I worked my way through this one relatively easily until I was just left with 23ac, which took me an absolute age to see (I spent longer on this one clue than the rest of the puzzle combined). It’s not that tricky a clue – I just must have a blindspot for that particular lady’s name. Very strange.
Anyway, an enjoyable offering with plenty of different clue types, a bit of GK required (a PM from the 1930s and a 1970 movie), a neat little trick at 20ac of the type often seen in the 15×15 but less frequently found in the QC, and a very nice splash of wit at 14dn.
Thanks to Flamande – look forward to seeing how you all got on.
Definitions underlined: DD = double definition: anagrams indicated by (–): omitted letters indicated by {-}
| Across | |
| 1 | Frontier having British command (6) |
| BORDER – B (British) + ORDER (command) | |
| 4 | Pencil, perhaps, and where it might be kept? (6) |
| DRAWER – DD | |
| 8 | Encourage to listen at news time? (7) |
| HEARTEN – HEAR (to listen) + TEN (news time – as in the “News at Ten” flagship current affairs programmes on both ITV and BBC). Not sure whether broadcasters in other nations share the British penchant for 22.00 news shows: if not, this clue might be a bit baffling for our friends overseas… | |
| 10 | Loud songs in places of entertainment (5) |
| FAIRS – F (loud – musical terminology) + AIRS (songs) | |
| 11 | Crime taking place in parsonage (5) |
| ARSON – Hidden in (taking place in) pARSONage | |
| 12 | More important kitchen item, you could say (7) |
| GREATER – Sounds like (you could say) GRATER (kitchen item – or, in my case, “device for painfully removing skin from knuckles”) | |
| 13 |
Willing to change a flat around, with addition of piece of furniture (9) |
| ADAPTABLE – A + PAD reversed (flat around) + TABLE (with addition of piece of furniture) | |
| 17 | Sensible recruit takes refuge in pub (7) |
| LOGICAL – GI (recruit) inside (takes refuge in) LOCAL (pub) | |
| 19 | Instrument, old, at rear of brother’s room (5) |
| CELLO – O (old) is ‘at the rear of’ CELL (brother’s – i.e. monk’s – room) | |
| 20 | Locatin’ protest (3-2) |
| SIT-IN – SITIN{G} (locating with the G dropped), giving us the preferred form of protest by students in the ’60s and ’70s | |
| 21 |
Conservative PM finally secured victory after setback for Labour (7) |
| BALDWIN – D (finally secureD) + WIN (victory) ‘after’ LAB reversed (setback for Labour). Stanley of that ilk, who frequently crops up in pub quiz nights as the only PM to have served under three different monarchs. | |
| 22 | Fish — variety of trout — nibbling bait at first (6) |
| TURBOT – *(TROUT) – with “variety of” signalling the anagram – and B also in the mix (nibbling Bait at first) | |
| 23 | Woman sitting on bike or horse, mostly (6) |
| ASTRID – ASTRID{e} (mostly – i.e. without the last letter – sitting on bike or horse). For reasons I cannot now fathom, this took me an age to spot. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | One way to punish live leader? (6) |
| BEHEAD – BE (live) + HEAD (leader) | |
| 2 | Film disrupted Hungary’s trade (5,8) |
| RYANS DAUGHTER – *(HUNGARYS TRADE) with “disrupted” signposting the anagram. Classic 1970 drama that had a big impact on me when I saw it as a 15 year old – but I wonder how well known it is to younger solvers? | |
| 3 | Land crumbling into sea (7) |
| ESTONIA – *(INTO SEA) with “crumbling” signalling the anagram | |
| 5 | Weapon held up by rebel first (5) |
| RIFLE – Reverse hidden in (held up by) rebEL FIRst | |
| 6 | Referee, perhaps, who gives the game away? (7-6) |
| WHISTLE-BLOWER – DD | |
| 7 | Place such as Bournemouth put in order again (6) |
| RESORT – If you put something in order again, you might be said to “re-sort” it | |
| 9 | Big lunch organised round front of this cabaret venue (9) |
| NIGHTCLUB – *(BIG LUNCH) – with “organised” signalling the anagram – and T (front of This) also in the mix | |
| 14 | Lacking dollars, mostly gives in (7) |
| BUCKLES – BUCK-LES{s} (lacking dollars, mostly). Witty wordplay – my clue of the day. | |
| 15 | Small room near end of apartment (6) |
| CLOSET – CLOSE (near) + T (end of apartmenT) | |
| 16 | One lad becoming excited, given advance (6) |
| LOANED – *(ONE LAD) with “becoming excited” indicating the anagram | |
| 18 | River captured in Vietcong offensive (5) |
| CONGO – Hidden in VietCONG Offensive | |
jackkt
Oct. 10th, 2017 06:19 pm (local)
Rhotician
Not sure whether the word actually exists but it’s a reference to ‘rhotic’which is defined as: Phonetics
Relating to or denoting a dialect or variety of English (e.g. in most of the US and southwestern England) in which r is pronounced before a consonant (as in hard) and at the ends of words (as in far). ‘rhotic and non-rhotic speakers’
The homophone here is ‘garner’ which contains two Rs, which if one or other or both are prounced by a rhotician does not sound the same as ‘Ghana’ which contains none.
Edited at 2017-10-10 06:21 pm (local)
No idea what time the news plays at this end of the world, let alone the other—haven’t watched it in years. I’ve heard of Not the Nine O’Clock News though, so I was slightly confused for a second
And the only Baldwins I’ve heard of are the American actors
My time of 8:32 was respectable, as I nipped my befuddled US fellow-solver by about a minute. I haven’t been doing well in Quickies lately, and carefully checking for typos adds about 30 seconds.
LOI the vaguely familiar movie from the long anagram.
The others that held me up were border (was looking for frontier + B = command.
hearten, behead, and Estonia.
COD close call but adaptable over buckles.
Despite being a big fan of David Lean’s films I have never seen ‘Ryan’s Daughter’. It was a huge box-office success but did not find favour with the critics, especially in the US where they savaged it and as a result Lean didn’t make another film for 14 years.
Edited at 2017-10-11 05:37 am (UTC)
LOI 23ac ASTRID should be bike only – strictly speaking ladies ride horses side-saddle – methink!
Bit on the tough side but I should have been under ten.
COD 3dn ESTONIA
WOD none
Also not a fan of film titles, though at least it was an anagram.
I liked 6dn and 14dn, very witty.
Finished (apart from Astrid) by London Bridge.
Thanks for the blog, Nick.
Templar
I am not enough of a film pundit to have a firm view as to whether Ryan’s Daughter is a “classic” movie (in the way that, say, Oliver Twist would probably be generally regarded as a classic novel). From (roughly) the same era, I’d have thought Easy Rider or The Graduate would probably qualify as classics – maybe Ryan’s Duaghter is a bit of an edge case, but let’s not be too hard on the setters!
Edited at 2017-10-11 11:50 am (UTC)
About 15 mins for me, no real problems but biffed in BEDSIT for 15d and BALFOUR for 21a which took a while to sort out. ASTRID was not a problem although I must admit it is hard to think of a famous one. Google throws up those two well known celebreties Astrid Lindgren, (a Sweedish writer) and Astrid Kerchherr (a German photographer)
Edited at 2017-10-11 10:24 am (UTC)
Edited at 2017-10-11 08:11 pm (UTC)
I had to wait until I had most of the checkers to get the unknown film (I was born in the 70s) and I couldn’t parse 13a as I was trying to make an anagram out of flat for the 1st four letters.
LOI 1d. Lots of excellent clues including 8a and 23a.
Thanks for the blog
Edited at 2017-10-11 01:24 pm (UTC)
Re: cultural clues, it would be good to see some more modern classics — films and books — in the crosswords. TRAINSPOTTING, any setter?!
Thanks Nick and Flamande for an enjoyable half-hour.
Of course, the exception to this is the Sunday Times cryptic (my favourite) which is a bit “racier” (though these things are relative!) and in particular does not follow the “dead people” convention. Thus Tina Turner and Michael Palin both cropped up in the ST a couple of Sundays ago, and there is often a liberal scattering of very contemporary street slang (particularly from drug culture and gangster rap) to spice things up (and cause irritation to some). If you do not already do so, you might want to start having a crack at the ST on a regular basis and see if it is more to your taste.
Love the daily Quick, though; not too fussed if it never leaps into the 21st century. Life moves fast enough!
I thought this quite a challenging QC but at least had no major hold-ups (unlike yesterday). When you just can’t see what to others is obvious…
I recall an Astrid in the life of The Beatles but not a common name in England.
David
20 mins or so across two sittings. DNK the film, but nothing else too taxing. I like SIT-IN as COD, good to see rarer clue constructs as this.
Tony.C.
Only hold-up was thinking a ‘big lunch’ was ‘club’ as in sandwich and missing the anagram. Don’t even know if this definition would be acceptable as presumably a club sandwich could be eaten any time of day??
Astrid didn’t elude me, but of course women ride astride horses in my book ….
Thank you to blogger and Flamande