Around 40 minutes for this fairly straightforward puzzle. The answers in the top half almost wrote themselves in but I lost time further down, particularly in the SW corner. I suspect we shall see some fast times and I note there are already three genuine solves under 10 minutes on the leader board and one of these is under 5! I imagine it would be a different tale if multi-word enumerations were omitted as they were particularly helpful today
* = anagram, dd = double definition
Across |
|
---|---|
1 | BLOW-BY-BLOW – BLOW (shock), BY-BLOW (bastard). Two rather unpleasant terms to get us under way. |
6 |
SMUG – S |
9 | FLEUR-DE-LIS – (DUELLERS IF)* A “charge” can be a design in heraldry apparently. News to me but the answer was obvious apart from the less common spelling, LIS instead of LYS. |
10 |
ODES – ODES |
12 | NORMAN MAILER – NORMAN (William the Conqueror), MAILER (poster), the Ameriacn author |
15 | HORSEBACK – “Murder” backwards gives us “Red Rum” |
17 | TWAIN – This refers to “Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain another American author |
18 | MOIST – MOIS (French for month, so “a few weeks in Bordeaux”), T (time) |
129 | AD NAUSEAM – Translation from Latin |
20 | REGIME CHANGE – REGIME ( government), CHANGE (little money) |
24 | CROP – dd |
25 | SINGLE FILE – a comma in the definition makes sense of it “progress so, narrowly” |
26 | LIFT – dd |
27 | STREETWISE – (WIRE TSETSE)* |
Down |
|
1 |
BUFF – BUFF |
2 | OWEN – 0 (nothing), NEW (recent, reversed) |
3 | BORROWED TIME – BORROWED (the reciprocal of lent), TIME (weeks) |
4 | BREAM – B (British), REAM (paper) |
5 | ONION-SKIN – ONIONS (what experts know), KIN (related) |
7 | MIDDLE-AGED – From the expression “middle-aged spread” |
8 | GASTRONOMY – (GOT MASONRY)* |
11 | LAST JUDGMENT – LAST (final), JUDGMENT (decision) refers to the painting by Michaelangelo |
13 |
CHIMERICAL – |
14 | CRYING WOLF – CRYING (miserable), WOLF (Don Juan) |
16 | ANARCHIST – C (caught – cricket), (RAIN HATS)* |
21 |
ANGLE – |
22 |
WI-FI – WI-F |
23 | METE – Sounds like “meat” (main course) |
Never read Mailer, but am currently wading through volume 1 of a new ‘autobiography’ of Twain. He wrote a lot about money in his private correspondence…
I took BUFF as a double definition + cryptic.
I didn’t know the bastard in 1ac, but recognised the second one in 12ac.
Edited at 2013-10-04 05:58 am (UTC)
All went in correctly, but a lot on def alone (as usual…. *sigh*…).
Didn’t get the Red Rum ref, or the Finnish one, and have not come across BY-BLOW. CHIMERICAL took an age to get, but then the last few in the SW fell into place.
CHIMERICAL and REGIME CHANGE took ages to click.
CoD to MOIST for engaging cheerfulness.
Thanks to all for generous comments on yesterday’s debut.
Some of this is very weak – 19A for example. We are overdue a testing puzzle.
Knowing, sharp, wide awake. E19. as in the examples, “He was too fly to let anyone pin so much as a charity flag on him” and “Are you fly to what’s going on?”
The rest of the clue is an anagram as blogged.
Edited at 2013-10-04 08:21 am (UTC)
I didn’t have a clue about 1ac, and it didn’t even occur to me that “by-blow” might be a term meaning “bastard”. Charge also unknown.
I initially entered “algae” as my LOI at 21dn before realising it couldn’t be parsed so I thought about it again, the penny dropped, and I changed it to the correct ANGLE.
I agree with z8 that some of the definitions were pretty good, and I also agree with Jimbo about the clue for AD NAUSEAM. If you know the expression it is a write-in, and if you don’t there’s no other way to get to the answer.
Chris
A nice puzzle I thought.
Chris
A system of accessing the internet from remote machines such as laptop computers that have wireless connections.
So the setter is completely justified. Any complaints should be sent to the dictionary compilers.
Chris
Of course not, but that doesn’t mean that wifi is not a means of internet access
Well, we do have free wi-fi…..
Had to turn to Onelook.com with eight remaining and then the missing answers came straightaway (eg Regime Change, Last Judgment, Angle, Mete…).
FOI Owen, LOI Streetwise.
Hats off to Magoo. His time of 3m 11s is out of this world!
I read Norman Mailer many years ago, but am not anxious to repeat the experience. I suppose that, like the meaning of words, tastes change.
George Clements
This may be over pedantic, but at 5, experts don’t know “onions”, they know “their onions”. Inelegant clueing.
As tony sever points out, yet another “Monday” crossword.