11:39. Another fine puzzle from Dean. Nothing too difficult, but a few unusual words that required attention to wordplay. My last in was 9d, where the answer seemed obvious but the wordplay certainly wasn’t and I didn’t want to put the answer in without understanding it. I got there after a minute or two.
Definitions are underlined, anagrams indicated like (TIHS)*, anagram indicators are in italics.
Across | |
1 | One boards alone travelling by air? |
EOLIAN – I in (ALONE)*. Variant of AEOLIAN, ‘of or relating to the wind; produced or carried by the wind’, derived from |
|
4 | Bird or dog similar to pig |
CURASSOW – CUR, AS, SOW. I didn’t know this bird, so derived it from wordplay. Sadly there doesn’t seem to be a blue variety. | |
10 | Various things wrong in barbaric boxing clubs |
BRIC-A-BRAC – (BARBARIC)* containing C. | |
11 | Stay at the front? |
TRUCE – CD. Stay as in ‘stay of execution’. | |
12 | Weapon hauls shocking, but bishop is fine |
WINCHESTER RIFLE – WINCHES, then TERRIBLE with the B (bishop) changed to F (fine). Neat! | |
13 | Trickle from river (from mouth) |
OOZE – sounds like ‘Ouse’. | |
14 | Using saws right to crack pistachio nuts |
APHORISTIC – (PISTACHIO)* containing R. A saw here being ‘a wise saying, maxim, or proverb’. | |
17 | Our home’s an unusually large residence |
MANOR HOUSE – (OUR HOMES AN)*. | |
19 | Overload one’s hire car |
TAXI – TAX, I. | |
22 | A concern for the old ticker? |
BIOLOGICAL CLOCK – I’m not quite sure how to parse this, but I think ‘ticker’ is just what you might call a ‘cryptic hint’ helping guide you to a clock. | |
23 | Enough anarchy to grip this country |
GHANA – contained in ‘enough anarchy’. | |
24 | I hold back, assuming it’s begun |
INITIATED – I, reversal of DETAIN containing IT. | |
25 | Horse featured in problematical film |
THE STING – T(H)ESTING. | |
26 | A digger oddly worried |
ON EDGE – ONE, D |
Down | |
1 | Space to drop anchor mounted under barge |
ELBOW ROOM – ELBOW (barge), reversal of MOOR. In my twenties I spent more hours than I would care to admit in a pool bar of this name in Notting Hill. | |
2 | Garland trade welcomes new man of great learning |
LEIBNIZ – LEI B(N)IZ. | |
3 | A way to get variable interest? No |
APATHY – A, PATH, Y. | |
5 | Drunk must conceal wine, which is novel |
UNCLE TOMS CABIN – (MUST CONCEAL)*, BIN. A BIN is a storage place but also ‘one particular bottling of wine’ (Collins). | |
6 | A bodybuilder’s heavenly body |
ASTEROID – A STEROID. | |
7 | Die of seizure after joke’s backfired |
SNUFF IT – reversal of FUN’S, FIT. | |
8 | In place of whiskey, have this |
WHERE – W, HERE. ‘Here’ being something you might say when you hand something to someone. | |
9 | Belief in, say, pinning down |
PRESUPPOSITION – PRE(SUP)POSITION. ‘In’ being a preposition, and ‘sup’ meanting to eat or ‘down’. | |
15 | Bird, young one, on a river |
CHICKADEE – CHICK, A, DEE. | |
16 | Turn back, breaking rank as superior |
ARROGANT – reversal of GO (turn) in ARRANT. | |
18 | Gas caused distress for baby |
NEONATE – NEON, ATE. | |
20 | Took on work in Bill & Ted |
ADOPTED – AD(OP), TED. | |
21 | Begin filming battle |
ACTION – what a director says. | |
22 | Produced good leather trousers |
BEGAT – BE(G)AT. G (good) is ‘trousered’ by BEAT (leather). |
Thank you, particularly for ELBOW ROOM, UNCLE TOM’S CABIN and PRESUPPOSITION.
Now that you’ve explained 9d, that’s my COD. I would describe it as a typically succinct Dean Mayer clue.
I also like EOLIAN and WINCHESTER RIFLE. I get confused between EOLIAN and (the) Aeolian (Islands).
I always thought LEIBNIZ had a T before the Z.
I think we’ve had ASTEROID recently.
Thanks Dean and thanks, again, keriothe.
Edited at 2021-11-28 01:23 am (UTC)
Thanks for parsing PRESUPPOSITION & UNCLE TOM’S CABIN. I particularly liked 7d for its very clever surface.
SD
Always nice to learn about another bird! (Pace our cleverly rhyming colleague.)
I’d always associated BIOLOGICAL CLOCK with not-terribly-old women merely nearing menopause.
LEIBNIZ’s monadology is one trippy philosophy. Deleuze wrote an absolutely fascinating book on it (and the Baroque), Le Pli, but—unfortunately—I cannot recommend the only English translation.
Edited at 2021-11-28 03:29 am (UTC)
A great puzzle, but not easy.
Edited at 2021-11-28 08:39 am (UTC)
I had quite a few unknowns and biffs. Late in were EOLIAN -where’s the A I thought: LOI LEIBNIZ -where’s the T I thought.
CURASSOW was unknown but easy enough to derive. PRESUPPOSITION was well known but impossible to parse -thank you K.
Enjoyable and worth while. I liked the smooth surface for MANOR HOUSE.
David
FOI 6d ASTEROID – as per last week. Rocket launched to shoot it down, I hear.
COD 4ac CURASSOW – noted philatelically in the Solomon Islands
WOD 10ac BRIC-A-BRAC
Guy Leibnitz has covered-off ‘Monadology’, so I won’t take it any further.
Time: A Sunday Hour of Prayer and Reflection.
On Edit; I finally not that WOD has finally made it into the Glossary. Thank-you Jerry
(and Verlaine and Edwina!)
Edited at 2021-11-28 09:34 am (UTC)
I always look forward to Dean’s puzzles and this didn’t disappoint. Thanks to him and keriothe
Another really good puzzle from Dean, although NHO LEIBNITZ except as the manufacturer of some very nice choccy biccies. I liked the old ticker, one of my favourite films at 25A, ELBOW ROOM, and APATHY.
I might have awarded COD to EOLIAN, but I refuse to do so as a protest about the Americanization of a word that should begin with A. So there ! (stamps foot).
REAL FOI OOZE
LOI TRUCE (groan !)
COD BRIC-A-BRAC
TIME 13:15
Edited at 2021-11-28 10:17 am (UTC)
Edited at 2021-11-28 10:58 am (UTC)
.
Struggled with the last few which for me were EOLIAN and LEIBNIZ mainly because I’d put ORAL in unparsed
Like OOZE TRUCE and EOLIAN in particular but the quality was high throughout
Absolutely no idea what was going on with the RIFLE but I did watch enough Westerns in my youth for it to be write in
Thanks all
Thanks Dean and keriothe
About average time at 46 minutes for this one, that felt initially harder, but the clues typically allowed one to work out the answer. PRESUPPOSITION was the odd one out, was able to get the word, but had no idea about the how. WINCHESTER RIFLE was quite tough to see the word play as well, but at least got that one.
APATHY was also my first in and finished with ARROGANT and THE STING in the SW corner before really convincing myself that WHERE was right and that TRUCE was the missing ‘stay at the front’ (clever misdirection).