Solving time: 37 Minutes
This should have been an easy one, but I started solving in an overconfident manner and entered a wrong word, then replaced it with another wrong word, and then saw it – and I still had all of Cornwall completely blank. Fortunately, after a few minutes of cogitation I came up with ‘Ave Maria’ and was able to finish.
Music: Prokovief, Symphony #7, Martinon/PCO
Across | |
---|---|
1 | RUMPUS, RUM + SUP backwards. |
5 | SERAPHIM, anagram of HARPS, I.E. M[usic]. One of the few non-IndoEuropean plurals found in English. |
9 | MINOTAUR, MINO(TAU)R, probably a chestnut. |
10 | QUEUES, sounds like ‘cues’. These may either be the lots of those waiting, or perhaps contain lots of people who are waiting. |
11 | POSEIDON, POSE + I + DON. |
12 | BUREAU, B(U R)EAU |
13 | TERMINAL, TERM IN A L. I thought for a while that ‘in’ was an enclosure indicator, and that the first letter must be ‘a’. |
15 | Omitted! |
17 | Omitted!. |
19 | BRIGHTON, B[ritish] + RIGHT ON. The second element, to my mind, is not a very exact equivalent of ‘trendy’, but the answer is obvious enough. |
20 | MODISH, M[odus] O[perandi] + DISH. The usual ‘rd’ or ‘st’ for ‘way’ won’t work here. |
21 | IMPRISON, I(MP)RIS + ON. A fine clue, but too easy to get from the literal. |
22 | REALLY, double definition. I wanted to put ‘indeed’ for a long time, but it didn’t seem to quite fit. |
23 | LODESTAR, anagram of OLD + E[ast] + S[outh] + TAR. Another one I just entered from the definition. |
24 | ADHERENT, double anagram, THERE AND and THEN READ. This seldom-used type of clue produces a nice surface. |
25 | SYDNEY, sounds like Sir Phillip SIDNEY. I nearly put in the knight rather than the town, but the ‘heard’ clearly goes with the knight. |
Down | |
2 | UNIFORMS, |
3 | PROPERTY, PROP + E + anagram of TRY. ‘Forward’, I believe, should be taken as a verb, as should ‘prop’, but the clue is rather loose. |
4 | SLANDERER, [i]SLAND + ER + ER. Despite understanding ‘Man’, I first put in ‘stutterer’ and the ‘stammerer’, before seeing what the answer should be. |
5 | SHRINKING VIOLET, KING in an anagram of EVIL, IN SHORT. Probably put in from the enumeration by most solvers. |
6 | AS USUAL, anagram of USA twice + L[iberal]. |
7 | HOUSEMEN, HO(USE)ME + N[oon]. A rather pedestrian clue. |
8 | MOSQUITO, MOS + QUITO, another chestnut. |
14 | ANTIPODES, anagram of AS POINTED. The literal presumably refers to 12-hour clocks. |
15 | AVE MARIA, AVE[nue] M[aiden] ARIA. I wasted a lot of time trying to work in ‘lied’. |
16 | HARD CASH, HARD C + AS H[usband], where ‘career’ starts with a ‘hard c’, but ‘certain’ does not. |
17 | UNBIASED, UNBI(AS E)D. |
18 | DETONATE, D(ET)ONATE. |
19 | BUSTLER, BU(S)TLER. I was afraid this was going to refer to a famous British case I had never heard of, but no, the butler did it. My last in. |
In 3dn, the PROP is a rugby forward.
Edited at 2012-10-01 01:35 am (UTC)
I gave up trying to parse 16dn thinking ‘beginning of career’ was HAR(e). Never heard of the knightly Sid.
A nice easy start to the week.
HARD CASH is brilliant, once you see how it works post solve.
Go, Europe! 🙂
My only grouse this morning is not intended as a criticism of the setter, but why are schoolchildren referred to as students these days? (2 down) What was wrong with pupils? I recall that trainee lawyers and midwives used to be pupils; they may well still be. (Shuffles off into the garden, muttering.)
Thanks for explaining 7dn. I thought the dwelling was a house and wondered how ME or EM could mean “practice”!
Despite starting with rumpus my LOI was uniforms.
Among the Monday fodder I probably quite liked SHRINKING VIOLET.
Many thanks to the setter and blogger,
Chris Gregory.
Couldn’t work out Hard Cash. Clever clue.
Edited at 2012-10-01 05:27 pm (UTC)
After the Europeans heroics at Medinah yesterday and the knight at 25 ac… arise Sir Ian Poulter !!
I think I must be missing something with 14dn. I’d understand it if it was just New Zealand (and 12-hour clocks), but not Australia. Or is ANTIPODES supposed to be be taken literally? (Feeling tired and dim. Sigh!)
Another vote for 16dn (HARD CASH) as COD.
If I was a pedant, I’d point out that if you were standing on the North Pole….
Magnificent golf. But why do they go on and on about ‘retaining’ the cup? When people look back in years to come they will be far more interested in who won. Which makes Woods’s concession a bit odd. Nobody seemed to mind, but they should have.
As it was Phil, always the gentleman, politely applauded Rose’s heroic birdie. I kind of felt that was the cup right there, and I was right. Ole, ole, ole!