Solving time: 17:42
Phew! An easier puzzle on my blogging day after a couple of real stretches in the week’s two earlier numbers. The three cross-refs to 27ac made it simpler if you got it; harder if you didn’t; as is often the case with cross-refs. Be interesting to know who worked from the pivot clue and who reverse-engineered it. (My suspicions are that the tendency will be towards the latter.)
Across |
1 |
JUNTA. JUN{e}, several weeks; TA, Territorial Army. |
4 |
DEMITASSE. DEMIT, resign; AS; S{enior} E{executive}. A French word for a half cup starting with another French-derived word (démettre). I own a prized navvy’s type; made of enamelled tin. |
9 |
URBANISTS. Anagram: barn suits. |
10 |
ROACH. Which is {b}ROACH, bring up, minus the first letter of ‘Boys’. |
11 |
NOT ON YOUR LIFE. Two defs; one an attempt at humour. (YOUR: A pleasant change from the usual, checker-friendly, ‘ONES’.) |
14 |
Omitted. Motorists of the world unite, you have nothing to choose but…. |
15 |
COMMERCIAL. COAL (fuel), inc M (=motorway) + MERCI (‘thanks’ for a 27ac). The def is ‘it pushes’. |
18 |
SEDUCTRESS. E (European), DUC (noble 27ac), inside STRESS. ‘In grave, say’ might have been more thematic? |
19 |
FEED. Two defs. |
21 |
ENTER THE LISTS. Which is: enter the(l)ists. |
24 |
EGRET. EG (for example); RE (on); {boa}T. |
25 |
APPALOOSA. APPALS (horrifies), inc OO (rings), A. |
27 |
FRENCHMAN. FR (father); ’ENCHMAN. Def = ‘possibly Jean’. (Would ‘Minder’ have sufficed?) |
28 |
MIDGE. Included in the clue. Appropriately, Tyndrum is in Scotland, home of the midge. |
Down |
1 |
JOURNALESE. ALES in JOURNE{y}. Remember Lunchtime O’Booze, he who put the ALES in JOURNALESE? |
2 |
NEB. Reversal of BEN. Various kinds of slang for the nose, a beak, brim of a cap…. What makes me think of Ringo here? |
3 |
AW(N)ING. |
4 |
DISCOLOUR. DISCO (party); LO (see); UR (old city). ‘Join’ at the start of the clue is an instruction so to do. ‘Fox’: a bibliophilic term. Discoloured pages are said to be foxed. |
5 |
MISER. Two defs. One (or both?) a well-boring tool. |
6 |
TERTIARY. TRY including {in}ERTIA. |
7 |
STATELINESS. STATE LESS (shorten declaration), inc IN (fashionable). |
8 |
ECHT. {br}ECHT. Uncle Bertolt, a grumpy cigar smoker who chucked out a few leftie plays now and then. |
12 |
THIRD DEGREE. A joke. (As is the fact that most doctoral students in Australia only have one degree under their belts.) |
13 |
CLYDESDALE. Anagram: called s{e}edy. Called a draught-horse because it has ALE at the back. |
16 |
MISSHAPEN. MISHAP (accident) inc S{cooter}; EN (‘in’ for Jean). The interesting connection here, well-known to all roadies, is that a ‘frenchman’ is a reverse twist made when coiling a cable that has a kink in it; thus to straighten it. |
17 |
EC,STATIC. The City area of London, East Central. |
20 |
SLALOM. SLAM (attack) inc L (large) and {cr}O{wd}. |
22 |
REALM. {tria}L inside REAM. The Mac Oxford’s example is “the realm of applied chemistry”. Does anyone ever say this? |
23 |
BEEF. F with BEE (worker) first. |
26 |
Omitted. I agree! |
Roughly half my answers went in on definition alone. My only unknown word was APPALOOSA which luckily had straightforward wordplay as an alternative route to the answer. I also didn’t know the awl meaning of MISER although I have a feeling it has come up before and I failed to retain it for future use.
Edited at 2012-08-29 01:14 am (UTC)
Likewise my URBANITES felt more accurate, and dam’ the anagram, than the correct answer, which made Mr Fox at 6d (is there a name other than Reynard?) somewhat trickier than it needed to be.
Thanks for the roadie’s take on FRENCHMAN, which I didn’t know, and is therefore the something new I will learn today. Is there a reason? Can it be printed?
Shoulda bin quicker. CoD to STATELINESS for “shorten declaration” not being “take the end off something”.
Edited at 2012-08-29 05:32 am (UTC)
The ref is here. [See 6th para.]
Edited at 2012-08-29 06:07 am (UTC)
Had to work out APPALOOSA (loi) from wordplay since I’d never heard of it. Didn’t know MISER had any drilling meaning either but what else could’d it be.
Got FRENCHMAN since SEDUCTRESS was obvious even without it. And then it was a gimme
Enter The Lists was today’s unknown phrase and so too the Discolour meaning of fox and the Miser tool. LOI Stateliness.
I quite enjoyed the links to Jean since like Paul I solved siren=seductress and then saw “duc” making the answer to 27 obvious. Both the FOX and MISER unusual meanings have cropped up many times before
Took me 19 minutes to finish, having clocked Frenchman early on, only to find I had JOURNALISM (although didn’t get the parsing) so not Orl Korrect today.
I was worried about 2dn. Was it a reversal of a familar word to make an obscure one (NEB) or a reversal of an obscure word to make a familiar one (NIB or NUB)? No way of knowing, but fortunately my default principle of following the wordplay worked out this time.
Generally an enjoyable puzzle but I’m not a fan of linked clues. In some extreme examples it makes the puzzles almost impossible until you’ve got the link, and then extremely easy. This one wasn’t that bad of course but still I’d rather they didn’t.
At least I realized at once that was no ‘e’ in ‘barn suits’!
Incidentally, the Jesse Stone TV films, of which the first few were faithful to the books and very well done, are all filmed round about where I live here in Nova Scotia, so we watch them and play ‘spot the location’.
Never quite got the whole Western thing, but I’m sure I’ll get around to Appaloosa when I run out of of Spensers. I’d be mad not to …
Comfort yourself that Parker would have been amused at the manner by which you came to the books – an off-hand remark in the local bar, a conversation overheard in an Italian cafe, an anonymous stranger handing over a disc … all very intriguing!
Yes, it is a series, made by CBS. It’s very unusual stuff for an American network and wouldn’t get made without Selleck’s clout. I think they’re available on DVD through Amazon etc. Very atmospheric TV, and paced more like a Scandinavian crime drama than your typical American crime show. And lovely use of music (I’m still trying to master the Brahms Intermezzo that gets used repeatedly – give me another few years and I’ll nail it).
27a i had The Old Man – cockney and also the THAMES which of course supports the East End.
Needless to,say ater those two ….things went sownhill.
For siren i had Radio Noise which fit with misshapen.
Thought urbanites must be wrong because cabinsoors fit so well. ,