Salut tout le monde. This is my debut blog as the new every-other-Friday-quickie blog-wallah, and it’s a proud moment indeed. The hardest part of the process so far has been trying to find a LiveJournal username that isn’t already taken. At the 3,000th attempt, I settled on one that alludes to my day job, one with a proud tradition of crosswording.
I rather wish the quick cryptic existed 30 years ago, when I started. Back then I had to make do with getting two answers on the 15 x 15 and waiting 24hrs to find out that they were both wrong. And we had to lick t’ road clean with our tongues.
I shall try not to comment on difficulty, as that is always in the eye of the beholder. This one took me 8 minutes. None particularly stand out but I guess 11ac is interesting in its way
| Across | |
| 1 | Son has to acquire money for a bet (5) |
| STAKE – S for son + TAKE | |
| 7 | Bad enamel breaking up is open to being put right (9) |
| AMENDABLE – anagram of BAD ENAMEL | |
| 9 | Mine ore endlessly that’s inferior (5) |
| MINOR – MINE and ORE without their ends | |
| 10 | Demonstrated calibre briefly in French language (9) |
| PROVENCAL – PROVEN (demonstrated) and CAL (short for calibre) | |
| 11 | Money we earn in eastern parts? (3) |
| YEN – The last letters (‘eastern parts’) of moneY wE earN | |
| 12 | Nought prospers with reforming tyrant (9) |
| OPPRESSOR – O (nought) plus an anagram of PROSPERS | |
| 14 | Repented being wrong about a key earlier legal case (9) |
| PRECEDENT – anagram (‘being wrong’) of REPENTED with C inside. As well as suggesting musical notes A-G, ‘key’ often now refers to you computer keyboard: ‘alt’, ‘esc’ ‘del’ etc. | |
| 16 | Beer is light with no head (3) |
| ALE – PALE minus its head | |
| 18 | Failure of short holiday away from university (9) |
| BREAKDOWN – BREAK + DOWN. You are ‘up’ at university for some reason. | |
| 20 | Go with the current meaning (5) |
| DRIFT – Double definition, if you get my drift. | |
| 21 | Playing tennis I have concentrated (9) |
| INTENSIVE – anagram (‘playing’) of TENNIS plus IVE (‘I have’) | |
| 22 | Like, maybe, a setter’s party — good and extremely gay (5) |
| DOGGY – DO (party) G (good) GY (‘extremely’ i.e. the expremes of gay). ‘Setter’ usually means either the dog or the person setting the crossword, where it refers to the first person in some way | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Just using cunning when catching little devil (6) |
| SIMPLY – SLY ‘catching’ IMP | |
| 2 | Article naming word to fix statement (12) |
| ANNOUNCEMENT – AN (article) NOUN (naming word) CEMENT (fix) | |
| 3 | Listening device open, hear poorly (8) |
| EARPHONE – anagram (‘poorly’) of OPEN HEAR | |
| 4 | Get back with Royal Engineers over military takeover (6) |
| RECOUP – RE (Royal Engineers) COUP (military takeover) | |
| 5 | Starts to employ dogs guarding European border (4) |
| EDGE – Employ Dogs Guarding European | |
| 6 | Reported vendor offering stock of wine (6) |
| CELLAR – sounds like (‘reported’) SELLER | |
| 8 | Vigorously hearty rugby players drinking like animals (12) |
| BACKSLAPPING – BACKS + LAPPING | |
| 13 | Former partner was likely to be drawn out (8) |
| EXTENDED – EX (former partner) + TENDED (was likely to) | |
| 14 | Left in charge after bar’s open (6) |
| PUBLIC – L (left) + IC (in charge) after PUB (bar) | |
| 15 | Superhero, tickled, keeps arousing excitement (6) |
| EROTIC – hidden word superhERO TICkled | |
| 17 | Head of corn belonging to you once covered in soil (6) |
| EARTHY – EAR (corn) + THY (‘belonging to you’, once) | |
| 19 | Gentle sort (4) |
| KIND – double definition | |
I was home in 6.32 so I’d say easy-ish and it is Friday after all.
COD 10ac PROVENCAL
WOD DOGGY
Thought for the Day:- Where I comes from, if you lick t’road clean it is with ‘us’ tongues and not our tongues.
A nice puzzle to end the week completed here in 9 minutes so I’ve finished within my 10 minute target every day – something that doesn’t happen very often. I would however make a request that compilers give us a break from references to dogs, setters (and Venetian magistrates) for a while.
Edited at 2017-06-30 07:33 am (UTC)
I enjoyed that despite a valiant effort to make the 13 letters of PRONOUNCEMENT fit into the 12 squares available for 2dn … LOI was YEN and I still didn’t understand it till I read the blog – I thought it must have something to do with reading the last three letters of “money” backwards, i.e. from the east. But now I see and that makes it my COD.
Thanks to Joker too.
Templar
Ps there’s a typo in the blog for DOGGY – it says “expremes” for “extremes”
Quite liked the surface for EROTIC
Miraculously, the cleaner came to sweep this week for me, so thanks Joker and other setters.
Welcome curarist and I think this is a good moment to thank all the bloggers, both here and on the 15×15, for generously giving their time and sharing expertise.
I’m enjoying my apprenticeship.
CsOD: 1d and 8d
Unlike today’s 15 x 15, this was a very soft Friday indeed, and I came in at 6:51. Not a single misstep, although a rather strange blind spot to the obvious ‘kind’.
Today’s puzzle was another elegant and enjoyable puzzle from Joker; lots of excellent surfaces as usual. I was slow to get 8d and tried Earpiece at 3d which meant that 12a was my LOI.
All done in 14 minutes. COD to 22a. David
Very tough going as a few dead ends such as DODGY, REPRESSOR. And I know AMENABLE was the wrong number of letters, but could not get it out of my head.
Welcome curarist.
I made hard work of this due, in the main, to having a brainfreeze in the NW. For some reason I simply couldn’t get my head round 1d and 9a and missing the anagram at 3d didn’t help either.
Got there in the end with a rather tardy 24 minutes