35 minutes with time lost getting started due to blogger’s nerves but once under weigh I found this very straightforward and (whisper it softly) just a little on the dull side. And I’m afraid this will be reflected in my write-up as there’s really very little to say about any of it. One point though, rather unusually there is no hidden answer.
Across |
|
---|---|
1 |
KARATE – A, |
4 | TURF WAR – Two definitions, one of them tichy, if I may borrow the term from another blogger. |
9 |
NACHO – A and H |
10 | IN PASSING – IN (accepted), PASSING (getting satisfactory grade). |
11 | SYNTHESIS – Anagram of SHY IS SENT. |
12 | MOIST – 0 (nothing) in MIST (murk). |
13 | VAST – S (society) in VAT (Value Added Tax). |
14 | BUDGERIGAR – BUDGE (move reluctantly), RIG (fiddle), A, R (rook). |
18 | LAY HANDS ON – Two definitions. |
20 | THAI – Sounds like “tie” (secure). |
23 | BOWER – Two definitions. The anchor is less familiar but it has come up before. |
24 | GREAT APES – EAT (munch) inside GRAPES (fruit). |
25 | ELIMINATE – Anagram of A TIMELINE. |
26 | PRADO – AD (notice) inside PRO (for). The famous art gallery in Madrid. |
27 | TIGRESS – The D of DIGRESS (stray) changes to T to give us the cat. |
28 |
FATHOM – F |
Down |
|
1 | KING’S EVIL – KING’S (college, one of the oldest in Cambridge), LIVE (be) reversed. An old term for scrofula. (link added on edit) |
2 | RECANTS – EC (financial district of London – the City) inside RANTS (rails). |
3 | TROPHY – OP (work), H, inside TRY (bid). |
4 | TAPAS – TAP (listening device), A, S. |
5 | ROSEMARY – ME reversed inside ROSARY (beads). |
6 | WAILING – AIL (become weak) inside WING (limb). |
7 | ROGET – R,O,GET (fetch) of Thesaurus fame. At least we have some cricket references here. |
8 | HIT SQUAD – HITS (damages), QUAD (bike). A team of assassins. |
15 | GEOMETER – Anagram of TO EMERGE. Not a word I’m over familiar with. |
16 |
RAINSTORM – Anagram of MATRON IS R |
17 | HAIRLINE – H (husband), AIRLINE (business getting up). A little humour here. I rather liked this one. |
19 |
YAWNING – |
21 | HIP BATH – 1, PB (lead) inside HATH (has). |
22 | UTOPIA – 1, POT (vessel) inside AU (gilded) all reversed. |
23 | BREST – The port in France sounds like “breast”. |
24 | GLASS – G,LASS. |
No, I don’t know what it means but greenstick was my first instinct for 17 until annoyances like letter count and wordplay got in the way.
One day…
Further, as an occasional fan of the New York Knicks, I recently learned that forward Rasheed Wallace had been diagnosed with a Jones fracture of his left foot. That’s the fifth metatarsal. Since the Knicks medical staff originally reported it was on his right foot, I’m not convinced that they are sufficiently skilled to determine that it’s definitely a Jones. Either way, that’s one more fracture option in the mix.
Thanks to Jack for explaining KINGS EVIL. Now I’m off to look up ‘scrofula’.
Edited at 2013-03-08 04:38 am (UTC)
?After a moment, he BUDGED.
? I’d pay you one RED CENT
? I often go there ANY MORE.
So if I were to use ‘budge’ non-negatively, it would be something like “After considering my threat to kill him if he didn’t move, he finally budged.”
The last line was about ladies talking in “nocuous nuendoes” . I would like to find it again.
While I’m here, I might add that the last English monarch to touch for the King’s Evil was Anne.
I also wondered about “move reluctantly” for “budge”. It’s not only used in the negative, if you count “budge up”. And even when it’s used in the negative, that’s not quite the same thing as saying it means “move reluctantly”. “I tried and tried but he just wouldn’t move reluctantly”?
I’d never heard of the old complaint or the anchor, and I wasn’t entirely sure that GEOMETER was a word.
The clue for GLASS had a quaint, very old-fashioned feel, don’t you think?
I looked up BOWER post solve, hoping it was not just the front-of-a-ship-ER, but it was.
While struggling in the NE, I toyed with the idea that it might be a bike and therefore a six- / ten- / two- speed. Glad it wasn’t.
GEOMETER suggests mathematician rather than scientist in my book (Chambers): might have been more interestingly clued as “caterpillar”.
PRADO was (sort of) good.
As z8 says GEOMETER is a person skilled in geometry and thus a mathematician – Euclid to pick one everybody should be aware of.
Don’t understand the comments about budge which seemed fine to me – a very easy clue indeed.
It occurred to me that I have no idea what a NACHO tastes like, yet I regularly fill it in as an answer, along with “enchilada”. Perhaps Mexican food has replaced types of antelope as a source of terms I only ever meet in crossword puzzles.
Clearly NACHOS would be in there, and dessert would be PAVLOVA or a FOOL. What else?
Guessed the unknown Hip Bath from wordplay and checkers.
Liked Great Apes and the wordplay for Utopia.
I can’t recall coming across King’s evil, bower and geometer before.
We seem to have wandered into similar territory to the old engineer/mechanic debate that turns up here from time to time but as far as setters (and lay solvers) need to be concerned it’s what the dictionaries say that matters, not the esoteric arguments of specialists in particular fields.
SOED has Mathematics: the abstract deductive science of space, number, quantity, and arrangement, including geometry, arithmetic, algebra, etc.
COED has Mathematics: the branch of science concerned with number, quantity and space…
Chambers has: Mathematics: the science of magnitude and number…
Enough already.
Edited at 2013-03-08 05:50 pm (UTC)
I’m with john_of_lancs and others on the subject of mathematicians being scientists. (I share my birthday with E. T. Bell, who wrote Mathematics, Queen and Servant of Science.)