This one took me 15:39, a touch over my average time, but as I came to write the blog I couldn’t put my finger on anything in particular that held me up. I guess some days are just slower than others.
To my shame, I missed the two gimmes on the top row until I had crossers. I spotted how 1ac worked quickly, but then the only four-letter president I could bring to mind was Taft. Good grief.
My first one today was ADDLE, where I had a MER at D for Date that still hasn’t gone down, and my last one was PHASE, once I eventually stopped trying to shoe-horn in an “F” for “loudly”.
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 | In the morning ex-president put together attack (6) |
| AMBUSH – A.M. (in the morning) + BUSH (pick either of the US presidents). | |
| 4 | Spa season (6) |
| SPRING – A double definition. | |
| 8 | Socialist accepting flag is no long working (7) |
| RETIRED – RED (socialist) including [accepting] TIRE (flag). | |
| 10 | Muddle two dates in beer (5) |
| ADDLE – DD (two dates(?)) in ALE (beer)
I’m struggling to find a usage where D means date. Anyone? |
|
| 11 | Moved through water with one religious leader (5) |
| SWAMI – SWAM (moved through water) + I (one). | |
| 12 | Intervenes as returning favourites offend (5,2) |
| STEPS IN – PETS (favourites), reversed [returning] + SIN (offend, as a verb). | |
| 13 | Part of vicar’s garb involved coral and gold (3,6) |
| DOG COLLAR – (coral gold)*
And there I was trying to bring all the names of the vestments to mind, but it’s easier than I thought. |
|
| 17 | Power likely to be flexible (7) |
| PLIABLE – P (power) + LIABLE (likely)
Liable and likely aren’t quite synonyms in my book: something that’s “likely” to cause an accident is more dangerous than something that is “liable” to cause an accident. But it’s close enough. |
|
| 19 | Copper snapped old measure (5) |
| CUBIT – CU (chemical symbol for copper) + BIT (snapped).
Ancient measure of length, equal to the length of a forearm. |
|
| 20 | Transparent top covers middle of saucer (5) |
| LUCID – LID (top) is around (covers) the middle two letters of A lucid explanation is easy to understand. Transparent works for me as a near-enough synonym. |
|
| 21 | Time permit is justifiable (7) |
| TENABLE – T for time + ENABLE (permit). | |
| 22 | Exterior of seemingly staunch organisation (6) |
| SYSTEM – Outer two letters [exterior] of S Today I learned that what I thought I knew about the difference between “staunch” (as in “staunch ally”) and “stanch” (as in “stanch the flow of blood from a cut”) is completely undermined by having “staunch” as an alternative spelling of “stanch”. Humph. |
|
| 23 | Extorts prison officers (6) |
| SCREWS – Double definition.
I’m happy to say that I don’t move in the circles where I would know if this is still the term for prison officers. It summons up Porridge for me. |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Once more a villein upset Henry (6) |
| AFRESH – A [in the clue] + SERF (villein) reversed [upset] + H for Henry.
H is the symbol for the SI unit the “henry”, which measures electrical inductance. |
|
| 2 | Relocate cabins despite assortment of things (4,3,6) |
| BITS AND PIECES – (cabins despite)* | |
| 3 | Classifying gold gathered in police operation (7) |
| SORTING – OR (gold, from heraldry) inside [gathered in] STING (police operation).
“Gold” is almost always “OR” or “AU”. |
|
| 5 | Worry loudly for period (5) |
| PHASE – Homonym clue, indicated by “loudly”. Sounds like “faze”, which can mean “worry”.
This felt very familiar, so I checked: I had the same word clued in the same way two blogs ago, on November 5th. |
|
| 6 | Unspeakable barb I’d silence roughly (13) |
| INDESCRIBABLE – (barb I’d silence)* | |
| 7 | Politicians start to glean rising expression of contempt (6) |
| GREENS – First letter [start to] G |
|
| 9 | Attractive person on East Street is untrustworthy (9) |
| DISHONEST – DISH (attractive person) ON [in the clue] E (east) ST (street).
Does anyone actually say “dish” for “attractive person” these days? |
|
| 14 | Having little to say as the French swindle leaders of international committee (7) |
| LACONIC – LA [“the” in French], CON (swindle), first letters [leaders] of I |
|
| 15 | Overturns items for lighting candles (6) |
| SPILLS – A third double definition | |
| 16 | Parents taking minute for rest (6) |
| OTHERS – This one sent me completely the wrong way: I was looking to add M into a 5-letter word for parents and get something that meant “have a lie down”. Great PDM when it finally clicked, “oh, rest as in remainder. Of course.”. |
|
| 18 | Ordered to accept good mark (5) |
| BADGE – BADE (ordered) including G for good. | |
Poor performance on 15 x 15 (again comparatively easy according to Snitch). Well over an hour and failed by two, both of which were perfectly gettable.
Bad day. First DNF for some while.😠
I was puzzled by “no long working”. Maybe it was a misprint but I see you have it in the blog. Does it make any sense?
No – I’m sure it’s a misprint for longer
I never noticed! My brain and eyes just skated over the typo. As did everyone else’s, since you’re the first to point it out.
cough
Catching up with this on my return from Preston (cf. elsewhere!). Mostly lovely, thank you Alex – but SW corner took a while, and couldn’t bring myself to write in OTHERS (only word that seems to fit) though = rest, but what about the parents and the minute? I’ll ask the good Doofers, and sadly have to accept a DNF.
Oh, “taking” = removing … how slow of me. Humph. Thanks.