14:50. I obviously found this tricky but I can’t really see why now. It’s the usual set of very clear and precise clues from Robert. Great stuff.
Definitions are underlined, anagrams indicated like (TIHS)*, deletions like this, anagram indicators are in italics.
| Across | |
| 1 | Rather entertaining church glass |
| SCHOONER – S(CH)OONER. | |
| 5 | Outfit, uniform or clothes showing precision |
| RIGOUR – RIG (outfit), O(U)R. There’s an implied ‘which’ between ‘uniform’ and ‘or’. | |
| 9 | Go ashore with rating for historic event |
| LANDMARK – LAND (go ashore) MARK (rating, as in a piece of homework). | |
| 10 | Make golf pin bend in golf hole |
| DOGLEG – DO (make), G (golf), LEG (pin). | |
| 12 | Traffic offence misusing kerb, loading up |
| DOUBLE PARKING – (KERB LOADING UP)*. | |
| 14 | Flood spots not given due care |
| RASH |
|
| 15 | Workplace with sets of moist fluid around |
| FILM STUDIO – (MOIST FLUID)*. | |
| 17 | A muse lacking in desire |
| ASPIRATION – A, |
|
| 19 | Oral, noxious drug container |
| VIAL – sounds like ‘vile’. | |
| 22 | In an erotic novel, after tea one thing leading to another |
| CHAIN REACTION – CHA, IN, (AN EROTIC)*. Or possibly CHA, (IN AN EROTIC)*. | |
| 24 | Set level of intelligence to crack this? |
| CLIQUE – CL(IQ)UE. ‘This’ being a crossword clue, of course. | |
| 25 | Turn to take up theatre work |
| FACELIFT – FACE (turn to), LIFT (take up). | |
| 26 | Grasp flower by the centre for example |
| MASTER – |
|
| 27 | King — gripping name for an author |
| CHANDLER – C(HANDLE)R. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Laugh about a boy dressing |
| SALAD CREAM – S(A LAD)CREAM. Yuck. | |
| 2 | In time, working brings rewards |
| HONOURS – H(ON)OURS. | |
| 3 | SI unit of substance in gold and uranium alloy |
| ORMOLU – OR(MOL), U. Mol being the symbol for ‘mole’, the SI unit of how many atoms something has relative to Carbon-12. I didn’t know that ORMOLU was an alloy. I just knew that clocks are sometimes made from it. | |
| 4 | Loud like a threshing machine? |
| EAR-SPLITTING – two definitions, one a mildly cryptic reference to threshing ears of corn. | |
| 6 | Press finally has to cut its sarky writers |
| IRONISTS – IRON (press), I( |
|
| 7 | In debt over big deal abandoned by a phoney |
| OBLIGED – O, (BIG DE |
|
| 8 | Undercover agent’s hidden temper |
| RAGE – contained in ‘undercover agent’. | |
| 11 | Pleasurable life of two girls limited by stuffy hotel |
| PRIMROSE PATH – PRIM(ROSE, PAT), H. | |
| 13 | Rubbish an isle regularly cut up for fertiliser |
| POLLINATOR – reversal (up) of ROT, AN, I |
|
| 16 | Club official giving away its ultimate prize |
| TREASURE – TREASURE |
|
| 18 | Selection with chips, called “basket meals” |
| PICNICS – sounds like (called) ‘pick nicks’. I thought ‘chip’ was a bit loose but the first verbal definition of NICK in Collins is ‘to chip or cut’. So that’s me told. | |
| 20 | First sign that you agree |
| INITIAL – if you INITIAL a document you agree to it. | |
| 21 | Guard present in a cinema |
| SCREEN – DD. | |
| 23 | Racket made by naughty kid not keeping quiet |
| SCAM – SCAM |
|
RASH: I took this as a triple definition: flood / spots / not given due care
Oh of course it is. Silly me.
I gave up after 45 minutes with three answers missing with PICNICS and the intersecting OBLIGED and DOGLEG. I’m not a golfer so I wouldn’t have thought of the last of these from its definition in the clue. Was pleased to nail the elusive POLLINATOR and that I saw the triple definition of RASH.
As a sharp bend, a dogleg doesn’t have to be part of a golf hole -roads can certainly have doglegs. ODE has “golf hole with a dogleg” as one definition, so “bend in golf hole” could count as two definitions, though Bob didn’t mention that in notes for the clue.
Yes, I was going to say in my comment (but then didn’t) that I’m fully aware of dog-legs in roads – I have one a few yards from my house – and had the clue mentioned roads I would have known the answer. I just had no idea about dog-leg as a type of golf hole.
An errant ‘ormelu’ for me, though the puzzle took me 40 minutes, anyway. I rarely complain of any clue as being ‘unfair’, but if you don’t know the SI unit and you don’t know the alloy, you’re up against it.
I liked DOGLEG a lot.
Both MOL and MUL are units of measurement.
What’s a MUL? It’s not in the usual dictionaries.
MUL: ‘measured as the distance of the apex of the prostate to the base of the bulbous urethra’.
Absolutely no complaints about the clue, as always … and I knew ORMOLU. I just mis-typed it and wondered afterwards what a MUL was. That’ll teach me.
Now that’s obscure!
Fair point. I would argue that the mole falls far more squarely in the realm of general knowledge than most of the classical references and churchy stuff that we seem expected to know. But that’s just because of what I was and wasn’t taught at school!
Absolutely. I just need to bung ORMOLU in my mental dictionary and learn it.
Without the churchy and classical stuff, I’d be completely lost!
Fortunately I knew ORMOLU and how to spell it so I didn’t need to worry about MOL whilst solving, but I looked it up later to see what it is.
Keriothe’s quarter hour to completion took me the whole week – that is to say, I revisited it at intervals with only a few done and sat down to chew on it properly last night, not wanting to be defeated. LOI DOG LEG, knowing nothing of golf, but splitting the clue up and knowing it meant a bend helped. NHO mol, but had known of ORMOLU clocks. Took ages over the parsing of PICNICS, but got there in the end. As usual, brilliant setting, so ultimately satisfying to finish, despite the difficulty.
Another fine effort from one of my favourite compilers … no unknowns though if asked to say what ormolu was made of, or in fact for, I would struggle..
Liked several including the muse lacking in and the erotic novel ..
DNF in 35
Raced through a lot of this then came horribly bogged down mainly in the SE after finally cracking the OBLIGED/DOGLEG crossers. The one that defeated me was FACELIFT. I forgot again that sort of theatre and just couldn’t break down the clue into its constituent parts to the point where when I threw in the towel I still had no idea what the definition was! Brilliant clue but for me very tough
As it happens I was an ORMULU. I knew it might be ORMOLU but couldn’t decide
Thanks Keriothe and Robert
I was unaware that a mole has a symbol, “mol”, nor that it is an SI unit, but Ormolu seemed obvious for a clock.
I know very well what a mole is; it is Avogadro’s number of atoms, molecules or whatever and is about 6 and a bit * 10^23. A mole of a substance weighs as many kilos as its molecular weight. I don’t see why SI has to have a unit that is simply a number; seems quite pointless to me. There isn’t an SI unit for a thousand for instance, so why one for A’s number?
Sorry about the bleat! It’s not the setter’s fault that the SI has some overenthusiastic symbol-generators.
Haven’t a clue what andyf above was going on about! Don’t know what SIs are, nor mols or muls, but semibiffed ORMOLU anyway. As to the rest, I did rather badly overall, as I found the definitions hard to spot ( OBLIGED = owed, FACE LIFT=theatre work, etc) and didn’t know the plural of CYCLOPS, but put it in anyway. Other NHOs were ARCTURUS , ELD and ENOSIS – all a tad obscure for Sunday solvers? A total of 14 out of 28 answers correct: must make an effort to do better. Liked the HONOURS clue.
Thanks Robert and keriothe
Late to write about this one after completing it over a couple of sittings in a total time of 54 mins on Saturday. Lots of ‘aha’ clues along the way, including 10a, 12a, the 14a triple definition, 25a, 3d and 13d.
Thought that the CHAIN REACTION clue was very good and it gave me a grin to go with it. Finished on the left hand side with DOGLEG (which took ages to parse), POLLINATOR (which took longer) and FACELIFT (probably the trickiest of them all) was the last one in.