I’m working today (again) and trying to type up the blog as I’m sat here, but I logged on at 7:30 this morning and have hardly had a chance to look at it yet! And they said weekend support should be pretty quiet this time!
Well, finally I got there! This was a cracking puzzle which took just under the half-hour for me, although I don’t remember getting really stuck at any point. I also don’t remember having any trouble with 12ac, but I can’t see how the wordplay worked at all today. I do remember reading the clue to 4ac and thinking I was in for a treat though.
Across |
1 |
HOCKEY – KEY (crucial) after HOC (Latin for this, which could loosely mean “the event” I suppose). |
4 |
BOWL OVER – “BOW LOVER”. |
10 |
NARRATIVE – NATIVE (Mother, as in motherland or mother tongue) around (c)ARR(y). |
11 |
TENET – straight definition + palindrome indicator. |
12 |
KIDNEY STONE – I’m sure I figured this out last week, but I can’t remember now. The definition is “calculus” (Latin for little stone). |
14 |
ADO – because A.D. 0 didn’t exist – the year after 1 BC was 1 AD. |
15 |
NESTFUL – (r)ESTFUL (still, failing to start) after N(ew). |
17 |
DEPOSE – DE(spot) (i.e. “spot”less) + PO(i)SE (heartless composure). |
19 |
ARMADA – hidden in “near Madagascan” |
21 |
CLEANSE – LEANS (is inclined) inside CE (church). |
23 |
AWN – FAWN (flatter) without the F for female. A bristle of barley. |
24 |
COLLAPSIBLE – CO + (bills leap)* |
26 |
TEMPI – T(ortois)E + [ I (one) + PM (afternoon) reversed ]. |
27 |
SUGAR CANE – alternate letters of “is, Jung” + ARCANE (mysterious). |
29 |
NONSENSE – NON (refusal of French) + SENSE (import, i.e. meaning). |
30 |
RETARD – (trader)* |
Down |
1 |
HONG KONG – HONK (sound of car horn) + GONG (bell), with a new meaning of “concatenating” for me. In computing, concatenate means “add to the end”, but the correct meaning is “linking together in a chain”. |
2 |
CARED – (s)CARED. |
3 |
ERA – middle letters of “men are sad”. |
5 |
ONEFOLD – double definition. |
6 |
LETTERPRESS – ER, PRES (heads of state briefly) inside LETTS (Latvians). |
7 |
VENIAL SIN – (in navel is)* |
8 |
RATION – I (one) inside A TON (a hundred), after (winte)R. |
9 |
MISSAL – A book of masses, hence “mass medium”, which sounds like the American pronunciation of “missile”. |
13 |
ENFRANCHISE – (her finances)* |
16 |
STRONGMAN – not sure why “able to work”. I think just the last two words would make an adequate cryptic definition. |
18 |
REVEREND – EVER (always) inside R.E. (scripture) + (a)ND. That’s a couple of times recently Spooner’s been invoked in a clue for something other than riding a well-boiled icicle or fighting a liar! |
20 |
ATLASES – SALT (sailor) in SEA (where he drowned), all reversed. |
21 |
CHARGE – quadruple definition. |
22 |
FASTEN – EN (EustoN without us to), after FAST (fare avoidance). |
25 |
BRAVA – i.e. a toast to Dame Nelly Melba, the Australian opera singer. |
28 |
RUE – sounds like “roo” (a type of bounder). |
This was one of a bad run of puzzles for me taking only a minute or two under 2 hours with a few references to the dictionary along the way.
I don’t really understand “event” = HOC or the overlapping concept re “concatenate” which I only knew as a spreadsheet function for joining one thing to another.
At 16dn I took “shower” as the definition, a sort of crossword clue style variation on “showman”. So “able to work” = STRONG and power = MAN as in “manpower”. Don’t know if it’s right but that was my reasoning.
Edited at 2013-07-27 02:31 pm (UTC)
I had trouble parsing a number of clues and still can’t quite accept the ‘gong’ bit of HONG KONG as a concatenation.
STRONGMAN occupied me for ages. I read it as ‘able’=strong+’to work’=man and ‘power shower’ as the def., but for some reason it doesn’t quite satisfy.
Good level for a Saturday, though.
My take on 16d is able = STRONG and work = MAN (?), but this is one if those where it would be nice to hear from the setter.
Edited at 2013-07-27 03:48 pm (UTC)
> 1ac HOCKEY. I think the parsing is that KEY comes after HOC, so it’s post-HOC, which is after the event. Too clever by half.
> KIDNEY STONE. Two obscurities for the price of one. My last in, based purely on checkers.
> HONG KONG. I just don’t buy it.
“Melba toast” is rather brilliant though.
Edited at 2013-07-28 01:17 pm (UTC)
Concatenate no problem, know both its meanings. In ancient times Unix had a CAT command.
Rob