Solving time: 27 minutes
I found this puzzle a bit on the dull side. The clues, while technically correct, lacked the outrageous wordplay and devious literals that can make solving fun. However, since I have a touch of the flu and just wanted to get on with it and go to bed, I was not too disappointed.
Music: Sibelius, Symphony #2, Schippers/NYP
Across | |
---|---|
1 | CLAM, C(L)AM. The literal seems a bit off, since ‘a clam’ is usually thought of as reticent but not shy. |
3 | PASSES OVER, P(ASSES)OVER. Since ‘power’ has an odd number of letters, you have to turn a ‘w’ to a ‘v’ to make it ‘half-hearted’….very clever, or maybe not. |
10 | LAPTOPS, STOP PAL backwards. I wasted a lot of time trying to make ‘pet’ work. |
11 | WILLING, W(ILL)ING, where there are two wings on every stage. |
12 | WEATHER FORECAST, cryptic definition. May be difficult for those living where ‘The Met’ is used to refer to the opera house or the art museum. |
13 | ROSARY, anagram of A SORRY. |
14 | TEA PARTY, hidden in [dispu]TE A PART Y[ou]. I wasted some time going over 19th and early 20th century US history before seeing the obvious. |
17 | REDOUBLE, R(ED)OUBLE. |
18 | RETURN, double definition, where the second one is a bit loose. |
21 | APPRENTICESHIPS, anagram of PERHAPS I INSPECT. |
23 | MARTIAL, double definition for you classicists out there. |
24 | ROOKING, ROO{K}ING, two chess men sharing a letter. |
25 | TIE BREAKER, TIE B(R)EAKER, often called a ‘tie break’ in some English-speaking countries. |
26 | Omitted – a compendium of chestnuts! |
Down | |
1 | COLD WAR, CO(L)D WAR. A cod clue, or perhaps a COD? |
2 | APPRAISED, anagram of DISAPPEAR. Very smooth surface, but I was not fooled for long. |
4 | ASSERT, sounds like A CERT. |
5 | SAWBONES, WAS upside-down + B[y] + ONES. |
6 | SELF-EXPRESSION, X PRESS inside anagram of ONE’S LIFE. I didn’t bother with the cryptic while solving. |
7 | VOILA, cryptic definition. |
8 | RIGHTLY, RIGHT + [a]L[l]Y. A rather feeble clue. |
9 | MOTHER SUPERIOR, M + anagram of THE PIOUS ERROR. Another one where the cryptic was not needed. |
15 | ROUTINISE, ROU(TIN IS)E. Now this one, I couldn’t see at all until I worked the cryptic. |
16 | FLOTILLA, anagam of ALL OF IT + L[itres]. |
17 | READMIT, READ + MIT, in a different Cambridge than you might expect, and only loosely a college. |
19 | NOSEGAY, NOS(EGA)Y, i.e. AGE upside down. |
20 | SCARCE, SCAR(C)E. Surely the correct answer, but I must admit I don’t see exactly why ‘diamonds, say’ are ‘c’. If this is a phonetic clue for ‘ice’, many solvers are not going to like it. Jack has kindly supplied the correct interpretation of ‘diamonds’ in the first comment. |
22 | PURSE, double definition, where ‘orally’ does not mean ‘sounds like’, it means ‘pertaining to the mouth’, as in ‘purse your lips’. |
Edited at 2013-04-08 01:59 am (UTC)
p.s. Not the above Anonymous.
I took a while getting started and then it seemed ages before the answers started to flow from the odd words scattered around the grid, but I completed in 28 minutes which is not bad for me.
I rather enjoyed some ideas in the clues, such as the overlapping chess pieces and the half-hearted power. All the long answers went in on definition and a couple of checkers without the need to work out all the wordplay.
Edited at 2013-04-08 01:10 am (UTC)
I came here to find out how diamonds were C and where the YAG in NOSEGAY came from, since “nose” was obviously the important aspect of wine.
Around 30 mins I guess, but with one wrong.
Edited at 2013-04-08 01:26 am (UTC)
RELY – and to a lesser extetn RIGHTLY – may have been weak, but altogether I liked the puzzle, in particular, VOILA and my last in, WILLING.
And another illustrative curiosity. “How did you sleep last night?” “Not bad”.
Edited at 2013-04-08 08:50 am (UTC)
And you know darn well what he meant.
Study hard.
There are plenty of examples of adjectives doubling up as adverbs.
Don’t think we’ve seen diamonds=C before,and Jack is to be congratulated on unscrewing that one.
I can’t decide whether “Met expectations” is brilliant and pithy or barely cryptic. Mind you, with different numbering, it might well clue “wrongful arrests” round here.
CoD to VOILA.
Fairly quick one for me today, but with one wrong: I threw in walking for WILLING at the end, without really thinking it through.
Liked ROOKING, and would have liked PASSES OVER had I been able to see how it worked. Also, thanks for sorting out the cryptic for SELF EXPRESSION.
Am I missing something with VOILA (I take it that it ‘s just the French – as indicated by ‘mot juste’ – exclamation following something dramatic, which has now become a familiar term to us in the UK)?
I did, however, get the c=carbon reference at 20dn!
Edited at 2013-04-08 09:29 am (UTC)
10 was my last entry since I was sure that “familiar turning” would be TAC.
Thanks, jackkt for the explanation of diamonds in 20.
COD .. WEATHER FORECAST
Time today 32 minutes.
Thanks to all concerned,
Chris G
Just looked down at the solution for 25,436 that’s printed at the bottom of the page. I remarked at the time to my son’s Kiwi girlfriend that SOD NZ appeared in the second row of unchecked letters. Something to do with the cricket, perhaps?
Astonished by the anonymous comment at 6:18. I was told years ago that a gentleman never attempts to correct another fellow’s English: “like tellin’ him his wife’s ugly or his suit don’t fit, ain’t it?”
No problem with C for “diamonds, say”. I’m slightly surprised that dorsetjimbo didn’t have something to say about those who had difficulty with this, but perhaps he was too flushed with success to mind :-).
First that our education system appears to leave so many people ignorant of basic facts such as “diamond, say” being a reference to carbon – much like coal or graphite. Carbon is surely one of the most amazing elements on this earth and yet many seem to know little of it
Second that solvers hadn’t come across it before – it’s hardly new to me or I suspect to you
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