Solving time: 46 minutes
I did not have a very swift solve here, falling into a number of subtle traps the setter has provided. While some answers could be written in at sight, others had to be teased out gradually from the cryptics. I thought this was rather tough for a Monday puzzle.
Music: Schubert, Wanderer Fantasy, Richter
Across | |
---|---|
1 | ANALOGY, sounds like ‘an allergy’ in the non-rhotic dialects spoken on some obscure island somewhere. |
5 | SNIPPET, S(NIP)PET. I saw ‘nip’ at once, but had it misaligned for a while. |
9 | PAR, PAR[is]. |
10 | DISENTANGLE, DI’S(ENT)ANGLE, where ‘ent’ is an anagram of ‘net’. I needed the cryptic for this. |
11 | RUMM(AG)ER. Strange is often ‘rum’ in puzzles – I wonder how many non-solvers could identify this bit of underworld Regency slang. |
12 | DEUCED, DE[d]UCED. Entered by me without seeing the cryptic. |
15 | TONY, double definition. |
16 | BY AND LARGE, anagram of REGAN BADLY. It doesn’t look like there are going to be enough vowels, but there are. |
18 | PROVENANCE, PROVEN(AN)CE. |
19 | HYMN, H[ol]Y M[a]N. |
22 | INSULT, [lamebra]INS ULT[imately]. You have have a rather lame one not to see this if you’re looking for it! |
23 | OCCUPANT, O C(CUP)ANT. Perhaps the clue should read “resident’s”, i.e. “resident is”, to give a better literal. |
25 | TIME SERVING, double definition, where ‘trimming’ has its 17th-century meaning of bending to the political winds in order to retain political or ecclesiastical office. |
27 | Omitted! |
28 | ROOKERY, RO[-c+O]KERY, a letter-replacement clue that proved very tough for me to crack. |
27 | TENDRIL, TEND + R(I)L. Some beginner always asks why ‘i’ = ‘current’ – it’s a symbol from electronic formulae. |
Down | |
1 | APPARAT, A P(P)ARA + T[ask], a word from the former Soviet Union. |
2 | ACRIMONIOUS, anagram of COUSIN MOIRA, my first in, misleading me into thinking this was going to be an easy puzzle. |
3 | ORDEAL, OR(D,E)AL. |
4 | YESTERYEAR, Y + ESTER + Y + EAR. The unknowns and the varables do not very often appear at the beginnings of words, but why not? |
5 | SONG, SON + G[laringly]. Lieder often appear in disguise in these puzzles. |
6 | ISABELLA, IS + ABEL + LA. Evidently the French wife of Edward II is meant. |
7 | PUG, G(U)P upside-down. Two distinct dogs, but both words can also refer to human combatants. |
8 | TREADLE, anagram of ALTERED. I miscounted the number of letters in ‘altered’, and tried to operate on ‘operate’ instead. |
13 | CURRY FAVOUR, CURRY F[l]AVOUR, very clever, but a little too obvious. |
14 | UNICYCLIST, UNI + C(Y)C + LIST. A really fine clue with a very deceptive surface requiring lots of careful analysis. My COD. |
17 | DECLASSE, DEC + anagram of SALES. I had put in ‘recessal’, decided that didn’t exist, and tried again. I saw the answer but was stuck for a minute on ‘Dec’ = ‘present month’, then saw how that works. |
18 | PAINTER, double definition, where a painter is a rope to tie up your catamaran. I wanted to put ‘Prester’ for a long time before I got the crossing ‘i’. The second painter is Augustus’ sister Gwen. |
20 | NATURAL, double definition, the first one from music notation. |
21 | OUTGUN, cryptic definition, where the Maxim gun and the Lewis gun are both weapons from the 1880-1920 era. |
24 | GREY, sounds like Thomas Gray. There are other possible answers, but this seems to the most likely. |
26 | MOO, MOO[n]. |
DEUCED is excellent, as is DECLASSE, but I’m in awe of any setter who manages to get UNICYCLIST into a puzzle. Bravo.
The Maxim gun was a weapon of late Victorian empire (particularly in S Africa) and WW1. In addition to Hilaire Belloc’s comment:
“Whatever happens we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have not.”
see “Onward Chartered Soldiers” in the attached from Niall Ferguson’s “Empire” (which is an excellent read, by the way).
http://www.ralphmag.org/CH/empire.html
Dereklam: including a URL from a free (unpaid) LJ account will tend to send your comment to spam.
And welcome!
Edited at 2013-05-13 04:52 am (UTC)
Now tell us about the soup.
Edited at 2013-05-13 10:22 pm (UTC)
APPARAT cropped up only four days ago; but that was still my last corner. Couldn’t believe TONY for “classy” despite “ton”(as fashionable style) cropping up fairly often. Is the adjective in regular use?
“fashionable among wealthy or stylish people: a tony restaurant“.
Also says it’s from “tone” rather than “ton”.
We live and learn eh?
Edited at 2013-05-13 02:25 am (UTC)
Jolly boating weather,
And a hay harvest breeze,
Blade on the feather,
Shade off the trees,
Swing swing together,
With your bodies between your knees,
Swing swing together,
With your bodies between your knees.
I think there is a misprint at 23 as s’ would surely indicate a plural yet the solution is singular. Apostrophe ‘s’ short for ‘has’ is clearly better suited.
I think GREY is the only possible answer at 24. I was tempted by ‘bray’ for a while but that clearly was wrong on a number of counts.
1dn was helped by having come up within the past few days so it was fresh in my mind.
I didn’t understand ‘trimming’ at 25ac and still don’t really see it despite the explanation above. I knew the meaning referred to, but how does that equate with TIME-SERVING?
I wasn’t aware there were any famous Australian poets but that may be sheer ignorance on my part, however Thomas Gray is VERY famous and much more likely to turn up in a Times crossword and also has the advantage of sounding like GREY, a type of horse that accounts for the straight definition in the clue.
Those who don’t know that an oar can be ‘feathered’ may struggle with the omitted 27ac.
Re OCCUPANT, I reckoned while solving that it must be an adjectival form, ie ‘pertaining to residents’, but there is no evidence for this, so misprint it seems to be.
Edited at 2013-05-13 02:28 am (UTC)
TonyW
Good stuff here, though this Small Islander blanched just a bit at the sounzlike at 1ac – the (non rhotic, I suppose, but only just) sound in the middle doesn’t rhyme. Maybe if you aurally squint a bit…
TIME SERVING was one of those heard of it but don’t quite know what it means phrases, so it might just as well mean “trimming” (sailing analogy, I assume?).
UNICYCLIST was major league deceptive: I was trying to think of that Contract Law term, and the wordplay wasn’t helping a bit.
Now I know Provence is on the Med. My education continues.
Painter my last in after that: with ??I?T?R and John as part of the clue, I was half expecting ST scatology, I was glad PROVIDENCE didn’t start with an S, though I don’t know what I’d have done with the rest of the clue.
There have been Queens Isabelle in this Small Island, but I can’t find a poet Grey who would justify GRAY at 24.
I agree that apostrophe in 23 is in the wrong place.
I had to read the clue several times to be sure that GREY (not GRAY) was to be entered at 22.
I was feeling thick even before this because I didn’t understand NATURAL or TIME SERVING and it had taken me forever to see the required meaning of “lied”.
Hey ho, there’s always tomorrow.
Edited at 2013-05-13 09:13 am (UTC)
Kevin and Jack may have been thinking of the Vicar of Bray in the poem about a time-serving churchman who was a “trimmer”. Will this get me spammed? http://lit4lib.sky7.us/bray.html.
20 minutes.
Now undone.
Rob
DNF (ANALOGY, OUTGUN, PAINTER, ROOKERY) and I had ‘mare’ at 24dn. Oh dear.
On a more positive note, I am back online with the Club site. Yippee!
Edited at 2013-05-13 11:01 pm (UTC)
A “not wrong” answer then, unless the clue says go for the more common one.