Nothing much very convoluted here, but all quite engaging for the smoothness of the surfaces and the uncontrived craftiness of the wordplay. Not saying I ripped thru this in 5, but I got the first two right off, followed by the long anagrams, and most doors opened up pretty easily once I pressed against them. Even my LOI, 12, would have been solved rather earlier, if only I hadn’t carelessly entered O instead of U in the square crossing 13—after, mind you, unscrambling the anagram perfectly in the margins of the paper. I don’t know if you’ve had many similar experiences, but the idea that one of my confidently entered answers might be wrong is often the last thing to occur to me, let alone that my precise pen somehow committed a “typo.”
I indicate (as AM rang)* like this, and italicize anagrinds in the clues.
| ACROSS | |
| 1 | Offensive person’s laugh taken in good part (9) |
| ONSLAUGHT — Hidden | |
| 6 | Like an angel taking her away to a higher power (5) |
| CUBIC — C[-her]UBIC | |
| 9 | Making sterile cities thrilling with paintings (15) |
| ANTISEPTICISING — (cities + paintings)* …A mouthful, when you could simply say “sterilizing”! This clue is tied with 7 in this week’s Creative Anagrind contest. | |
| 10 | Close pet, nearly shot (6) |
| SULTRY — SUL[-k], “pet, nearly” + TRY, “shot” | |
| 11 | Lake creator’s imported fish (8) |
| FLOUNDER — F(L)OUNDER I decrypted this immediately, spotting the formula in operation, so I guess it’s simple enough, though the word order would most naturally be taken to indicate that the definition is “Lake,” with (a word meaning) “creator” containing “fish”—or even that “Lake” takes in “creator” to make “fish”—rather than what’s really going on here. | |
| 13 | Cooked up risotto to cover cold meat (10) |
| PROSCIUTTO — (up risotto + C)* | |
| 14 | Fly emperors from the east to the west (4) |
| GNAT — TANG<=“from the east to the west,” a Chinese dynasty | |
| 16 | Wait in the same place endlessly (4) |
| BIDE — [-i]BIDE[-m] | |
| 17 | Body part very softly separating water (5,5) |
| ADAMS APPLE — ADAM’S A[PP]LE | |
| 19 | Stacks fruit in vehicle (8) |
| RICKSHAW — RICKS, “stacks” + HAW, “fruit” | |
| 20 | Capital, one lost from Bronze Age reconstruction (6) |
|
ZAGREB — (br |
|
| 23 | What ensures voting success? Manipulating voting age! (7,8) |
| WORKING MAJORITY — WORKING, “manipulating” + MAJORITY, “voting age” Ask me about the filibuster in the US Senate! (Just not here.) | |
| 24 | Fibre one’s covered with tar mostly (5) |
| SISAL — S(I[’]S)AL[-t] | |
| 25 | Papers retained by lovers of old trains (9) |
| EXPRESSES — EX(PRESS)ES | |
| DOWN | |
| 1 | Stones hit ought to be turned up (5) |
| OPALS — SLAP, “hit” + O, 0 or “ought” <=“turned up” | |
| 2 | Finally get even light on Mozart manuscripts? (6,3,6) |
| SETTLE OLD SCORES — SETTLE, “light” + OLD SCORES, “Mozart manuscripts,” e.g. | |
| 3 | Remove unrealistic summary (8) |
| ABSTRACT — Triple definition!!! | |
| 4 | Good sport suppressing a yawn (4) |
| GAPE — G(A)PE Took a moment to think of PE as “sport,” though the answer seemed obvious from the definition. I knew the “a” couldn’t be a… dangler! | |
| 5 | Waltzers keep this prime title when dancing (6,4) |
| TRIPLE TIME — (prime title)* | |
| 6 | Mark of intelligence in part of crossword coterie (6) |
| CLIQUE — CL(IQ)UE | |
| 7 | They let you construct bridges until PM rages about one (8,7) |
| BUILDING PERMITS — (bridges until PM + I)* | |
| 8 | It’s smoked fish, alien in name (9) |
| CIGARETTE — CI(GAR)(ET)TE | |
| 12 | Court medic feeding Queen a fish (10) |
| QUADRANGLE — QU, “Queen” + (A) + DR, “medic” + ANGLE, “fish” This is certainly the most complicated clue here, indicating that “medic” is swallowed by “Queen a” and only after all that comes “fish.” I think we may have caught our limit of fish this outing. | |
| 13 | Such moving events may call for a few drinks (3-6) |
| PUB-CRAWLS — CD | |
| 15 | Tribal chief’s story that goes on further (8) |
| SAGAMORE — SAGA, “story that goes on”… and on + MORE, “further” | |
| 18 | Mistake overturned without a single observation (6) |
| ESPIAL — LA(I)PSE<=“overturned” | |
| 21 | In Newport, lads brought up really tough (5) |
| BOYOS — SO, “really” + YOB, “tough” <=“brought up” I didn’t realize this is an especially Welsh term, nor that there is a town in Wales with a name only seven characters long, and easy to pronounce. | |
| 22 | Sucker lacking passion and someone to seduce him? (4) |
| VAMP — VAMP[-ire, “passion”] | |
As my time indicates, I had no problem with this.
My favourite was VAMP. It reminded me of “Hard-Hearted Hannah, the vamp of Savannah, GA.”
Hoping for better results today in the Prada Cup off Auckland.
Edited at 2021-02-14 01:10 am (UTC)
The disordering of the senses and all that, you know…
37’20”
I like the pangram quality, and the rather evocative pair of down clues that gave TRIPLE TIME VAMP. That’ll be this.
Seemed the Tang were in the East, rather than “from,” but, as you say, matters little.
I’d put Settle the Scores at 2d which I needed to unwind and CUBED at 6a which meant that CIGARETTE was my LOI.
ESPIAL and SAGAMORE were late entries and in the end it only took me another 15 minutes to wrap it up.
Enjoyed it.
COD to PUB CRAWLS for the memory. Also liked CLIQUE.
David
The usual quality offering from Robert, and I was only briefly delayed by having to alpha-trawl my LOI.
FOI CUBIC
LOI SULTRY
COD SETTLE OLD SCORES
TIME 11:44
A fun one. Like a couple of others I caused myself a bit of a problem by bunging in SETTLE THE SCORES but the ham soon put me right.
Found this pretty solid going taking a number of sittings to get it out. Only a couple of new terms in that fancy word for sterilising and SAGAMORE, so the real test came from the well-disguised definitions and the tricky word play.
Did enjoy piecing together QUADRANGLE and pleased to stretch BIDE out to IBIDEM to get the logic part of that clue.
Finished in the SE corner with EXPRESSES (which shouldn’t have taken that long), VAMP (helped a lot by recognising the pangram needed a V) and BOYOS (a new term and some Welsh geography learnt along the way too).