36 minutes for this one. After a flying start I hit a wall quite early on and took a few moments to pull myself together. The Sudoku clue and 2dn resisted until the very end and then I wondered why I hadn’t written the answers straight in. There’s one clue I can’t quite make sense of but otherwise I’ve no complaints or queries about this enjoyable puzzle.
* = anagram
Across |
|
---|---|
1 | PASTRAMI – PAST (old),RAM (sheep),1 |
5 |
PURDAH – PUR |
9 | FIENDISH – FINISHED*. The Times publishes Sudoku puzzles at five levels of difficulty: Easy, Mild, Difficult, Fiendish and Super Fiendish. |
10 | SLIVER – LIVE (be) inside SR (sister) |
12 |
ACQUAINTANCE – A, then QUAINT (unusual) inside CANCE |
15 | RANCH – RAN,CH (church). I rephrased this as “What the Pope did in this American house” to explain it to myself but I still don’t quite get the clue as it stands . On edit: I see it now, thanks to mct! |
16 | TWENTY-TWO – Two teams of eleven and a line on a rugby pitch 22 metres from the goal line. I was caught out by this once before so I was ready for it today. |
18 | TIT FOR TAT – The CRS for ‘hat’ derived from this is ‘titfer’ |
19 |
CLOVE – L |
20 | NAME-DROPPING – dd |
24 | INCITE – Sounds like “in sight” |
25 |
HENCHARD – |
26 | NELSON – NE (born), L (length), SON (male child) |
27 |
CHILDREN – CHIL |
Down |
|
1 | PUFF – dd |
2 | SLEW – dd |
3 | RADICCHIO – C (Conservative), CHI (character) all inside RADIO (set). Inedible leaves as far as I’m concerned. |
4 | MISQUOTATION – Cryptic definition. Conan Doyle never had Holmes say his most famous line. |
6 | UNLIT – L (line) inside UNIT (one) |
7 | DIVINATION – DIVI (share – more usually spelt ‘divvy’), NATION (people) |
8 | HORSEPOWER – (ROWERS HOPE)* |
11 | DIRECT SPEECH – DIRECT (blunt), SPEECH (address) |
13 | PRETENSION – TIN-OPENERS* |
14 |
ANATOMICAL – ATOMIC (sort of bomb) inside |
17 | TECHNICAL – I stared at this for several minutes before deciding it’s a quadruple definition. ‘Sort of’ covers the first three and the remainder of the clue makes up the fourth. |
21 | DITTO – O (old), TT (times), ID (papers) all reversed |
22 | FAIR – F (feminine), AIR (appearance) |
23 |
ODIN – |
I suppose if one was the Pope (15ac), then one RAN the CH. Not impressed though.
Good job 9ac was an anagram, otherwise I had no idea at all.
My last in was ‘fiendish’, and I couldn’t understand what the Sudoku was doing there, but knew that must be the answer.
There are some fairly obscure references and words here. I haven’t read ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’ since I was 17, so I needed to cryptic to guide me.
‘Technical fault’ reminds me of the Michael Flanders line – almost certainly a 4dn – when he’s doing his brilliant monologue on travelling by air.
‘So then you get this announcement, “Due to a technical fault, the plane will be delayed for 30 minutes” – which means the pilot hasn’t turned up.’
I used to much enjoy technical drawing at school, little knowing that before long it would be replaced by a computer
Edited at 2013-05-31 08:30 am (UTC)
I have tried to read Thomas Hardy but never managed to finish one. Found them boring and impenetrable, warts and all. Had a vague memory of the wife selling gambit so googled a derived HENCHARD to check. Beam me up Scotty.
I can’t see any problems with 18, a straight definition plus TIT FOR TAT is the Cockney for hat that gets abbreviated to “titfer”.
Slogged through this too, which has its moments (and I really liked RANCH for some reason), whereof I eventually clocked around 45 minutes.
Here’s to a great weekend for all,
Chris G.
I thought it quite a pleasant change to have the full CRS phrase in, though obviously it has confused some.
CoD (acknowledging, however that it’s rather in-house) to FIENDISH – such a neat piece of work. I stopped counting the number of references in TECHNICAL after the first one,and rather assumed the rest was going to be wordplay. Four! Well I never!
As I am occasionally forced to buy a copy of the Times when I’m away from a computer for a weekend, I was aware of the Sudoku reference.
I was held up by having carelessly entered ‘plug’ at 1dn before I eventually realised that 9ac was an anagram, and then I remembered the ‘fiendish’ sudoku level in The Times (I stopped doing them a long time ago because they were so repetitive).
I haven’t read any Hardy so HENCHARD went in from the wordplay with my fingers crossed.
I liked the clues on the whole; the anagram in 9 was neat, and although initially I didn’t like “This Sudoku” as a definition (instead of eg, “Sort of Sudoku”) in the end I decided it was fine. I agree with those who felt 15 to be a bit weak.
I “did” the Mayor of Casterbridge for English lit A-level but my E grade is reflective of the fact that I probably didn’t read the book. Whatever, neither the name nor the plot device were familiar so I had to rely on wordplay.
I got 9 from the sudoku reference alone but somehow missed the anagram. I had no idea how technical worked so thanks, Jack, for the enlightenment. At my (grammar) school only boys who were crap at French got to do technical drawing instead of Latin or German.
Nice puzzle and I rather like the “ran CH” trick, chestnutty or not, so that gets my COD nod.
Don’t recall seeing “sr” for Sister before.
I’m very fond of Hardy’s poetry, which I first came across in a recording of Dylan Thomas reading Lizbie Browne. As well as a setting of that poem by Finzi, there’s Britten’s Winter Words: his setting of The Choirmaster’s Burial is a particular favourite of mine.
Edited at 2013-05-31 10:00 pm (UTC)
I would love to I know what you mean by CRS