Solving time: 32:05
Could have been faster without a touch of blogger’s nerves at the 2dn/9ac intersection. No excuse for this in retrospect. Off to a good start with the long anagram at 5dn and didn’t find the bottom half too hard; despite the clues spilling over on to a second page because of the silly notice on the Club site. The only query I have [had] is about one word in 19ac.
Across |
1 |
FLA(TFI)SH. Reverse 1 FT inside FLASH; as in ‘flash flood’?. Only got this by solving 20dn and then 27ac. |
6 |
MEAGRE. {ti}ME + AGRE{e} |
9 |
TIP-OFF. TOFF containing reverse of PI; personal injury, a type of lawsuit. Had to look up the abbrev. of which I’d not heard. On edit, Vince has a much better version: “I deciphered it as FOP wearing FIT, backwards”.
|
10 |
LANDLADY. Two LADs, one round N for North; one taking the Y from Yorkshire. The def. is ‘letter’; one who lets (property). |
11 |
GAL,A. |
12 |
INSOUCIANT. I (for ‘current’); Anagram: NUS action. |
14 |
PAT(HOG)EN. ‘Clear-cut’ = PATEN{t}. |
16 |
Omitted. |
18 |
C(H)AR. Cf ‘saloon car’; a sedan. |
19 |
S,CANNING. Don’t understand the ‘briefly’. George Canning, 1st Lord of the Treasury in 1827 only. He died in office. On edit: ah yes, that’s it! He served briefly!
|
21 |
PLAY IT COOL. Anagram: Typical loo. |
22 |
ARCH. From {rese}ARCH. |
24 |
GET ALONG. Two meanings. (The posh version of ‘Gerron’ and ‘Gerraway’.) |
26 |
TRIPOS. First letters of ‘These Results In Particular Overwhelm Schools’. Final Hons. exam at Cambridge. |
27 |
INSOLE. Switching seats of learning now … or perhaps having the shoe on the other foot. IN (at home, 20dn), SOLE (flatfish, 1ac). Liked this one. |
28 |
EX-PANS{i}ES. |
Down |
2 |
LEILA. ALE around 1, then (lift and separate) L (for litre); all reversed. A lady boxer, some say. |
3 |
THOMAS HARDY. TARDY (late) containing HO{t} MASH. (No relation to Major Houlihan.) |
4 |
IN,FRINGE. |
5 |
HOLDS ONES TONGUE. Anagram: D + long stone house. |
6 |
MANQUÉ. MAN + QU{it}E. |
7 |
Omitted. |
8 |
RED ENSIGN. NED (Edward) reversed in RESIGN. |
13 |
INCANTATION. T{hat} inside INCA,NATION. |
15 |
A,CHIL(L)EAN. |
17 |
TABLET,OP. |
20 |
AT-HOME. {f}ATHOME{d}. The kind of party had by those who say 24ac. |
23 |
CLOSE. Two meanings. |
25 |
A,GO. |
For the record, I solved the ‘triple clue’ in the order 20, 27, 1.
– Vince
Rishi
in Chennai that was Madras, India
I wonder how, to me, ‘scanning’ has always meant looking at something quickly and its other meaning, to examine closely, has passed me by until this morning. I must have been misunderstanding it in some contexts all these years. For that reason I had taken the definition at 19ac as ‘examining…briefly’ and noted a breach of the convention that the definition usually goes at the beginning or end of a clue.
Yet again there was apparently no room for the puzzle number in the heading and the over-size message about next week’s puzzle has bumped some of the clues onto a second page so that it’s necessary to adjust the font size to fit everything on one sheet. Would it really be so difficult to sort this out?
I was equally awry in my thoughts about TIP OFF, wondering how PI meant suit.
Canning was PM just long enough to have the Canning River in Perth named after him, but not the Canning Highway, which crosses the river. The latter is named after the Stock Route and No. 1 Rabbit-Proof Fence man.
Agree with Jack about the printing of the puzzle
GET ALONG is an expression I don’t hear much these days: always associate it with elderly aunts telling off cheeky nephews in the 1950s; whereas the lavatorial humour at 21 reminds me of elderly uncles!
MANQUE is a much sadder word than the definition “unsuccessful” suggests, isn’t it? The idea of unfulfilled potential (I could have been a contender……)
Haven’t had much time to comment recently and have several puzzles still to tackle; so many thanks for the blog and regards to everyone. (35 minutes)
But, but….. I used “I coulda been a contender” here yesterday. What are you saying?
It’s just that I associate the word with, say, the fellow who has the talent to become an actor of note but who, through force of circumstances, must content himself with a humdrum career and bit parts with the local dramatic society.
(I was going to specify such a career, but don’t want to offend anyone else. And I’m reliably informed by a friend in amateur dramatics that her local society is full of potential Kevin Spaceys!)
You’re too kind. I do like to think of myself as a champion manque. I really coulda been a contender, you know.
And yes, every am-dram soc. has a few of those (“It was down to me and that Colin Firth but Firth went to school with the director… only reason he got it”).
CHAR went in uneasily, for the same reason given by martifred, and thought like others I was missing something on 19.
While I know the grammar is fine, doesn’t “holds ones tongue” just look a bit odd?
CoD to INSOLE for that elegant triple. Getting it meant the first three letters of 1ac fell into plaice and resolved LEILA, which otherwise was running into the could be anything class.
Edited at 2012-05-09 03:37 pm (UTC)
Last in TABLETOP, which I twice considered and twice rejected on the grounds that it did not fit the checking letters. Inexthplicable.
Thank you for the blog, mctext, the title of which made me think of John Major.
Edited at 2012-05-09 12:55 pm (UTC)
I got ‘insole’ before the other two, and used it to solve them. When I saw ’20-1′ I just knew it was a cross-ref.
I knew him as an olympic medallist and it came as something of a shock to find that he has now been banged up for 9 years..
I started with a pretty good pace and managed half the puzzle. Answers were scattered about the grid with difficult crossings everywhere. Like jimbo I struggled with the anagrams… INSOUCIANT was one of my last in, and held up progress in the NE for a long time.
Eventually I put the puzzle down and returned to it a few hours later, and was immediately able to put in 6 or 7 more answers, before getting stuck again. Sometimes I wonder if the extra hour spent to crack the last 2 or 3 clues is worth it…
Ah well, tomorrow is another day.