I was surprised this took me nearly an hour. I started off very confidently in the SW corner having noted there were lots of multi-word answers elsewhere which I thought would fall into place quickly once I had a few checking letters in place, but I swiftly ground to a halt and I’m afraid it was a slow slog through the other three-quarters. I seemed to be just off the setter’s wavelength for much of it. Maybe I spent too long worrying about not seeing all the wordplay as I went along. Some of it was quite tricky and I was paying more attention to it today for writing the blog.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | SPARS,(cas)E |
| 4 | A,SK (FOR) IT |
| 10 | PRIM,1,PARA – “Mother for the first time” is the definition. I have met this before, and quite recently, but had completely forgotten it by today. Fortunately the wordplay was clear. |
| 12 | R.(O,SET)T.E. – Radio Telefís Éireann are the “Irish broadcasters” |
| 13 | GAS,FIRE – Am I being picky if I query the definiton here? I’m not completely happy with “glower” defining a fire of any sort, but a gas fire? “Glow” in this context means to burn without flames which a gas fire cannot do. |
| 14 | 0,MEGA |
| 15 | H(EDGER)OW – Not sure if it’s okay to refer to Native Americans as “Indians”. And did they really say “How” as a greeting or was that just Hollywood-speak? |
| 18 | WHO,L(E-H)OG – Just to clarify it’s (Doctor) WHO + LOG around EH meaning “what?”. Tricky stuff! |
| 23 | APR1 +C(ustard)O(r)T(apioca) – Only a few days too early for April Fool’s Day |
| 25 | TROUNCE – Anagram of lette(R) + ONE CUT |
| 27 | FER,DIN,AND – “Recalled man in the middle” is REF (rev) |
| 28 | BUTCHERY – (THEY CURB)* |
| 29 | OS,M(1)UM – “Repelled parent so” is MUM SO (rev) |
| Down | |
| 1 | SUPER,L,OO – The policeman is SUPER, short for superintendent. |
| 3 | SHIRT-TAIL – (IRISH + LATT)* |
| 5 | SHAGGY-DOG STORY – Nice one! |
| 6 | F-LOSS – Rather appropriately I suffered endless grief trying to work out the wordplay here, but I suppose “endless grief” might be F-loss. Has anyone’s dentist ever actually given them floss? |
| 7 | ROD,RIG,O – The prolific Spanish composer who’s generally remembered only for his guitar concerto |
| 8 | T,HE,FEW – where FEW sounds like “Phew!” |
| 9 | HAVE THE HOTS FOR – (HEAR OF TV HOST HE’S)*. Such a charming romantic phrase! |
| 16 | (v)EGG (COS)IES – Do people still use them? I haven’t seen an egg cosy since my childhood when my granny used to knit them. |
| 17 | AD,DEN,DUM – where MUD is the compromising info that’s turned up. |
| 19 | HER,RIOT – A reference to the vet James Herriot of All Creatures Great and Small fame. |
| 21 | PUN,JAB,1 |
| 22 | ZAGREB – Split is the largest coastal city in Croatia and Zagreb is the capital. |
Very good stuff with only about four or five answers seeming like regular grid fodder, and 9D making its first appearance I think (ditto 1D, and possibly 16 and 8). 13A was last in, fooling me with a new -er invention, even though I was going on about this trick a few days ago [I can now use Jack’s point as my excuse]. “Group” for 8 had me wasting time trying to justify THE WHO (fortunately didn’t think of THE JAM until afterwards). And the “needing a groom” part of 5D had me thinking of a SINGLE lady to start the phrase. 22D seemed a new version of the old favourite Split pun – “Leave Yugoslavian port” etc. etc. After 10, watch out for multipara and nullipara.
Answer to jack’s Q about 6D: No, the blighter made me pay for it!
Edited at 2009-03-27 08:18 am (UTC)
On the other hand, that ‘superloo’ expression has not yet crossed the Atlantic, probably just as well.
“Indian greeting” =HOW is probably well-enough known from Hollywood culture to justify inclusion? – although you definitely wouldn’t refer to them as Indians in the real world, and I’m not sure HOW accurate it is in real life either.
I didn’t follow the wordplay for 6D either, but looking at it now I think “F-loss” is what the word grief has suffered when it is endless. If so, it’s quite clever.
Jack you have a typo at 3D its (Irish+latt) not “latte”
Like Peter I think several of these answers are appearing for the first time and particularly 1D (I love “posh ladies”) and 9D. After our swapping of views the other day on river=flower (OK by me) and pram=wheeler (offside for me) we now get glower=gas fire and I’m with Jack in not liking it.
I’ve never heard VEGGIES meaning “vegetarians” (only “vegetables”) and could only think of “(V)egans” which didn’t help, but I should have twigged COS for lettuce.
Had to guess 1dn and 12ac as I’d never come across SUPERLOO or RTE (why would you?).
Lots of good inventive stuff though a bit esoteric in places.
RTE timings used to be printed in the daily newspaper (the Express, I believe) when I was a small boy, and the acronym has always stuck with me; so to me, it seems commonplace knowledge. Everything that you already know always seems to be commonplace knowledge to *you*, but others might think differently!
Some great clues here – I think dorsetjimbo is right to discern the hand of Anax. My favourites were those for RHINO, SHAGGY-DOG STORY and CLOTH.
I thought ‘Doctor’ for WHO was out of fashion, it being reasonably well known (at least to those who know that Casablanca doesn’t include the line ‘Play it again, Sam’) that the main character in Doctor Who isn’t actually called Doctor Who.
Saturday 28 March12.00 – 4.00 Haberdashery, Ground floor. Knit a chick for Easter! There’s a choice of an egg cosy or a cream egg holder. You buy the wool, we give you the pattern. They’d make an ideal Easter gift for mums or dads. …
I wouldn’t want to solve one of these every day, but once in a while it’s a mind-stretching treat – a puzzle that writes its own rules. Forget Anax – I suspect the hand of Salvador Dalí or René Magritte.
One Across Rock – bhangra b-boy crew Sparse Punjabi Rhino
– a dictionary of American slang (1975);
– the Washington Post (1978);
– Updike’s Rabbit is Rich (1981), in an exchange that suggests it was a bit fuddy-duddy not to know it (“Melanie’s a veggy, Dad.” “Veggy?” “Vegetarian,” the boy explains);
– the Times (1984).
One quibble for me – is “ill pro” supposed to equal FOR? Isn’t then the lack of an apostrophe cheating somewhat?
COD 26.
It was a game of two halves – a thirty minute struggle to get less than half of the clues, followed by a twenty minute lull when virtually nothing went in, and then a steady final twenty minutes to knock it off.
I had come across PRIMIGRAVIDA when my wife gave birth to our first child many years ago, but I had not encountered the word PRIMIPARA.
I can live with ‘glower’ for a gas fire, but I am generally tolerant of slightly iffy definitions if they are amusing and original, and I can confirm the answer from the wordplay.
Liked 10 for its “servicemen dropped”, 18 for its “doctor”, 25 for its “paste”, 9 for its “fancy” and (grudgingly, since it thwarted me for so long) THE FEW. I’ll givr 5 COD for its “Relation”. Some very tricky stuff.
The Rhino’s became the “voice of Tesco’s”, I believe, with their hit “Osmium Apricots” blaring out across the food hall on 10 minute rotation.
And here in the US, every time you go to the dentist they give you a small container of floss. I assume it is donated by the floss manufacturers and is a form of marketing.
This was brilliant, though it took most of the day, on and off, hence the late post. I had to deduce 10 from the wordplay so I arrived at Primitama meaning for the first time. Sadly it is not yet in the dictionaries. Like Duncan and Jimbo, I had met primigravida before but not primipara. I remember my 26 year-old medical wife describing herself as an elderly primigravida.
Superloo was clever. I think Rufus in the Guardian would simply have clued it as “Maybe posh ladies”. I do not know whether that would be more or less difficult.
I have met Split before in clues such as “Split personalities may live here” for Croatia.
I had no trouble with glower for gas fire but has anyone explained the yak kick?
“kick out” rather than kick = fire
As a relative novice I quite like getting an answer I am happy with from the structure without actually knowing the definition – in todays case both rodrigo and primipara fitted that category.
One quibble (21dn): a pun is a play on words, which may or may not be a joke (= crack). So in my opinion one can’t say that a pun actually is a crack.
This exonerates the setter, and blame, if there is any, lies with the dictionary compilers.
Just for the record, it took me about an hour to solve none of the clues; I hope to get this down to 55 mins today.
Q-0, E-10, D-8, COD: take your pick.
There are 5 left out of the blog:
11a School diet includes no chicken (5)
OLDIE. Hidden in first 2 words. No spring chicken = OLDIE but just chicken?
20a Grand-daughter holding mirror was yawning (5)
G APE D. From this we can deduce that Grand-daughter can = GD. Maybe an accepted abbreviation from Family Trees or the like?
26a Ready for big game? (5)
RHINO. Rhinoceras means nose horn. Rhino horn can be very valuable but no one seems to know exactly why RHINO = MONEY = READY.
2d Article and paper under debate (2,5)
A TISSUE
24d Reluctant to support Conservative ministers (5)
C LOTH