When the first seven acrosses all went in at first glance, I hoped I was on for a fast time, perhaps even close to a record. But then – of course – the simple fact of having that thought meant that I lost the plot entirely and the SW corner stayed blank. I still finished in a fast-for-me time of 11:41. (Only to be told, “This puts you in position 6 of 6 for this puzzle” when I submitted it. Ho hum, it keeps me modest.)
My COD goes to ENTRANCEMENT, because I can never resist a pun.
Thanks to Joker for a fine puzzle.
Definitions underlined, synonyms in round brackets, wordplay in square brackets and deletions in strikethrough. Anagram indicators italicised in the clue, anagram fodder indicated like (this)*.
| Across | |
| 1 | Tribunal date officer announced (5,7) |
| COURT MARTIAL – COURT (date, as in woo), + a homophone [announced] of MARSHAL (officer). | |
| 8 | Cold season killing off first plant (5) |
| INTER – Both “plant” and “inter” mean “dig a hole and put the thing in”, but I’m not coming up with a sentence where they could be sensibly switched. At least, not without sounding like an actor in a third-rate gangster film. |
|
| 9 | Speech limit after Oscar (7) |
| ORATION – RATION (limit) after O (oscar in the NATO alphabet). | |
| 10 | Wow! Lovely ornamental moulding (7) |
| CORNICE – COR (wow) + NICE (lovely). | |
| 11 | Coming before head of house (5) |
| PRIOR – A double definition, the house in question being a priory. | |
| 12 | Wild garden hazard (6) |
| DANGER – (garden)* | |
| 14 | A small seabird at the rear of the ship (6) |
| ASTERN – A + S for small + TERN (seabird). | |
| 17 | Bottle never gets broken (5) |
| NERVE – (never)*
This was where my run of getting them all in a row came to an end. For some reason, I looked at this and didn’t spot any 5-letter possibilities for an anagram. Sigh. |
|
| 19 | Peter perhaps brewed top ales (7) |
| APOSTLE – (top ales)* | |
| 21 | First male worker in firm (7) |
| ADAMANT – ADAM (first male) + ANT (worker). | |
| 22 | Do be serious — that does contain fat (5) |
| OBESE – Hidden in [that does contain] |
|
| 23 | Down-to-earth subject in front of Mercian king and court (6-2-4) |
| MATTER-OF-FACT – MATTER (subject) + OFFA (Mercian king) + CT (court, as in a street address). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Unplanned rebuilding of a noted clinic (12) |
| COINCIDENTAL – (a noted clinic)* | |
| 2 | Deliver golf club without its head (5) |
| UTTER – |
|
| 3 | One of the social insects, they’re regularly seen with arachnid (7) |
| TERMITE – Every other letter [regularly] of ThEy’Re + MITE (an arachnid).
If you had asked me if a mite was an arachnid, I wouldn’t have had a clue. But it had to be, so I have learned something today. |
|
| 4 | Declared Authorized Version outstanding (6) |
| AVOWED – AV (standard abbreviation for the Authorized Version of the bible) + OWED (outstanding, as a debt). | |
| 5 | Derelict public transport vehicle close to dump (5) |
| TRAMP – TRAM (public transport vehicle) + last letter [close to] That’s the noun sense of ‘derelict’: ‘a person without a home, job, or property’ per Oxford Languages. |
|
| 6 | A serious error in English is foolish (7) |
| ASININE – A + SIN (serious error) + IN + E (English). | |
| 7 | Complete absorption of doorkeepers with time? (12) |
| ENTRANCEMENT – Doorkeepers could be ENTRANCE MEN, + T for Time.
Today’s entry for the Uxbridge English Dictionary. |
|
| 13 | Band’s vehicle caught in dreadful rain (7) |
| NIRVANA – VAN (vehicle) in (rain)* | |
| 15 | Attention seeker’s reason for returning tickets? (4-3) |
| SHOW-OFF – if the show is off, the tickets could be returned. | |
| 16 | Forcefully hit one in (6) |
| BATTER – Double definition, the second being from cricket: when one is batting, one is “in”. | |
| 18 | Force out former performers in light entertainment (5) |
| EXACT – EX (former) + ACT (performers in light entertainment).
I pencilled in EVICT here first without being able to parse it fully (although I had thoughts of the Old Vic), but ADAMANT forced me to rethink it, fortunately. |
|
| 20 | Particular thanks in letter from abroad (5) |
| THETA – THE (particular) + TA (thanks).
I think ‘the’ for ‘particular’ is in the sense of singling out one instance of a class of objects or people: “it’s not any old book on the subject, it is THE book on the subject”. |
|
I found a lot of that quite tricky, not least because I thought “Well it has to be ‘court marshal’ but it can’t be cos there’s a T in the wrong place”. Perhaps I’d do better at this if I learned to spell. Oh well, I won’t complain at 18:56 for a Joker.
Thank you for the blog!
Very nice puzzle.
Certainly in the minority getting ENTRANCEMENT straight away. I was immediately suspicious of why ‘doorkeepers’ was used in the clue rather than a more frequent term. On the flip side COINCIDENTAL was last in with the NW corner causing me the only trouble on this. Not helped by being convinced 8a had to begin with a C. Sometimes the clues can be too helpful.
Favourites today: NIRVANA, ORATION
NHO: AV=authorised version
Thanks setter and blogger
22 minutes.
Another day when I look at the times of others and wonder where I go wrong.
Forced into SCC by ENTRANCEMENT, but was already struggling. INTER, COURT MARTIAL and MATTER OF FACT took ages.
I’m afraid I can’t stop regarding this as a competition in which I am ill-prepared to succeed.
Got about half (17) on the 15 x 15 in 1.5 hours. That just about sums up where I am with these impenetrable puzzles! ☹️