Solving time: 58 minutes
Probably the most difficult puzzle I’ve had to blog since I took over the Wednesday slot. A bit like sticking your head in a bucket of water: horrible at the time but feels good when it’s over. I’d have been stuffed on 21ac if I hadn’t suspected the double pangram early on. A very highly crafted puzzle.
Across | |
---|---|
1 | ZIPPER. Two defs. Some prefer ‘zip’ and ‘flies’ for the fastener. Jim Royle: “The cage is open but the beast is asleep”. |
4 | UPBRAIDS. U, as so often, for ‘posh’; PB (lead) for the heavy metal, RAIDS for busts. The def is ‘carpets’, admonishes. |
10 | LIE DOWN. Anagram of ‘Now idle’. |
11 | ANGU(I)S,H. The Scots division (local government area) is Angus, once known as Forfarshire; as in the great football result: East Fife 4, Forfar 5. Also includes the inimitable Brechin City (wilderness years, 1906 to the present). |
12 | HOAX. Last letters of ‘with two aquaria’; X for ‘ten’. The def is ‘cod’, trick. |
13 | GOODS TRAIN. GO (proceed); OD (take too much); STRAIN (tax). |
15 | KI(LOVO)LTS. The bracketed bit is V (very, briefly) in the LOO. And: see title. |
16 | Omitted. Though it is a bit fishy, you could probably catch it by sheer serendipity. |
18 | CIDER. This is RIDER with a C for the initial R (right, hand). |
19 | GUFF,AWING. The crack is a joke. |
21 | ART,AXER,XES. Drawing → ART; lumberjack → AXER with a SEX (relations) reversal. Any of several Kings of Persia. Never heard of him. |
23 | SNUB. Turned up, as in retroussé. Reversal of BUNS. |
26 | ON THE Q T. Take ‘This tone’ and drop the IS (one’s lacking). So anagram of TH+TONE around Q. The def is ‘in confidence’. Is there any other expression that goes (2,3,1,1)? |
27 | ZER,MATT. ZERO minus its last. Somewhere in Switzerland. |
28 | TIMIDEST. Lift and separate ‘paper towel’; so the badge (ID) is in this paper (TIMES), plus the initial of ‘Towel’. |
29 | JERKIN. The letters J and K come after I, alphabetically. They include ER (our leading lady who’s about to turn up in 1dn). IN is in the clue before the def: ‘jacket’. |
Down | |
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1 | ZIL,CH. Here she is! Then Cold and Hot (taps). |
2 | P(REV)A,I,LED. I LED after PA packs his gun (REV, verb: as in to gun one’s engine). |
3 | Omitted. You can get sore looking up at it. |
5 | Ps AND Qs. S’posed to sound like ‘Pisan queues’. Ho ho! |
6 | RIGHT OF WAY. OK → ‘righto’; WAY (method) containing F for ‘following’. |
7 | I,BIZ,A. BIZ is ‘deals, informally’. |
8 | SCHÖNBERG. Arnold, Austrian composer. Anagram of ‘song Brecht’ minus T (‘timeless’). |
9 | UN,ROLL. A successful run, when you’re on it, is a roll. (The clue reminded me of Nicole Kidman; but then many things do.) |
14 | OVER,EX,TEND. Done → OVER; former → EX; nurse → TEND. |
15 | KICK ABOUT. Anagram of ‘1 back to UK’. |
17 | UNION JACK. ‘College’ → UNI; ‘working’ → ON; ‘to raise’ → JACK. |
19 | G(YR)ATES. Yr, abbrev. for ‘younger’, in GATES (wickets). |
20 | FREEZE. Peg, as in fix (prices). Sounds like ‘frieze’. |
22 | TOTEM. Reverse inclusive. |
24 | BATON. Reverse inclusive from the regular letters in ‘aNnOy TeAm By’. |
25 | BRIE |
Total Scrabble score for this puzzle: 230dn + 232ac = 462.
Highest scoring column or row: ZILCH / KICK ABOUT = 40.
I found this a most enjoyable puzzle, easier for me than yesterday’s. Yeah, I put in Artaxerxes from the definition alone, and then worked out the cryptic. It was actually the omitted ‘fluke’ that gave me the most difficult, a great surface there, that and ‘snub’. Getting those two opened up the roadblock in the SE, which was probably the toughest part.
I was thinking that 4 was a particular type of carpet, Oushaks or Spartans or something like that. It is curious that the setters never draw on the vast array of carpet names, although most of them probably couldn’t tell a Tekke from a village Heriz.
Our honorable blogger has failed to note that this is a pangram – in spades! I have never seen so many instances of ‘q’ and ‘x’ in one puzzle. If I had been thinking along that line, it would have been a lot easier to get ‘freeze’/’Zermatt’, which were my last two in.
On the other hand, I am glad I didn’t see the cryptic for ‘ps and qs’!
I never look at the surfaces much, anyway…..
But is ‘finding land’ really necessary? And is there a policy on the dieresis? I started writing in ‘Schoenberg’ until I realized there weren’t enough squares.
Artaxerxes I is best known for being the Persian king who allowed the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem.
Tom B.
Edited at 2011-03-30 05:44 am (UTC)
It was a shame not knowing the additional letters at the front of XERXES to make the king in question, however I would have known the additional letters required in front of EROS to make the correct name of the subject of the “London statue” at 3ac had I been called upon to do so.
I think the correct euphemism at 15ac is “smallest room”.
But enough of the quibbles! It was a brilliant puzzle and a most enjoyable solve.
It took me 30 minutes to get all of this but the 8th and 10th letters of the king. I never saw the SEX, partly because I wasn’t sure about FREEZE for “peg”.
I’ll put it down to having to get up at 5am.
Not at all happy with ‘kilovolts’ as a force unit though. Newton surely?
This took me 35 minutes of really enjoyable struggle. I even forgave the setter the leaning tower joke so good are the clues. Take 29A JERKIN as just one example of real class cluing. Thank you setter and well done Mctext – did you at any time get that little wave of “I’m not going to finish this” blogger’s panic? I think I might have!
Was held up a little by putting in DHURRIES for the carpets, but that soon became clear when I got 5dn (which I must admit, I did like!).
A couple went in without FU (CIDER, JERKIN), and there were gaps at the king (though, in my defence, I had got as far as ARTAXER—), the two 19s and also 20dn. I somehow couldn’t get beyond AFFEARING, or something to do with AWAKENING for 19ac, and, seeing the cricket ref at 19dn, I assumed it was beyond my sphere… Not sure I’d have got the peg=FREEZE def however long I’d thought about it.
Brilliant puzzle, COD to UPBRAIDS (once I’d finally worked it out!)
Great blog, too, McT, so thanks for that.
Can’t finish concise 13 ac ?a?i?e Smooth and glossy
COD: PS AND QS (it’s such an awful homophone that it’s good …).
Pity that, at the time of posting, it seems impossible to read the comments.
Lots here to enjoy – definitely the best puzzle for a long time.
I nodded off a couple of times while looking at the last three or four answers, and was very glad to finish it. Spotted the double pangram possibility early, but it didn’t help with the last few. Brilliant puzzle though – I think I’ll put it in the Good Puzzles section.
Had to resort to aids for the last couple. Great puzzle.
I must have been quite close to the setter’s wavelength if not exactly bang on it as this took me exactly 27 minutes with a couple of brief interruptions and despite accidentally navigating away from the page with about 6 lights left to fill and being confronted with a blank grid when I navigated back.
Too many good clues to pick a favourite, thanks very much to the setter.
Last in was the carpet, which needed lifting, separating and finally throwing up in the air and random guessing.
CoD though to the brilliant JERKIN, which combined a technical masterstroke with J&L and affectionate whimsy with ‘ER in Windsor.
I note SCHÖNBERG spelt his name for most of his life with the OE out of deference to the US of A, but it was nice to be able to put in the umlaut (on paper, anyway – bet it couldn’t be done online)
Has anyone noticed that this is a double pangram (teehee)?
I am not from the planet Bizaaro as far as I know, but I have been a habitue of this site since it started and am always indebted to the contributors for their informative and constructive criticism.
Please disregard what I said about carpets, I think that might prove a little difficult for some of us.
Hear hear!
And the puzzle got the blog it deserved, so thank you also, mctext.
Thank you very much.
Great puzzle…great blog..great comments
In the past the Times Cryptic has, I believe, always spelled him SCHOENBERG, so I’m slightly surprised the editor allowed SCHONBERG through; but perhaps he felt the rest of the crossword was so good that he didn’t want to alter it (and that there’d be too much whingeing if he changed the definition from “composer” to “music critic”).
Verdun 2, Troyes 4 🙂