Wow, I was really on the wavelength for this one!—hence the French expression in my headline, which originated in the vocabulary for radio transmissions: « Employé…pour indiquer le niveau de compréhension des messages transmis, sur une échelle allant de 1 à 5 » (Wiktionnaire). Without a doubt, I’ve never solved a Sunday cryptic so quickly. The hed alludes of course also to my LOI, 19, which at first had me scratching my head: “That’s not really an English word…”
I indicate (Ars Magna)* like this, and italicize anagrinds in the clues.
| ACROSS | |
| 1 |
I’m disgusted about Left’s claptrap (4) Is our esteemed setter revealing himself to be a right-winger? |
| BLAH — B(L)AH | |
| 4 | Senate group renowned for giving a hoot (10) |
| PARLIAMENT — DD, the second being the proper term for a gathering of owls | |
| 9 | Do not wed fool or knight or Old Nick (5,2,6) |
| TOWER OF LONDON — (not wed fool or)* + N, “knight”—some deceptive capitalization here (as in 19, 21 and 22), the landmark originally having been a jail. This week we have a winner for the Creative Anagrind Prize: “Do” in the sense of “beat up”! | |
| 10 | Analyse and understand river-dwelling fish (6) |
| DECODE — DE(COD)E | |
| 11 | Furniture maker that girl found by shop (8) |
| SHERATON — SHE, “that girl” + RAT ON, “shop” | |
| 12 | Take care of diet in a satisfactory way (8) |
| FAREWELL — FARE, “diet” + WELL, “in a satisfactory way” | |
| 14 | Brownie brought over by shrink makes you fat (6) |
| FLESHY — ELF<=“brought over” + SHY, “shrink” | |
| 15 |
Grounds, say, to go after head of Exxon (6) I could list a few… |
| ESTATE — E[-xxon] + STATE, “say” | |
| 17 | Geek abruptly, after blocking pieces, mates (8) |
| PARTNERS — NER[-d] interrupting PARTS | |
| 19 | Communication by Queen in Melody Maker (8) |
| MESSAGER — MESSAGE + R, to make the name of André Charles Prosper Messager (December 1853—February 24, 1929), a composer primarily of operettas, so not my thing, but melody was really his. | |
| 21 | Fight Club line used in film retrospective (6) |
| BATTLE — BAT, “Club” + L(ine) in ET<=“retrospective” | |
| 23 | Station having trouble with modern display (13) |
| DEMONSTRATION — (Station + modern)* | |
| 24 | Banged-up Mini dopes launched across river (10) |
| IMPRISONED — (MINI DOPES + R)* …No list of anagrinds I found includes “launched,” but it does mean “set in motion,” so… “Banged-up” would make a fine anagrind, of course (same sense as “Do” in 9), but then it would be doing double duty. | |
| 25 | Large cut in fuel hopefully just the start (4) |
| GASH — GAS, “fuel” + H[-opefully] | |
| DOWN | |
| 2 | Flexible untruths told by chap with lisp (5) |
| LITHE — “Lies,” with the speech impediment | |
| 3 | Why is that old toilet in Habitat? (3,4) |
| HOW COME — H(O)(WC)OME | |
| 4 | Go on a brief river excursion at the front (9) |
| PERSEVERE — PER, “a” + SEVER[-n] + E[-xcursion] | |
| 5 | No rubbish dumping close to a lake (7) |
| REFUSAL — REFUS[-e] + A + L(ake) | |
| 6 | United foolish to sub centre for Oscar (2,3) |
| IN ONE — IN[-a,+O]NE | |
| 7 | Moderate cold? Drug will get rid of that! (7) |
| MEDIATE — MEDI[-c]ATE | |
| 8 | Nobody else at work up here, not surprisingly (4,5) |
| NONE OTHER — ON<=“up” + (here not)* | |
| 13 | Drama set rebuilt with millions in capital (9) |
| AMSTERDAM — (Drama set)* + M(illions) | |
| 14 | Troublemaker in bar friend sorted out (9) |
| FIREBRAND — (bar friend)* | |
| 16 | A small problem with Queen impersonator? (7) |
| ASSUMER — A + S(mall) + SUM, “problem” + ER, Elizabeth Regina | |
| 17 | Meter maid splitting up wordplay for “moralist” (7) |
| PURITAN — PU(RITA)N | |
| 18 |
Love is a matter lacking any importance (7) You won’t find many who agree with that… |
| NOTHING — DD | |
| 20 | Cottage hospital unit tucked into eggs regularly (5) |
| GENTS — Every other letter of eGgS wrapping ENT. “Cottage” as slang for a public toilet is found in Collins, whereas Lexico (which also has it as a verb) limits this usage to “the context of casual homosexual encounters.” | |
| 22 | Bars in which people usually serve Coke (5) |
| LINES — DD | |
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Edited at 2022-04-24 01:37 am (UTC)
(For fairly obvious reasons I’ve cancelled my LJ subscription—I’ve been a paid member since 2005, back when the service was both non-Russian and very popular—but it seems quite a sad note to end on, having been an enthusiastic blogger with a big community of friends on here back in the day…)
I didn’t find it easy though, otherwise I would probably have stayed awake, and there were a few unknowns or unlikely looking words where I just had to trust the wordplay, MESSAGER and ASSUMER for two.
On the theme of imprisonment, I missed the ‘do’ anagrind in TOWER OF LONDON….which is where the infamous Kray Twins were briefly imprisoned in 1952 for being late reporting for National Service.
In 6d, you can make a good case for ‘as one’: take ‘asinine’ and replace the INI with O; but that makes a mess of PARLIAMENT, of course.
MESSAGER was a tad obscure and we descended into the demi-monde with GENTS and LINES.
On the plus side, I liked MEDIATE and PERSEVERE but my COD to DECODE. “River-dwelling fish” Very good!
CinqàSec was founded in Marseille in 1968 and is now present in thirty countries, including China. A 2017 article in Le Parisien on the very successful chain ne dit rien sur le double sens, mais peut-être là-bas ça va sans dire. Wiktionnaire a deux définitions pour « cinq à sept » : « Moment de détente entre amis entre le travail et la vie de famille » et « Rendez-vous extraconjugal de fin d’après-midi. »
Edited at 2022-04-24 04:44 am (UTC)
On another note, today Live Journal’s ads are offering, in Russian, Russian school lessons online. So are these ads aimed at Russians who have fled the country?