A gentle offering to begin the week leading up to Christmas. Pedro mentions on his website that one of his puzzles this week (he also sets elsewhere under different names) “might” contain something seasonal – I’m hopeless at spotting themes and Ninas but I’ll go out on a limb and say that this isn’t the one, but it was enjoyable regardless and I’ll be getting a hefty enough dose of seasonal reminders when I pop into Middlesbrough later today for some last-minute Christmas shopping. Thanks, Pedro. My next scheduled Quicky blog is on the 2nd of January so for now I will wish all solvers and setters a very merry Christmas and best wishes for 2017.
The puzzle can be found here if the usual channels are unavailable: http://feeds.thetimes.co.uk/puzzles/crossword/20161219/21007/
Definitions are underlined.
| Across | |
| 1 | Bird hard to be caught by countryman (8) |
| PHEASANT – H (hard) in (to be caught by) PEASANT (countryman) | |
| 5 | Water vapour avoiding a plant’s stalk (4) |
| STEM – STE{a}M (Water vapour avoiding a, i.e. the word “steam” without the letter a) | |
| 8 | A skill in intricate fabric is offering a lot of options (1,2,5) |
| A LA CARTE – A, + ART (skill) in LACE (intricate fabric) | |
| 9 | Lump of rock caught piece of cloth (4) |
| CRAG – C (caught) + RAG (piece of cloth) | |
| 11 | Bitterness about head of Government is rubbish (5) |
| BILGE – BILE (Bitterness) about G (head of Government, i.e. the first letter of the word “Government”) | |
| 12 | Male in favour of lying in bed for ease (7) |
| COMFORT – M (Male) + FOR (in favour of), inside (lying in) COT (bed) | |
| 13 | Solver’s time to swallow good dairy product (6) |
| YOGURT – YOUR (Solver’s) + T (time), around (to swallow) G (good). This smacks of American spelling to me, but none of the usual sources back me up and a bit of online rummaging suggests that the non-h spelling has been in the ascendant globally for some time. | |
| 15 | Steering device? Twice left in a row (6) |
| TILLER – LL (Twice left, i.e. two instances of the letter L (left)) in TIER (a row) | |
| 18 | Calm current provided in photo (7) |
| PACIFIC – AC (current, i.e. alternating current) + IF (provided), in PIC (photo) | |
| 19 | Quantity of water upset canoe (5) |
| OCEAN – anagram of (upset) CANOE. A mere coincidence that PACIFIC and OCEAN appear consecutively in the grid? Probably, though if you like to EMAIL GECKOES then you might not think so. What with the BILGE, TILLER, and PACIFIC OCEAN, I wonder if Pedro is considering a Christmas voyage. | |
| 21 | No agreement in a tight corner? (4) |
| NOOK – NO + OK (agreement) | |
| 22 | British tucking into breakfast food of an intellectual cast (8) |
| CEREBRAL – BR (British) inside (tucking into) CEREAL (breakfast food) | |
| 23 | Conservative remains ready (4) |
| CASH – C (Conservative) + ASH (remains), with “ready” being a slang term for money (perhaps more often encountered as the plural “readies”) | |
| 24 | Stone? Hate my rocks with stone (8) |
| AMETHYST – anagram of (rocks) HATE MY, + ST (stone). Chambers tells me that amethyst was “anciently supposed to prevent drunkenness” (and its name derives from a Greek expression meaning something like “not drunk”) – how do such beliefs get started when it’s surely very easy to give the lie to them? | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Pleasure seeker acts with child (7) |
| PLAYBOY – PLAY (acts, since a play generally consists of a number of acts) + BOY (child) | |
| 2 | I engaged in turning over underwhelming content of inbox (5) |
| EMAIL – I inside (engaged in) a reversal of (turning over) LAME (underwhelming) | |
| 3 | Get cast excited about airmen in theatrical skill (10) |
| STAGECRAFT – anagram of (excited) GET CAST, about RAF (airmen) | |
| 4 | Spot water that’s still liquid? (6) |
| NOTICE – if water is still liquid, then it is NOT ICE (conceivably also NOT STEAM, but NOTSTEAM is not a word nor does it fit into the space available) | |
| 6 | Struggle, having swallowed cocktail of rum in confusion (7) |
| TURMOIL – TOIL (Struggle) around (having swallowed) anagram (cocktail) of RUM | |
| 7 | Strength from male ousting female in contest (5) |
| MIGHT – fIGHT (contest), with M (male) replacing (ousting) the f (female) | |
| 10 | Very powerful potion men concocted by end of experiment (10) |
| OMNIPOTENT – anagram of (concocted) POTION MEN, + {experimen}T (end of experiment, i.e. the last letter of the word “experiment”) | |
| 14 | E.g. sock, squirming, may contain last of three lizards (7) |
| GECKOES – anagram of (squirming) E.G. SOCK, around (may contain) E (last of three, i.e. the last letter of the word “three”). If your sock is squirming in Crosswordland then you can be pretty sure that an anagram is afoot. | |
| 16 | Curl of hair in item of jewellery permitted (7) |
| RINGLET – RING (item of jewellery) + LET (permitted) | |
| 17 | First of six top people? A very funny person (6) |
| SCREAM – S (First of six, i.e. the first letter of the word “six”) + CREAM (top people) | |
| 18 | I doze, sitting up with cold fear (5) |
| PANIC – reversal of (sitting up) I + NAP (doze), + C (cold) | |
| 20 | A king arriving in fenland city ahead of time (5) |
| EARLY – A + R (king, i.e. rex) in ELY (fenland city). A bonus mince pie to Pedro for not using the normal ELY=see equivalence. Ely sits in a marshy area of England that also contains Cambridge (hence the nickname Fenland Poly for the university) and Peterborough. | |
IF is also the stock poem in Crosswordland, just as SHE is the stock novel and ET the stock film. Verb. sap.
Pleasant start to the week
PlayupPompey
Solved in 17 minutes (around average), LOI 9a, COD 21a.
Thanks to mohn for the informative blog.