Solving time : 21 leisurely minutes. I’m in Boston right now, and was solving this at the bar over a pizza and a few pints of delicious Harpoon Pale Ale at
. If I had known they had wifi there I could be still drinking and writing this report, in which case it might come out a little less coherent, if that were at all possible. I enjoyed this crossword a lot, there’s one piece of wordplay that I don’t recall seeing in the Times before (2 down), and one that I hope comes to me during the writing of the blog. A few new words to me, fortunately with clear wordplay and I expect I won’t be the only one liking this offering, the only beef I could think of is that there are a lot of refernces. Away we go…..
Across |
1 |
ROLLING PIN: Let’s get the awkwardness out at the very beginning – I can see ROLL(rich pastry), I can see IN(at home), but that leaves a INGP that I can’t explain. I don’t think it can be anything else, am I wrong? Edit: missed that ROLLING is rich, so it’s a much simpler ROLLING,P,IN
|
6 |
our across deliberate omission |
8 |
GOLGOTHA: GOTH in (GAOL)* – got this from wordplay. Apparently someone notable was offed there |
9 |
RELISH: exceptionally well-hidden answer! |
10 |
LEAR: Edward or King, but not Norman, he’s still with us |
11 |
THREADBARE: READ,BAR in THE |
12 |
TIDE,D OVER: I had TIDES OVER for a while here, then noticed the port |
14 |
HAULM: from the wordplay again – the HA is the contents of WHAT, and ULM is where that guy with the long name from Monty Python’s Flying Circus was from
|
17 |
OUT,ER |
19 |
ACCORDION: O in ACCORD,IN |
22 |
SHANTY TOWN: the second part is an anagram of WONT, every time I see that expression I think back to Cassetteboy vs Jeremey Clarkson
|
23 |
REEF: inital letters of Recalling Edward Elgar For |
24 |
PRO,LIX: LIX being 59 (almost 60) |
25 |
NEAR GALE: anagram of A(end of Jamaica) with GENERAL |
26 |
INDY: take your pick if you would like to decapitate CINDY or MINDY |
27 |
SURE-FOOTED: anagram of TO,FRO,SUEDE |
|
Down |
1 |
RIGOLETTO: Prince IGOR with the R at the top, then LET,TO |
2 |
LOL,LARD: I didn’t know the definition, but here’s a bit of wordplay I hadn’t seen before. LOL (Laugh Out Loud) has long been an online chat abbreviation |
3 |
NATATION: (bo)AT in NATION |
4 |
PRAIRIE SCHOONER: A in (HEROIC,PRISONER)* took a while to work this anagram out – got the PRAIRIE part from the checking letters, after that the second half was obvious |
5 |
NORWAY: R in NO WAY. Not my day for references, but wordplay solid – didn’t know who Vidkun Quisling was |
6 |
BILL,BOARD(sounds like BORED): until I got RELISH this went through incarnations as BUSYBOARD and BLUEBOARD until I had a head-smacking moment |
7 |
NOSTRIL: cryptic def |
13 |
ETERNALLY: EASTERN without AS, then ALLY |
15 |
MANSFIELD: knew it was a town, didn’t know it was in Notts |
16 |
MOON,CALF: not a term I’d heard before |
18 |
let’s leave this one as the down omission |
20 |
INEXACT: AC (centre of attrACtion) in I,NEXT |
21 |
LYNXES: SEX(congress),NY(state),L(egislature) reversed. Lovely clue to finish |
Now that the there’s a crack in the door to the (chat)room of SMS/online-talk, whatever can we expect next? Ironic really, since Wycliffe himself was responsible for so many new-and-then-strange words. “Schism” comes to mind here as just one example.
And George: as an ex-pat I’m surprised you didn’t immediately think of Lindy at 26ac.
On the other hand, I know ‘Lollard’, ‘prolix’, and ‘mooncalf’ well enough, and put those in at sight. We also just had a similar clue for ‘Golgotha’ in a Saturday puzzle, didn’t we, so no problems there.
Now ‘Mansfield’, that was a good clue, had to smile at that.
A real mix of clues (with the erudite PROLIX and LOLLARD balanced by the Benny Hillesque MOONCALF) made this a worthy successor to yesterday’s fine puzzle. Quisling as a word meaning traitor/collaborator is pretty common in the UK – interesting that it appears not to have had the same impact away from Europe. COD to NOSTRIL.
Expecting the arrival of a “jungfrau” this morning (which explains my early comment) who no doubt would have helped with both ULM (German) and LOL (young).
23A is a direct reference to Elgar’s “Sea Pictures”, in which Where Corals Lie is one of the five songs.
My main problem was not getting the long answers until quite late in the proceedings. Although I have heard of PRAIRIE SCHOONER as it has come up before I missed that this clue was an anagram. I had the A in place from GOLOGOTHA and since there is no A in “Heroic prisoner” I dismissed the possibility of an anagram. Should have counted the letters more carefully and realised it was a letter short accounted for later in the clue.
HAULM has also come up before though I had no recollection of what it meant and ULM was in my mind from a couple of weeks ago.
At 19 I thought of ACCORDIAN early on but couldn’t make sense of it because, to me, to accord is to agree rather than to give in.
NATATION for “swimming” rang a distant bell but I didn’t write it in with much confidence.
MOONCALF was last in. Again I have a vague idea I’ve met it before, probably only in a puzzle but it didn’t leap out at me even though I pencilled in CALF quite early on.
George, there’s a typo at 13dn AT for AS.
Loved the duplicitous use of Congress in 21dn, my CoD.
My only concern with the introduction of SMS/Blogspeak is that, before long, every fourth clue is going to be about Hitler. Can’t stop progress, I suppose.
Smiles for BILLBOARD and LYNXES.
Otherwise another super puzzle I thought as others have commented. HAULM and MOONCALF both new but put in with confidence (once I had the right checking letters that is).
Personally I thought the cheeky appearance of textspeak at 2dn was gr8 but the day LOLCAT appears as an answer they’ll have gone too far.
I just bunged it in much too quickly. What I really can’t explain is why I didn’t go back to it much sooner, because I wasn’t happy with it as it went in.
As for TAILS… let’s not go there.
When I’d got HAULM, the first word I saw to fill M?N?FIELD was “minefield”, which would have been a nicely ironic wrong answer if I’d been really silly/desperate.
I could have sworn I’d already entered a hidden answer in the grid before solving RELISH but then remembered that that hidden was a clue solved over breakfast in a puzzle in the Times 14 book (of which 65 solved, 15 to go…)
Put me in the never-heard-of-Quisling camp too!! Hadn’t heard of MOONCALF either, and my weakness for CDs cost me NOSTRIL.
I LOL’d at Daniel H’s comment above: “Note to self: when you next read the word “inside” in a clue remember to look for interior letters.” I’ll have to remember that as well!
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,
I’ll never see a tree at all’.
Hey, Kevin from NY, Ogden Nash awaits you.
COD to 21 (LYNXES), a lovely deceptive clue.
Role at Stratford as writer of comc verse (4)
How does ‘role at Stratford’ work here?
Barbara