There’s another Qualifer in the paper today. I’ll blog that on 12th May when the deadline’s up. (No spoilers until then please!) Meanwhile, here’s the substitute interactive puzzle from the Club site: No. 12761 from 4th May 1971. Typical of that era, there are a few diabolicals that wouldn’t quite cut the charlock these days. Still … a bit of fun to be had here once you’re in the right frame. Took me 46 minutes but would have been quicker if I’d known the two plants — always my weak suit.
Across | |
---|---|
1 | FETISH. Anagram of ‘Thief’s’. |
4 | CHAR,LOCK. Teddington’s the name of a famous lock (or three) on the Thames. Charlock is wild mustard. |
10 | L(ARDO)ON. Anagram of ‘road’ in the first (Western) half of ‘London’. |
11 | GODET,I,A. A ‘godet’ is “a triangular piece of material inserted in a dress, shirt, or glove to make it flared or for ornamentation”; as all sons of seamstresses will know. |
12 | SWITCH,BACK. Which is what they will still do to you if you’re naughty in Singapore. Also a fairground attraction. Is there a theme going on? Cf. fetish and bondage? |
13 | BASE. Presumably a reference to the noun (foundation) and the adjective (sordid). |
15 | INHUMAN. Maugham wrote Of Human Bondage. |
17 | A,BUTT,ED. |
19 | GENESIS. A statue by Jacob Epstein. |
21 | SNIP,PET. A snip is a sure thing, a certainty. |
23 | BAIL. Cricket. |
24 | BASS-RELIEF. More usually spelled ‘bas-’. Another type of sculpture. |
27 | FLEA-BAG. Slang for a sleeping-bag (Chambers); anything or anyone (suspected of being) infested with fleas. |
28 | STENCIL. Anagram of ‘clients’. |
29 | SKELETAL. Presumably a cryptic def. |
30 | FLASHY. Two defs, one cryptic-ish. |
Down | |
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1 | FULL SWING. If the swings are full, the roundabouts may be empty. |
2 | TAR,NISH. Anagram of ‘shin’. |
3 | SCOTCH MIST. Cryptic def. |
5 | HIGH CLASS. ‘Top’ = HIGH; ‘form’ = CLASS. And if you show top form, you’re this. |
6 | RUDE. Homophone of ‘rood’: “historical, a measure of land area equal to a quarter of an acre”. |
7 | OUT,LAST. More cricket. |
8 | KNAVE. Two defs. |
9 | SNUB. As in ‘retroussé’. |
14 | LUTINE BELL. A bell salvaged from HMS Lutine which sank in 1799; rung at Lloyd’s to signal a returning or not-returning ship — once for the latter, twice for the former. |
16 | NOSTALGIA. Anagram of ‘No, it’s a gal’. “My heart lies there”, etc. |
18 | DUTIFULLY. I suppose this alludes to the idea of paying full duty on imported goods. |
20 | NA(IVE)TE. ‘Innate’ = in NATE. |
22 | PRINCES. “Put not your trust in princes …”, Psalm 146. |
23 | BUFFS. The Royal Kent Regiment, the Queen’s Own Buffs. Pun on ‘bare skins’. |
25 | SASH. Inclusive: pun on ‘middle (of) man’. |
26 | AB(L)E. L = £ = pound = money. |
On edit: just found this in the archive:
I’m used to the spellings BAS-RELIEF and LARDONS, and didn’t know GODET, CHARLOCK or the BUFFS. I suppose I must have known that the clanger in a bell is called its tongue but if so I had forgotten it.
I enjoyed the puzzle and would not be sorry if we had a few more like it occasionally.
Thanks for the blog, mctext: as almost always, there were allusions in the wordplay which I would not otherwise have seen.
I’m with jackkt in enjoying these older puzzles every now and then. I find them an interesting challenge. Perhaps everyone could be kept happy by having a weekly trip down memory lane in addition to the regular puzzle.
COD LUTINE BELL – I just liked the poetic “its tongue tells of others”. SCOTCH MIST was nicely done, too.
There were a number of clues, as Mctext blogs, where the answer was apparent, even if full justification eluded me.
I agree with COD for LUTINE BELL. SCOTCH MIST reminds me of my parents.