also not what I’m being paid for)…..
Clues are reproduced in blue, with the definition underlined. Anagram indicators are bolded and italicised. Then there’s the answer IN BOLD, followed by the parsing of the wordplay. (ABC)* means ‘anagram of ABC’.
Across | |
1 | Mistake at the bakery? (7) |
BLOOMER – “at the bakery” refers to another definition of bloomer, ie a large loaf with diagonal slashes on a rounded top. Actually neither of these definitions is used where I come from, but both are presumably common enough in the UK. They certainly are in Crosswordland. |
|
5 | Surprise result, winning a few tennis games (5) |
UPSET – UP (winning) + SET (a few tennis games) | |
8 | Lighter carpet in fact, yes terribly, and hard (6,5) |
SAFETY MATCH – MAT (carpet) in (FACT YES)* + H (hard) | |
10 | Shock, with things that are hard recalled (4) |
STUN – NUTS, reversed. Well nuts are hard to crack, and a ‘hard nut’ is a tough person. Arfur Daley’s minder Terry was well ‘ard. |
|
11 | Simplest, but strangely written wrongly (8) |
MISSPELT – (SIMPLEST)* A word that is commonly misspelt, funnily enough. |
|
12 | Situated towards the back, like a bird (6) |
ASTERN – AS (like) + TERN (a bird) | |
14 | Unwell, not succeeding without leader (6) |
AILING – {f}AILING (not succeeding) | |
16 | Wine drunk neat, sure! (8) |
SAUTERNE – (NEAT SURE)* A French sweet wine from the Sauternais region of the Graves section in Bordeaux. So Wiki says anyway. On edit: Actually that would be a Sauternes. A Sauterne is a Californian wine. Many thanks to Ulaca, who knows these things. |
|
18 | Shocker with Kafka’s first novel (4) |
BOOK – BOO (shocker) + K (Kafka’s first) | |
20 | Practical and realistic — so grounded? (4-2-5) |
DOWN-TO-EARTH – Double def I think the second definition is meant to be cryptic, but we refer to a practical and realistic person as being ‘grounded’, so it could be seen as the same definition re-stated. |
|
22 | Fish gave off an odour (5) |
SMELT – Double def | |
23 | Duck fat on drake, perhaps, endless (7) |
MALLARD – LARD (fat) on MAL{e} [male (drake, perhaps), endless] |
Down | |
2 | Composer’s record overheard (5) |
LISZT – Homophone (overheard) of LIST (record) Never quite sure where to put the Z in these names, despite being a big fan of Ziggy Niszczot, who played for the South Sydney Rabbitohs in the early ’80’s. |
|
3 | Crime of a criminal (7) |
OFFENCE – OF + FENCE (criminal) A fence is a person who deals in stolen goods. Usually named Freddy. |
|
4 | In essence, a tree swallow (3) |
EAT – Hidden in essencE A Tree | |
6 | Erect — from above or below (3,2) |
PUTUP – ‘From above or below’ indicating a palindrome in a Down clue | |
7 | Rank slipping on leech! (7) |
ECHELON – (ON LEECH)* | |
9 | Written note in officers’ dining room on time (7) |
MESSAGE – MESS (officers’ dining room) + AGE (time) | |
11 | London police carrying rajah’s wife up tower (7) |
MINARET – MET (London police) ‘carrying’ INAR [RANI (rajah’s wife) ‘up’] MET is the commonly used abbreviaton for London’s Metropolitan Police Service. RANI is Indian royalty. Both commonly found in crosswords. |
|
13 | Mad sort desperate for fame (7) |
STARDOM – (MAD SORT)* | |
15 | Generous, serving brie all wrong (7) |
LIBERAL – (BRIE ALL)* | |
17 | Duck going in awfully wet, head of linnet drier (5) |
TOWEL – O (duck) in (WET)* + L (head of linnet) | |
19 | Different article in gold (5) |
OTHER – THE (article) in OR (gold) As you’ve probably learnt by now, gold is nearly always AU (chemical symbol) or OR (from heraldry). |
|
21 | Time in moderation (3) |
ERA – Hiddden in modERAtion |
And Liszt, as you may know, means “flour”.
További jó szórakozást!
We just called him Ziggy.
Will it be ready for Christmas?
Today’s time 7.22 with nothing to add to an excellent blog.
horryd Shanghai
Here to help!
Gallers, I know that you will still be feeling a little shell-shocked and fragile after Australia’s drubbing by South Africa (to say nothing of England’s heroics in stopping Bangladesh’s long home winning streak), but I feel I need to make a comment on the wine clue. And that comment is the fruit of the type of experience that Oscar Wilde so pithily talks of – extremely painful for me to recall.
When I was courting my wife-to-be, I took her out to a fancy restaurant here in Hong Kong, and told her somewhat magisterially that as we were having fish a nice French white would go well. I ordered a Sauternes (mistaking it for a Sancerre), a sickly sweet thing that my wife never ceases to remind me about 25+ years later.
But a Sauterne (singular) is, I believe – I hate to think I shall be making the same kind of error again, but I am relying on the Internet, so who knows? where is Keriothe when you want him? – a Californian wine.
This from the web:
‘Be careful not to confuse a Sauternes with a Sauterne wine. The first is a sweet, golden wine produced in the Bordeaux region of France and the second refers to a wide variety of white wines produced in California.’
Yes, well done England on bringing the mighty Bangladeshis to heel. Unlike our boys, who have now plummeted to number one in the world rankings.
horryd Shanghai
I wondered if ECHELON might be less than familiar to all.
I thought BOO clued as “shocker” was rather inventive and it took me an moment to see it.
As he is an avid reader of, and one-time contributor to, The Oldie, may I commend to horryd Matthew Webster’s Digital Life column on page 94 of the November edition on the subject of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) in which he writes:
“I am writing this from China, behind what is known as the Great Firewall of China, which blocks access to many western websites…but a VPN bypasses these controls. Strictly speaking using one is against the Chinese rules,but I can tell you that educated locals and all expats in Shanghai use them all the time, and no one has been clapped in irons yet.”
Edited at 2016-10-14 04:50 am (UTC)
Then click “userpics” and follow your nose. It’s under something like “upload a new userpic” I think.
6. Get Live Journal’s website simplified – what a kerfu*****fuffle! eg. simple button at top (rather than half way down in the blurb) to create userpic would help.
5. Check one’s spam for Live Journal’s verification email – mine’s been there since May 2015…..
8. Ask one’s partner to translate Manadarin newly embedded on this page!
1. VPN update – make sure this week you avoid Hong Kong 1 & 2 – Hong Kong 3 has disappeared! (LegCo swearing-in naughties) Berkshire UK or Los Angeles 2 seem stable this afternoon. (VPNs have to be updated at least twice a day.)
2. Avoid being asked to blog on a regular basis.
7. Go to IKEA for a lie down!
3. Ask Galspray to change his uaserpic as he is just a distant blur – a tad Louiss van Gaal?
4. Ask Jack why he uses one image of books for the 15×15 and a black cat cartoon for the QC?
9. Zei Wei!
BTW, you’re not supposed to use photos taken thirty years ago!
Edited at 2016-10-14 08:28 am (UTC)
I will try to find a suitable userpic too – don’t want to feel left out!
PlayupPompey
Brian
PS I hope 14ac was a write-in for you, Diane !
Not having the first three letters for 1a, I was convinced it ended OVER e.g. a turnover. Then I struggled with composers ending in T. Holst and Bizet came to mind but not the one I needed. Eventually I got Liszt which I doubt I could have spelt from scratch. And we buy lots of bloomers here so I should have got it earlier. David
LOI 8a, COD 7d
Thanks for the blog.
Cheers,
W
W