ACROSS
1 SIKES SPIKES (points) minus P (penny) William “Bill” Sikes is a fictional character, a rough and barbaric man in the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.
4 PUPPY LOVE PUPPY (item of a litter of young animals) LOVE (not a thing, nothing)
9 QUAVERING Ins of VE (empty VasE) in SQUARING (evening) minus S (shillings)
10 RABBI RABBIT (talk) minus T (time)
11 ELIJAH Ins of J (judge) in ELIAH (rev of HAILED minus D)
12 STAIRWAY Ins of T (T-cross) & AIR (wind) in SWAY (rock)
14 TRAVEL-SICK Lovely cd
16 BASH dd
19 rha deliberately omitted
20 SCREEN TEST &littish *(CENTRE’S SET)
22 PAPERBOY Ins of *(PROBE) in PAY (money)
23 ALECTO Ins of ECT (electro-convulsive therapy) in ‘ALO (saintly circle or halo as said by a Cockney) for one of the Furies, hideous snake-haired monsters who pursued unpunished criminals, The other two were Megaera and Tisiphone
26 SALVO SALVER (plate) with ER (Elizabeth Regina, queen) replaced by O (first letter of outlaw). My COD for a creative and original def – big shots going off together !
27 OPAL GLASS *(GAP ALL’S SO)
28 ON-THE-SPOT dd certain minor infringement of the law may be settled then and there when the culprit is apprehended e.g. dropping litter
29 TELEX Sounds like TELL (as in order her to shut up) EX (divorcee)
DOWN
1 SEQUESTER Ins of QUEST (expedition) in SEE (notice) & R (river)
2 KHAKI worK witH teA breaK + I (one) ; a devilish clue
3 SEE-SAWED Cha of SEES (witnesses) AWED (filled with dread)
4 PRIM PRIME (get ready for action) minus E
5 PIG-STICKER Cha of PIG (gorge or eat greedily) S (second) TICKER (watch)
6 YARDIE YAR (rev of RAY, a glimmer of hope) DIE (stop) for a member of a W Indian gang or Mafia-like syndicate involved in drug-dealing and related crime
7 OX-BOW LAKE OX (neat) *(BLOKE With A) … what an excellent def
8 EMILY EMIL (rev of LIME tree) Y (looks like a catapult)
13 PSYCHOPOMP PSYCHO (famous Alfred Hitchcock flick) POMP (impressive show) for a conductor of souls to the afterworld
15 AUTOPILOT Cha of AU (aurum, gold, shiny metal) + ins of I (one) in TOP (cap) & LOT (helping)
17 HIT FOR SIX Ins of OR (other ranks, soldiers, men) in *(FIX THIS)
18 IN-FLIGHT Bolting or running away is in flight. I like the def
21 BROOKE Ins of O (old) in BROKE (cleaned out financially) for either Arthur Brooke (died circa 1563) of The Tragicall History of Romeus and Juliet (1562) fame; or Rupert Chawner Brooke (1887 – 1915) known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War, especially The Soldier.
22 PESTO PRESTO (quickly) minus R (runs) for an Italian sauce made chiefly of basil and cheese, with pine nuts and olive oil
24 CRAWL Ins of A W (west quarter) in CiRcLe
25 WAIT Sounds like WEIGHT (bias)
Key to abbreviations
dd = double definition
dud = duplicate definition
tichy = tongue-in-cheek type
cd = cryptic definition
rev = reversed or reversal
ins = insertion
cha = charade
ha = hidden answer
rha = reversed hidden answer
*(fodder) = anagram
I was a bit puzzled at first by ‘psychopomp’, but my Greek is a little rusty, a ‘pompos’ is an escort. On the other hand, I put in ‘Alecto’ from the definition and then figured out the wordplay. I couldn’t quite place ‘ECT’ but it seemed reasonable.
The Brooke is definitely Rupert Brooke, there are limits to how obscure a poet is allowed, as our Dorset correspondent will be happy to hear.
Some things in here felt familiar from recent puzzles, like the TRAVEL-SICK clue and the use of ‘up’ in the IN-FLIGHT clue.
Very, very tough, and made tougher if you didn’t know your Furies and went initially with ALESTO, as I did. That took ten minutes of sorting out. In the end, PSYCHOPOMP went in without, as we like to say, full understanding (ie. I gave up thinking about it and crossed my fingers).
Edited at 2012-01-12 06:13 am (UTC)
I needed 70 minutes but it was really a DNF because I couldn’t think of anything to fit PSYCHO?O?P so I looked it up. Then I was about to cheat on 23ac too but in a last-minute flash of inspiration I spotted the wordplay to complete the grid. I had long since realised it was one of the Furies but couldn’t remember any of their names.
My main problem was in the NW where I wrote QUIVERING at 9ac on definition alone which made 2dn impossible to crack until I realised my error.
17dn relies on metaphors from two different sports and I’m not sure they mean exactly the same thing.
I haven’t quoted a lyric for a while, so here’s one for 5dn by Noel Coward who had two old buffers reminiscing about the days of the Raj:
Have you heard any word of that bloke in the “Third”,
Was it Sotherby, Sedgwick or Sim?
They had him thrown out of the club in Bombay
For apart from his mess bills exceeding his pay,
He took to pig-sticking in quite the wrong way.
I wonder what happened to him!
Edited at 2012-01-12 08:15 am (UTC)
re 17d – I think it’s just the one sport – cricket – and ‘floor’ meaning amaze.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUAOZgkUPeQ
I thought ‘floor’ was a boxing reference.
1. I suspect that’s a whole lot truer to life than the Merchant-Ivory version of the days of the Raj – Brits behaving badly overseas is nothing new (I’m doing my best to maintain the tradition).
2. I can see, or hear, why they call him the Master. Peerless.
Thanks again.
Edited at 2012-01-12 03:09 pm (UTC)
Might have finished earlier if OXBOW LAKE had been given its proper name of BILLABONG.
The SYKES thing was weird: I understood the wordplay at the time but somehow the subconscious conviction that the Dickens character is spelled with a Y took control of my hand.
Super puzzle this, as others have noted. I particularly enjoyed the definitions for SALVO and OXBOW LAKE. PSYCHOPOMP went in on a wing and a prayer.
Great puzzle. I had to cheat to get the t in Alecto, but I think that’s just about allowable. And as sotira has mentioned, TRAVEL SICK is a close companion to one of the clues in another testing puzzle from a few days ago, which I finally finished this morning after a 3- day struggle.
Had to rely on wordplay and intuition for psychopomp, Alecto, opal glass and pig-sticker.
Hard to pick a COD from such a comely bunch but if pressed I’d go for salvo.
Andy B
At 7D Anon, the W=with. Well done setter and good stuff UY.
Anyway, my subject line today should read: ‘All bar two and a half…’, as I completed all bar BROOKE and WAIT (galling, as I had worked out the wordplay, so should’ve got those two), and had PSYCHO-O-P. Since I’ve never heard of the word, I don’t think I could ever have got that one! Oh, and I too had SYKES (doesn’t it somehow look far more Dickensian than SIKES?), having convinced myself that spykes were some form of points.
Unknowns today for me were ALECTO and OPAL GLASS, but both well clued.
COD: PUPPY LOVE, for the misdirection of ‘Item of litter…’