Solving time: DNF
I have felt terrible all day, and in my weakened state this one was too much for me. Maybe if I was fully healthy I could have finished, despite a couple of answers I had never heard of.
Music: Berlioz, Harold in Italy, Davis/Imai/LSO
Across | |
---|---|
1 | MACEDOINE, M(ACE DO)INE. This is one I had not heard of. The theory that ‘top cook’ = ‘C’ is very tempting, since there is a ‘C’ in the crossing letters. But in this case, ‘cook’ turns out to be ‘do’, which is usually a party or a swindle. I suspect this clue will give everyone a lot of trouble. |
9 | POUNCER, P[rey] + OUNCE + R. The literal is a bit awkwardly tacked on, so this should be one of the easier ones. |
10 | WANTAGE, WANT + AGE. Easy enough if you have heard of the place; if not, then it might equally well start with ‘lack’ or ‘miss’. |
11 | MUMPS, MUM + P[ill]S. Quite easy, but this held me up for a long time. |
12 | RECOLLECT, RE + COLL[i]E + C[hale]T. Another of the starter clues, which were sorely needed in this puzzle. |
13 | OUTLIVE, OUT + EVIL backwards. The trick is to lift and separate the literal, which is ‘weather’. |
15 | SWILL, double definition. I had ‘scrub’ for a long time, which does almost work. |
17 | TAPAS, AT backwards + PA + S. My first in, a comparatively easy clue once you parse the literal. |
18 | TAINT, hidden in [bri]TAIN T[oday]. I knew this must be a hidden, and still couldn’t see it for a bit. |
19 | PURER, P[o]URER, another easy one I had a hard time with. |
20 | RISOTTO, SIR backwards + OTTO. I nearly always forget to try ‘sir’ for ‘teacher’, and for a long time fancied ‘gelatti’. |
23 | RECEPTION, a cryptic definition, I believe, unless there is some trick I don’t see, which is likely enough. |
25 | Omitted! |
27 | TEA-ROSE, TEA(RO[ot])SE. |
28 | LAY DOWN, LAY + DOWN in different senses. Probably, ‘song sung’ = ‘lay’, i.e. from the oral tradition. |
20 | EXPRESSLY, EXPRESS + L[eft] + Y[ork]. Another well-hidden literal. |
 | |
Down | |
1 | MY WORD, MY WOR[l]D. Pretty clever use of ‘well’, which I spotted at once, but then wasted a lot of time on ‘area’ = ‘a’, which was not it at all. |
2 | CONSCRIPTS, CONS + CRI(P[icture])TS. This one should keep you guessing for a while, since not often do ‘reviews’ = ‘crits’. |
3 | DEAD LOSS, D(anagram of DEAL)OSS. I was familiar with ‘doss’ in the sense of vagrants bedding down for the night, but the secondary slang meaning was new to me. |
4 | IRENE, I RE[pi]NE. Another well-disguised literal, simply a woman’s name. |
5 | EPISTOLER, E(PISTOL)ER. This should have been easy, but I tried every sense of ‘piece’ except the right one before seeing it. |
6 | SUMMIT, SU(MM)IT. Yet another requiring lift and separate to get the literal. |
7 | SCAM, MAC[e]S backwards. The literal ‘game’ is used here in the metaphoric sense, as in ‘con game’. |
8 | PROSPECT, anagram of COPPERS + [contemp]T. One of the easier clues. |
14 | INIQUITOUS, IN + I + QUITO + US. I was beating my brains trying to think of a capital ending in ‘o’, when I finally thought of the answer and then remembered the capital. |
16 | IMPORTUNE, IMP + [f]ORTUNE. I had many theories about this, all of which turned out to be wrong. |
17 | THROSTLE, TH(anagram of STROL[l])E. The literal really is ‘old bird’, there is no lift and separate, which sure fooled me. |
18 | TRIPLANE, sounds like TRY, PLAIN. A ‘simple’ is not even a herb, the clue is that simple!. |
21 | TURBOT, TO[o] BRUT backwards. I was a little surprised that ‘too’ appears in both the clue and the answer, when it could easily have been avoided. |
22 | ANNECY, ANNE + C[it]Y. Never heard of it, but for once the cryptic hands it to you. |
24 | CUT UP, CUT + UP in different senses. Here, university does not = ‘u’, but ‘at university’ = ‘up’. |
26 | BOYO, B[ishop] + [e]O[j] Y[l]O[h]. A word that should be familiar to fans of The Clash. |
At the other end: no idea about ANNECY; but it did have me rehearsing David Crosby’s “Orleans” in case the answer was one of the places in the song. It wasn’t.
Crossed out SCOUR and SCRUB at 15ac before remembering an Australian Prime Minister’s reference to the Senate as “unrepresentative swill”.
LOI: 13ac, OUTLIVE. Fiendishest of the fiendish.
I took a number of guesses from literals which at first seemed unlikely to fit the wordplay but on closer examination turned out to be correct – MACEDOINE being the first of several examples. I remembered the word from menus back in the 50s as it was an item that sounded exotic and exciting yet when served turned out to be utterly disappointing having obviously come straight out of tins like mct used to buy.
There were only a couple of unknowns for me today, DOSS as an easy task and EPISTOLER with an O.
23ac is a double definition, not a cryptic. It’s the first class in an infant school in addition to the drinks party. It was also my last in.
Edited at 2012-03-05 05:22 am (UTC)
You are an “abundant supply” (1ac, not an anagram) of information. So thanks for working out RECEPTION in particular. Meant to mention this as a complete unknown. But what else do you do with R-C-P-I-N?
I’m curious to know how you manage to appear both with and without your avatar in the same discussion?
Edited at 2012-03-05 06:11 am (UTC)
1. Don’t set a default userpic in the LiveJournal settings.
2. Select the userpic you want for each post.
3. Leaving it as “(default)” under “Picture to use” = no userpic.
BTW: In LiveJournal speak, “avatar” = username (mctext).
“Userpic” = what you’d expect it to mean.
Edited at 2012-03-05 09:17 am (UTC)
There were a lot of clues here where you had to remove a bit of a word. In the case of 4dn and 11ac the bits themselves are whole words. I think this contributed to the difficulty because it makes the wordplay much less obvious.
Lucky to get MACEDOINE straight off from the cryptic. I think it may be more of an eastern European thing these days, certainly the context in which I’ve eaten it recently.
The SOBER judge thing turned up in Another Place this weekend.
A lot of rather slangy stuff in this one?
CoD to OUTLIVE, and I liked LAY DOWN for its neat use of Neil Diamond. This version’s really cheesy, and a bit off key, too.
Was pleased to finish this correctly, albeit pretty slowly, with full understanding of all but IRENE (never heard of REPINE), and EXPRESSLY (didn’t think too hard about where the L and Y came from).
Thought WANTAGE was in Dorset (Swanage?), but the cryptic was clear.
CoD: OUTLIVE for the ‘bad weather’ misdirection.
Edited at 2012-03-05 12:40 pm (UTC)
Enigma
My head ached so hard last night I could barely read the clues. Today I feel much better, and could probably finish or come close.
Edited at 2012-03-05 05:02 pm (UTC)
So I had to cheat.
I know it’s bad to flaunt one’s ignorance, but I’m actually quite proud not to know the word MACEDOINE. If you ever hear me using it, shoot me. The setter is redeemed by including THROSTLE, which I wish I’d known years ago. Proper word, which should surely be delivered in a broad Yorkshire accent and preceded by ‘yon’.
Shirt badge
Pretty picture
Ergo the word is best delivered with a black country accent.
Edited at 2012-03-05 04:29 pm (UTC)
Can’t decide on tea tonight: tapas, Annency throstle risotto or cut up turbot with macedoine? I’ll probably end up with swill.
Edited at 2012-03-05 06:23 pm (UTC)
Mind you I’ve been doing a fair bit of Mephisto of late so my idea of what’s obscure might be a bit squiffy.
Edited at 2012-03-06 02:56 am (UTC)
For once I actually solved the foodie clue (MACEDOINE) straight off – though, more typically, I hadn’t heard of keriothe’s brunoise before.
DOSS = “easy task” was new to me, but everything else was familiar: I once worked with a chap who was mayor of WANTAGE at the time; EPISTOLER has been on my list of difficult words for many years; and I used to have a French pen-friend who lived in ANNECY.