I found today’s puzzle to be excruciatingly challenging with all manners of trickery and subterfuge employed in both the fodder and the definitions. If not for the need to fully understand and explain for this blog, I would have enjoyed all the clever wordplay tremendously. Final word – an excellent puzzle, although a tad torturous
ACROSS
1 PIQUED
4 DAY-LEWIS *(WIDELY AS) for Cecil Day–Lewis, CBE (1904–1972) an Anglo-Irish poet and the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1968 until his death in 1972. He also wrote mystery stories under the pseudonym of Nicholas Blake.
10 BRAILLE Ins of ILL (badly) in BRAE (Scottish term for the sloping bank of a river) for the system of raised type in relief for the blind invented by Frenchman, Louis Braille (1809-1952)
11 NOTEDLY *(TEN Year OLD)
12 OMIT Ins of M & I (first letters of Marple investigates) in Old Testament (series of books)
13 OUT TO LUNCH What a superb definition taking courses away and, of course, that phrase describes someone a bit cuckoo
15 WHOLESALE Ins of HOLES (places for filling in) in WALES (part of UK) minus last letter, S (unfinished)
16 JUDGE Ins of U (university) in rev of EG (exempli gratia, for example, for one) DJ (disc jocket, personality in record department)
18 TROLL TROLLOP (prostitute) minus OP (opus, work) someone who makes a conscious attempt to provoke controversy or disagreement on the Internet.
19 ACID HOUSE ACID (biting) HOUSE (put up) for the youth movement originating in the 1980s, involving large gatherings of people to dance under bright flashing lights to loud repetitive music featuring complex percussion patterns, and often associated with the use of certain drugs, esp Ecstasy.
21 AT ALL COSTS Ins of CO (company, firm) in A TALL (high) ST (street) S (store minus tore, rent)
23 rha deliberately omitted
26 IN TOUCH dd
27 KEY-RING KEY (pitch as in piano tuning) RING (league)
28 LONGHORN Ins of N (northern) in LOG (part of raft) + HORN (Cape Horn in S.America) for a breed of cattle with long horns, of course, so aptly named
29 PHUKET *(picK UP THE) for an island resort off the south-west coast of Thailand.
DOWN
1 PABLO PA (personal assistant, secretary) BL (rev of lb, symbol for pound, weight) O (round) for a Spanish name of which the most famous holder must be the artist, Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
2 QUASIMODO QUASH (crush, scotch) minus H + IMO (in my opinion) + DO (perform). Quasimodo is the titular character in Victor Hugo’s novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame
3 EELS Eliza Doolittle, the Cockney flowergirl in My Fair Lady would say ‘eels for heels and we also know that the aquatic creature, eel is a very slippery customer. My COD for making me laugh
5 ANNETTE Ins of NET (after tax) in ANTE (money gambled)
6 LITTLE JOHN *(THE JOINT Left) for the biggest man in Robin Hood’s Sherwood Forest
7 WIDEN Thanks to ulaca, the erudite one WI (Women’s Institutea) + DEN, possible hotbed for the making of jam. I find this such a stretch that I will call it an unfair clue.
8 SAY CHEESE A delightful cd which got me laughing aloud
9 BELUGA Ins of LUG (hump, to carry something heavy) in BEAM (light) minus M
14 BELLY LAUGH *(British ALL HUGELY)
15 WITH A WILL Ins of A W (wife) in WIT (comedian) & HILL (fell)
17 DRUMSTICK Thanks to ulaca, DRUMS (the percussion section of an orchestra is called kitchen) + TICK (second)
19 ANOTHER Another clue that took me a long while to fully grasp. A (ace) + NOT HER but HIS
20 INTAKE I (one) N (new) TAKE (perspective as in “What’s your take on the reelection of Obama?”)
22 ANTON WANTON (abandoned as in wild sex) for Anton Bruckner (1824–1896) an Austrian composer known for his symphonies, masses, and motets.
24 TIGHT dd someone who is tight (strapped for cash) is unlikely to be too choosey
25 Last letters of fodder deliberately omitted
++++++++++++++
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
*(FODDER) = anagram
Edited at 2012-11-15 01:52 am (UTC)
DRUM’S (‘from the kitchen’) + TICK (‘second’)
Edited at 2012-11-15 04:05 am (UTC)
I think “get cracking” at 8dn refers to the expression “to crack a smile”, the result of saying “cheese”.
Further to ulaca’s explanation of 7dn, I might not have been aware of the jam-making reference but for the recent-ish TV sitcom about the WI called “Jam and Jerusalem”.
Edited at 2012-11-15 05:24 am (UTC)
I had a couple of queries:
> is the definition in 24dn “unlikely to be choosing the present”, on the basis that a miser wouldn’t buy a present?
> I was confused by “kitchen” for “drums”. Thanks to ulaca for putting me on the right track. On reflection I think the whole thing is perhaps best read as “a second from the kitchen” for “a drums tick”. Not sure.
Not for novices this, except perhaps as a rationale for why we do these things accompanied by lots of patient explaining.
Hold-ups too many to mention, but for illustration, “places for filling in” suggested PROFORMAS so strongly, with part of a…comprehensive at least hinting at the form bit, that it messed up my right half substantially. Getting the right answer was both a relief and a revelation of yet another canny clue.
PHUCKET might be regarded as an obscurity, were it not that it’s one of those places on the planet that surely forms part of the test for novice BBC announcers.
Fine dining, even down to the early deception that this might be another pangram. I was trying for ages to make “tax breaks” in 5d produce the X.
31 minutes and I spent quite a few of those trying to justify alms house. Great blog – many thanks. Did anyone else have trouble getting livejournal this morning? Only just now was I able to access it (in Yoda-speak).
Edited at 2012-11-15 06:05 pm (UTC)
I finally ended up stuck in the NW for a while until I saw the brilliant ‘braille’. Then ‘Pablo’ and ‘omit’ went right in. Untimed, but about 45 minutes or so.
I love the PHUKET and BBC analogy. I recall the river NIGER once getting somebody into hot water on the BBC (Jack de Manio?)
SJD
Collins and Chambers have similar.
A first-rate puzzle, full of ingenious clues. Like ulaca I wasted time trying to fit NC into the answer to 28ac. I suspect “the kitchen” = DRUMS in 17dn, and that “From” is simply padding (but entirely acceptable padding).
One question to mohn2 or anyone else: how does one know who the setter was?
Of course, it’s entirely possible that I’m imagining this …