Solving time 15:28, so fairly straightforward considering it’s a pangram, as they are often quite tricky. As I had a bit of time on my hands today, I’ve decided to introduce a small innovation that readers of Fifteensquared will be familiar with – hover over the clue number and the clue will appear. I think I might introduce this permanently in my blogs from now on (when time permits), as it’s hard to remember what the clue was from a week ago when you’re just given the wordplay.
Across |
1 |
WHITE MAGIC – I (one) + GAME (pastime) inside (witch)*, &lit. |
7 |
AFRO – hidden inside permafrost. |
9 |
HOSPITAL – (this OAP)* + L(arge). |
10 |
IMPALE – I(ce-crea)M + PALE (pasty). |
11 |
MISLAY – M1 (road) + SLAY (kill). |
13 |
IGNORANT – (s)IGNOR(a) (d)ANT(e), i.e. SIGNORA DANTE (Dante’s wife), with the ends removed from both words. |
14 |
LAST JUDGMENT – LAST (final) + JUDGMENT (sentence). |
17 |
INTROVERSION – VERSION (model) behind INTRO (bars to start with). |
20 |
DIHEDRAL – DI (girl) + (her lad)*. |
21 |
CASALS – CASA (Spanish for house) + L(ie)S. I could only think of a couple of famous Pablos, and PICASSO doesn’t fit! |
22 |
IN TOTO – IN (at home) + TOTO (Dorothy’s dog in The Wizard of Oz). |
23 |
QUIXOTIC – double definition, the second one whimsical. |
25 |
BASK – AS (whilst) inside BK (abbreviation for book). |
26 |
TOY SOLDIER – cryptic definition. |
Down |
2 |
HOOLIGAN – “hooley” (party broadcast) + alternate letters of granny. |
3 |
TUP – PUT (threw weight, i.e. shot put) reversed. |
4 |
MATEY – MATE (a type of Paraguayan tea) + (sympath)Y. |
5 |
GELDING – GEL (lass who’s posh) + DING(y) (dim almost). |
6 |
CLIENTELE – (I, excellent)*, losing the X for ten. |
7 |
APPARATUSES – PA (old man) reversed + PAUSES (has a rest), around RAT (canary, both synonyms for an informer). |
8 |
RELENT – RECENT (happening not long ago), changing the C to L (i.e. Conservative to Labour). |
12 |
LATTICEWORK – (Walk, trot)* around ICE (frozen surface). |
15 |
UTTERMOST – UTTER (say) + MOST (mass). |
16 |
POOLSIDE – SID (bloke) inside POOLE (seaside town, in Dorset). |
18 |
OBLOQUY – O(ld) + BUY (corrupt, e.g. bribe) around first letters of “leave office quitting”. Tricky wordplay that I only figured out while doing the blog. |
19 |
ZINNIA – Z (unknown) + IN N.I. (in Northern Ireland) + A(rderin). |
21 |
CHINO – CHINOOK (Indian) without OK (fine). |
24 |
OLD – alternate letters of collude. |
Love the innovation, linxit. Doesn’t it take a long time to do?
It’s probably been suggested before, but wouldn’t it be helpful if the online puzzle included a saveable jotter pad. It sounds feasible. It would be useful for solving (I always have a text editor window open for jotting anyway when solving online) and it would be somewhere to save your thoughts on a puzzle where you wouldn’t have to go digging for them later. I realise it wouldn’t help paper solvers, but at least they can keep a stack of previous puzzles to hand.
I don’t recall your jotter pad suggestion being mentioned when Peter first put together a list of suggestions for the redesign of the Times Crossword Club site. I never solve online myself (except for the quick crosswords) so it’s of no interest to me. I always print them out, then scan in the completed puzzles as PDFs.
(i) LAST JUDGMENT; it just didn’t look right, though I see my Chambers does not capitalise “last judgement”; so Last Judgment must be the one we’re all waiting for.
(ii) Took a while to parse APPARATUSES. I don’t think I knew that apparatus had a plural, and I thought that canary was alluding to someone who wore a yellow uniform. (Have I imagined it, or did nursing auxiliaries used to wear yellow and get called canaries?). Or, given the arch reference to “Friend of Dorothy”, I did wonder whether it might be rhyming slang.
I’ve only ever met DIHEDRAL as an angle in aircraft design.
Liked CASALS, which was clever, and HOOLIGAN for the image of Giles’s Grandma setting about the television after a party political broadcast.
Being able to see the clues again is a brilliant innovation; thank you for that.
Sadly I discovered, only after submission, that I couldn’t spell obloquy.
More famous Pablos: Neruda, Escobar..
Re the clues, Andy, how do you do it exactly? surely not retyping all the clues? They are easy to capture in digital form of course, and maybe could be pasted into a spreadsheet in order. Whether I could do that at midnight is another matter, but it might suit for the Club Monthly.
Edited at 2012-09-29 12:45 pm (UTC)
In place of the clue number (in this case: 7), use the following code, but with HTML angle-brackets in place of the square brackets:
[span title=”Barnet’s gripped by permafrost (4)”]7[/span]
> CASTLE instead of CASALS. Pablo is a Spanish name, CASTILE might be where he lives… I’ll get me coat.
> OBLIQUY. A combination of not being able to spell and rushing too much to look at the wordplay properly.
> TOY POODLES. I didn’t know a terrier was a soldier, and the absence of that knowledge makes the clue pretty much impossible. This was the best I could come up with.
Thankfully I picked the right unknown for 19dn: XINNIA, YINNIA or NINNIA would have made it four.
I very much like the innovation, linxit. Very handy indeed, particularly for a prize puzzle.
Edited at 2012-09-29 02:45 pm (UTC)
Also, the remind-a-clue bit is very nice.
Thanks,
Thoughtful in London
See the Wikipedia entry for ‘Rhyming slang’.
Afro is a hairstyle.
Nick M
Thoughtful in London
Baulked at first on “kebab” as a verb (10ac) but it seems it’s OK. Also not familiar with the canary/rat thing (7dn) — outwith any of my dialects.
Edited at 2012-09-30 06:59 am (UTC)