Solving time: 13:36
Quite tricky this one, though for no very obvious reason – must just be well-hidden wordplay. Last in were 27 and then 13. Just noticed that the top row makes a good description of a typical cryptic crossword’s content.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | ARC=bend,H |
| 3 | M(IS,CELL=small room)ANY – a potpourri is a miscellany as well as a bowl of dusty blue perfumed vegetation, often found in the particular “small room” which I daresay a few others thought of too. |
| 9 | CARD=amusing character,IF=”despite being”,F = loud |
| 11 | ASCRIBE – I in braces* |
| 14 | COR,G,I – “Cor!” and “Love a duck” are Brit. colloq. exclamations, the latter often as “luvaduck”. Corgis are from Wales and hence Cardiff=9. (Now there’s a statement requiring context.) |
| 15 | I,M=marks,P(OT=to rev.)ENCE. Slightly surprised by marks=>M – it no longer appears in both COED and Collins, which I thought was the usual Times standard for one-letter abbreviations. |
| 17 | SUN,SCREEN – the Sun is a tabloid paper from the same group as the Times. (Mind you, the Times is tabloid now, so when the Sun xwd gets a blog they can use the same explanation for newspaper=TIMES) |
| 19 | S.E.,TUP=ram |
| 21 | PRIVATI(SAT,I)ON |
| 24 | EXI(GEN.)T |
| 25 | ELEV(AT)E(n) – team = eleven from sports like soccer, cricket and hockey. |
| 26 | RALLY=improve,CROSS=bad-tempered |
| 27 | WRI(s)T – simple enough but I failed to find the right joint and also pondered the possibility of “order – S = joint” for the wordplay |
| Down | |
| 1 | (f)ASC(ECIT=cite=name rev.)ISM – some time wasted by going for “leaderless … system” = ANARCHY |
| 2 | CORSAIR=rover=pirate – sounds like “coarse ‘air” = Cockney version of coarse hair = whiskers. |
| 4 | INFER,TILE=ancient slang for hat |
| 5 | CHAPS – 2 defs, one as worn by cowboys |
| 6 | LICK INTO SHAPE – CD, not any of the various anagrams I tried to manufacture |
| 7 | AV((s)IGN)ON – a nifty overlap of meaning to hide river=AVON. You have to treat “City on Rhône” as the def. (And well done to the website folk for getting the 0-circumflex right – an encouraging sign.) |
| 10 | INSTINCTIVELY – N from man in (City isn’t evil)* – easy anagram which helped get things moving |
| 13 | DESPONDENT = low. POND=”body of water” replaces the central C in DESCENT = downward path |
| 16 | PEN,NILE,S.S. |
| 18 | NUPTIAL – up = “high point” in Latin* |
| 20 | THIN AIR – two cryptic defs |
| 22 | AFTER – T in anag. of … |
| 23 | F=following,EAR=sense of music as in “tin ear” |
The long anagrams at 12 and 21 provided a good start, except that I carelessly wrote TRANSGRESSING at 12 which held me up in the NE corner for a while.
I have to say I found DESPONDENT, IMPOTENCE, PENNILESS, INFERTILE, ASCETICISM and FEAR all a bit depressing. Can we have a happy one tomorrow please?
I liked the clue for INSTINCTIVELY although it was easy but winced at CORSAIR. M=Marks was common currency so to speak before Germany adopted the Euro but today is a bit Mephistolian, appearing as it still does in Chambers but not, as Peter says, in the usual Times Daily sources.
but for the silly oversight.
Still chuffed however, for getting both the weekend puzzles in under 20 minutes and submitting them for prizes.
Best from Toronto
After last week’s clueing of Low, I was tempted to pencil in cartoonist on the first reading of 13. I did not understand the wordplay until I read Peter’s blog. I have not seen “hides” as a replacement indicator before. Maybe it is a tinsy bit unfair.
Today’s dog continues an extraordinary run in recent weeks. Corgi is obviously crossword-friendly because it ends in an “i” but none of the other doggies could be considered to be a crossword setter’s best friend.
Peter said: And well done to the website folk for getting the 0-circumflex right – an encouraging sign.
I agree, and it seems to me that the shiny new website is behaving FAR more reliably than the old one. Crosswords appear on time, no typos, no wrong grids.. about time I suppose, but nevertheless, well done… I sent an email to the xcomments email address pointing out a small problem and got a friendly, prompt reply and it was corrected.. just the risible bulletin board to sort out, and we’ll be there!
Even after getting ‘Yves’, I still thought it might be pillow_____. Only ‘ascribe’ showed me my error, and then I erased the whole corner and redid it. I do have one quibble: ‘chaps’ is from ‘chapmen’, who were definitely not of gentle blood, being itinerant hawkers, so ‘chaps’ = ‘gentlemen’ is a bit of a stretch.
My wrong letter was in ‘privitisation’, making 23 down tough.
My time was 40 minutes to mess it up, two hours to fix it.
There were quite a few clues that I put in without fully understanding the wordplay, but I figured most of them out after completion. I also had WHIP INTO SHAPE (a whip’s cord can be referred to as a tongue?), but ASCRIBE was so obviously correct, once I came up with it, that I actually started putting it in believing it would fit with the crossing I. When it didn’t, I soon corrected the mistake. Unfortunately, ASCRIBE actually did fit with the JEANS I’d put in at 5dn, by cleverly remembering that JEAN is a male name in French. That held up 3ac for a while.
To be able to muck up an entire corner in this fashion, work out where I’ve gone wrong, put it right, and STILL finish in a good time, is a lot more satisfying than merely sailing through it and recording 9 minutes and odd would have been.
I spent a few minutes, post-completion, wondering why -ATIS- or -TISA- inside PRIVATION made any sense, before the penny dropped. I’m still not sure how “IF” can mean “despite which” but if the likes of Peter are familiar with it, it must be sound. I also don’t ever recall seeing EXIGENT in print, but I’m familiar enough with ‘exigencies’ that it was fairly obvious.
Curiosity of the day: how often does an answer appear in both the cryptic and the concise puzzle on the same day?
I do hope the setter’s alright – what with impotence, infertility, transgressions and privations, penniless despondency, asceticism, writs and fears, it’s not so much a puzzle as a cry for help. I felt I had wandered into the Slough of Despond
26 was a gimme as one of my extremely flimsy claims to fame is that as a lad at my Dad’s golf club one afternoon I was bought consecutive drinks by John Taylor, European Rallycross champion 1973, and Reg White, lemonade magnate and a descendant of Robert White who produced the first R White’s lemonade in 1845. For the record, Reg bought me a Coke.
Peter, I can’t see how the Sun crossword blog would work… how would you reproduce the pictures?
An enjoyable puzzle with some neat clues, not least miscellany, impotence and penniless. Was anybody else looking for an anagram of river ship?
No really obscure words, although I don’t use EXIGENT very often in everyday conversation. I got THIN AIR quicker in this cryptic than I did in the Times 2 earlier today, but I think cryptics are often easier than the simple definition crosswords because of the additional wordplay.
I nearly put in TRANSGRESSING for 12 across, from the ‘ing’ of ‘wrongdoing’, but fortunately realised halfway through that there had to be an O somewhere.
Steve: Frank, what instrument is playing here?
Frank (before music starts): The cor anglais
Steve (amazed): How did you know?
Frank: You always give me the cor anglais.
Tips on making a puzzle more difficult –
1) Solve it in the middle of an antenatal ward whilst your wife sleeps.
2) Be unable to spell – yes, I had PRIVITISATION as well.
3) Imagine that JOHNS is an acceptable shortening of LONG JOHNS….
Despite all that, managed a fairly healthy 15 minutes, so feeling pleased with myself. Unlikely to solve another puzzle for the next month…
Cheers, Oli
Just the two “easies” here:
12a Sinners argot’s disguised wrongdoing (13)
TRANSGRESSION. Anagram of (sinner’s argot’s).
8d French man aboard navy vessel (4)
YVES. Hidden in last 2 words.