Solving time: 44 minutes
This one was unusually tough for a Monday, even though there were quite a few easy clues that could be written in nearly at sight. However, I struggled for quite a bit with the rest. Maybe they weren’t really that hard?
Music: Holst, The Planets, Mehta/LAPO
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | DIMPLY, DIM + PLY. One of my last in, as I wondered for a long time how ‘dimpled’ could be made to fit. |
| 4 | RANCHERO, RAN + C + HERO, my first in, an easy clue to get started……right? |
| 10 | PUNCTILIO, PUN + CL(TI)IO, with IT backwards. Another quick answer for me. |
| 11 | RIGHT, sounds like RITE. |
| 12 | Skipped! |
| 13 | SHORT CHANGE, S([churc]H)ORT [to] CHANGE. I’ll bet you thought this was an anagram, so did I. |
| 14 | INSANE, IN(SA)N + E[nergy], where sex appeal has been replaced with the Salvation Army. An improvement? |
| 16 | CURLING, CUR + LING. When I was 13, I met a boy who was an enthusiastic proponent of this sport. It was then that I realized there are all types of people in the world. |
| 19 | VERDANT, V([th]E RD)AN + T. Another easy one. |
| 20 | RHEUMY, sounds like ROOMY. Although I am bad at homonyms, I saw this right away – I think we had a similar one recently. |
| 22 | ACHIEVEMENT, A CHI(EVE, MEN)T. I realized right away you had to lift and separate ‘female soldiers’, but I was trying to use ‘brat’ on the outside. |
| 25 | Omitted. |
| 26 | INDIE, IN + DIE, good use of a clever way of indicating ‘die’. |
| 27 | HOUSEMATE, anagram of AT HOME, SUE. Like most experienced solvers would try, I thought ‘at home’ = ‘in’, but not so today. |
| 28 | GENOTYPE, G(ENO)TYPE, where ‘one’ is backwards and ‘Egypt’ is the anagrist. Most solvers instinctively convert ‘one’ to ‘l’ and ‘about’ to ‘c’, ‘ca’ or ‘re’. This caused me considerable delay. |
| 29 | RECENT, RE(CE)NT. Another good misdirection clue, since ‘new’ is usually either an anagrind or ‘n’. |
| Down | |
| 1 | DEPOSE, DE(PO’S)E. I thought of this, but couldn’t justify it until I saw the contraction of ‘Po is’ was required. |
| 2 | MONSIGNOR, hidden word in [ser]MONS IGNOR[ed]. |
| 3 | LOTUS, |
| 5 | A SOP TO CERBERUS, anagram of PEER CROSS ABOUT. An easy anagram for me, but maybe not for you? |
| 6 | CARTHORSE, CAR(THOR’S)E. Once again, you have to copy the construction of the cryptic into the answer, which slowed me up quite a bit. |
| 7 | ELGIN, EL(G)IN, i.e. NILE backwards. Easy enough with the checkers, but I got it without them. |
| 8 | OUTWEIGH, sounds like OUT WAY, a clue where my lack of ability with homonyms did hurt me. |
| 9 | ALL OVER THE SHOP, double definition, one literalist, one not. In the US we usually say ‘all over the map’, so I had to wait for some checkers to get the last word. |
| 15 | ABASEMENT, anagram of MEAT and BEANS. Another one written in at sight. |
| 17 | IMMEDIATE, I + M[atch] + MEDIATE. I thought of this right away from the literal, but I couldn’t justify it, so finally gave up and just put it in when I had enough checking letters. Analysed for the blog. |
| 18 | AVIATING, A (VIA) TING[e], my last in, and I never saw the cryptic until I just figured it out for the blog. For the longest time I thought this must start with ‘over’, which is likely enough. |
| 21 | INVEST, IN VEST. If you were selling shares, it would be a naked short, I suppose. |
| 23 | HAD ON, HA(DO)N, where ‘do’ is the abbreviation for ‘ditto’, and the Han are the main ethnic group in China. I could have told you ‘ha don’ means ‘the same’ in Mandarin, just to have you on, but Uncle Yap would have called me out. |
| 24 | THERE, THE(R)E. An easy clue that made me feel dull not to see it at once. |
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