Some slightly uncommon vocabulary in this puzzle from Orpheus. I just beat my target time of 15:00, stopping the clock at 14:57.
My FOI was LINEN, and I’d guess I got about half on my first pass. There was some general knowledge that was new to me, such as the peahen – pheasant relationship and the Jordanian port.
After the first few solvers, the QUITCH is showing this as a little on the easier side (currently at 94), but it felt trickier than that to me.
Definitions underlined, synonyms in round brackets, wordplay in square brackets and deletions in strikethrough.
| Across | |
| 1 | Modicum of news ultimately of importance (10) |
| SMATTERING – |
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| 7 | Legal right to stock new bedding (5) |
| LINEN – LIEN (legal right) holding [to stock] N. | |
| 8 | Way Republican president once is for industrial action (6) |
| STRIKE – ST (Street: Way) + R (Republican) + IKE (nickname of Eisenhower, president once). | |
| 10 | Pointless, giving up one’s commercial vehicle (3) |
| VAN – VA |
|
| 12 | Helicopter, say, used by good participant in shoot (9) |
| EGGBEATER – E.G. (say) + G (good) + BEATER (participant in shoot).
I hadn’t come across this meaning of ‘eggbeater’, but once my mind gave me the right sort of ‘shoot’ (“oh, not a photo-shoot, then”), it couldn’t be anything else, since I already had the leading E and needed to get the G for Good in there somehow. |
|
| 13 | Suggestion to leader of expedition — move stealthily (6) |
| TIPTOE – TIP (suggestion) + TO (errr, to) + E |
|
| 14 | Writer consuming a governor’s pheasant (6) |
| PEAHEN – PEN (writer) with A + HE (His/Her Excellency)
It’s worth remembering HE for governor: setters seem to reach for it quite often. I had to take it on trust that a peahen is a type of pheasant. Looking it up, I find that “Pavo is a genus of two species in the pheasant family. The two species, along with the Congo peafowl, are known as peafowl.” [wikipedia] So there you go. |
|
| 17 | Sadly I spoilt an artist’s materials (3,6) |
| OIL PAINTS – Anagram [sadly] of I SPOILT AN.
This anagram was made easier for me by the presence of “OIL” in the anagram fodder. |
|
| 19 | Huge Arabian bird’s tail not seen on stone (3) |
| ROC – ROC As featured in the story of Sinbad the Sailor in the Arabian Nights. |
|
| 20 | In this way delicate fabric brings comfort (6) |
| SOLACE – SO (in this way) + LACE (delicate fabric) | |
| 21 | Boredom in French island engulfing Greek character (5) |
| ENNUI – EN (French for ‘in’: ‘in French’) + I for island around [engulfing] NU (Greek letter / character).
I biffed this one and then immediately thought, “but wait, French for ‘island’ is ‘ILE'”. So I didn’t trust that this was right until I’d got all the crossers and then I re-parsed, attaching ‘French’ to ‘in’ instead of to ‘island’. |
|
| 23 | Teacher in biblical story deserving forgiveness (10) |
| PARDONABLE – DON (teacher) in PARABLE (biblical story). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Drooling of one covered by divine deliverance (10) |
| SALIVATION – I (one) inside [covered by] SALVATION (divine deliverance). | |
| 2 | Bristle Labour leader removed from grassy area (3) |
| AWN – I couldn’t have defined AWN if you had asked me to when I started the puzzle. But somehow there it was when I needed it, after I had rejected G |
|
| 3 | Fruit foreign to a glen (7) |
| TANGELO – Anagram [foreign] of TO A GLEN. | |
| 4 | Stop working on indicator board perhaps (6) |
| RESIGN – RE (on) + SIGN (indicator board perhaps). | |
| 5 | Like ancient Scandinavia, and not the Kent area (5) |
| NORSE – NOR (and not) + SE (south east, where Kent is in the UK.)
NOR as in “Neither this nor that”, which is equivalent to “not this and not that”. |
|
| 6 | Person drawing small sailing vessel with hesitation (8) |
| SKETCHER – S (small) + KETCH (sailing vessel) + ER (hesitation). | |
| 9 | Copy out letters from crest in bar (10) |
| TRANSCRIBE – Anagram of [letters from] CREST IN BAR.
I debated whether the definition should be just “copy” and the anagram indicator “out letters from”, but I think this way works better. Feel free to disagree. |
|
| 11 | Emperor in France not carrying a big stick! (8) |
| NAPOLEON – NON (not, as in non-functional meaning not working) holding [carrying] A POLE (a big stick).
I initially parsed this with NON being French for “no”, but that pesky “t” on “not” meant that didn’t work: French for “not” is “pas”. |
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| 15 | Asian plant in European town ultimately (7) |
| EASTERN – ASTER (plant) in E (European) + Asia is east of the UK. Solvers in other parts of the world would go in different directions to reach Asia. |
|
| 16 | Trendy exploit? Absolutely (6) |
| INDEED – IN (trendy) + DEED (exploit). | |
| 18 | Question a graduate south of a Jordanian port (5) |
| AQABA – Q (question, as in Q1) + A BA (a graduate), all after [south of] another A.
I was reasonably sure I’d heard of Aqaba, although I didn’t know that it was in Jordan nor that it was a port. So add two more to the count of things I’ve learned today. Three more, if you include the spelling, which the clue made clear. |
|
| 22 | Writer’s book supporting part of UK (3) |
| NIB – B (book) beneath [supporting] NI (Northern Ireland, part of the UK). | |
NHO AQABA but it was obvious from the setters and the parse. Wasn’t aware of the peahen / pheasant connection either, also couldn’t work out why vain was pointless, even though it had to be. Not quite sure why I couldn’t bring to mind “a vain attempt to get home before the rain…” to explain it. The rest was pretty straightforward.