Solving time : 15 minutes. Very similar to last Tuesday’s: straightforward without ever being insultingly easy. I’d imagine the sort of puzzle that is good for newer solvers without surrendering too easily to older hands. Plus, 6 down is to my mind a gem, and a clue that for obvious reasons could only have been used in the modern crossword era…
Across |
3 |
DOUBLE STOP – 40 in darts is DOUBLE TOP, add a S(econd) to get the musical technique
|
10 |
RELAXED – (DEALER)rev round X, ten in Roman, half of the numerical sort of score |
12 |
CHINESE LANTERNS – could be this, or even perhaps this, which might look like these |
14 |
JACOBEAN – presented with _ A _ O _ E _ N, and thinking of Frenchmen, I wrote in NAPOLEON without thinking, then realised it didn’t work, and the answer was actually A COB in JEAN |
17 |
TEARAWAY – double definition depending on whether there’s a space in between the words |
18 |
LITMUS – LIT = “having settled”, + (SUM)rev |
21 |
CONSCIENCE MONEY – (N)ew SCIENCE in (ECONOMY)*, a bit like Blood Money, but offered unilaterally to assuage one’s own guilt, rather than to appease a court |
24 |
EPITHET – E(nglish) + HE in PITT, or perhaps even PITT. Who next, Pitt the Toddler? Pitt the Embryo? Pitt the Glint in the Milkman’s Eye? |
25 |
LIEUTENANT – as in the novel by John Fowles
|
 |
Down |
1 |
CARACAS – CARCAS(e) around A |
2 |
DALAI LAMA – (A LAD)rev + I LAM A |
4 |
OODLES = (p)OODLES |
5 |
BACCARAT – Jack = TAR + A(ce) + two C(lubs) + jack = AB, all reversed |
6 |
ELECTRONIC MAIL – (remote clinical)*, brilliant surface to this one, I thought |
7 |
TENOR = friga(TE NOR)thwards |
9 |
EXPENSE ACCOUNT – EX+PEN’S+E ACCOUNT |
16 |
GAME PLAN – a Javanese orchestra around P(iano). GAMELAN sprang to mind immediately, almost certainly because I’ve learned it from another crossword somewhere |
19 |
SHYSTER – SHY + STER(n) |
20 |
SCREEN – which can mean two opposing things, see also “cleave”, which is another favourite for that reason |
21a made my eyes glaze over, as these analytically comprised anagrams always do.
LITMUS. If that isn’t a great clue, I don’t know what is. It even evokes the atmosphere of the exam room.
25a I got without fully understanding. Can someone help me out with the wordplay? It’s my second favourite John Fowles novel, so I want to understand the clue.
You didn’t ask me what my favourite JF novel was. I’m shocked.
And I have to know – that dog in your picture.. I actually Googled it the other day, trying to jog my memory. No luck. I know I’ve seen it before but I can’t …. tell me.
Good night, Dorosatt. Thank you. A ferret. Good grief.
I knew I’d seen dorosatt’s critter somewhere, but wrongly guessed that it was from a film version of something like Harry Potter. FWIW, Wiki says “actually a ferret” for the one in the picture.
Score=20 is so common in the Times xwd that I jotted down “half” next to the clue for “score of forty” at 3A. When I saw double, so to speak, I initially thought they had the maths wrong. 5D is my COD on the grounds that I think I’ve seen 6D before.
Benjamin Britten used gamelan in an opera called The Prince of the Pagodas, and I think some other composers followed this idea in the 60s and 70s.
Gamelan music is one of the few forms of Oriental music that I’ve found pleasing to the Western ear.
11:15 to do this one. Like Tim, despite its relative ease, I thought it was a very enjoyable one. 5d gets my COD nom just because it reminded me of “Yes sir, I can boogie” by Baccara
Plenty of very nice clues but I suspected my COD nom of 18A might be greeted with some bemusement – delighted to see others giving it top spot. This is my kind of clue; great surface, and superb technique it getting the def & wordplay elements to overlap smoothly – “settled problem” “turned over paper for…” work as a marvellous combination.
What’s the betting that Sotira added that bit just before she went to bed?
I though the anagram at 6d was brilliantly observed and I also liked 4d, but my COD is 20. It was last to go in but is a fantastically constructed triple-definition (Tim, I think you missed the fact that a riddle is also a screen (per Chambers online: riddle 2 noun – a large coarse sieve used eg for sifting gravel or grain.))
Time 6.07
JohnPMarshall
If I had more time this morning I’d make an avatar of dorosatt’s picture with “Ce n’est pas une ferret” on it.
That’s priceless. You’ll have to include it in your act.