Solving time: 29 minutes
I had begun to lose faith in my solving ability, after failing to correctly finish about four or five in a row. Fortunately, there’s always Monday, and I found this one fairly easy. While I did not understand a fair number of the cryptics as I solved, the answers came readily enough.
Music: Vaughn Williams, Symphony #2, Previn/LSO
Across | |
---|---|
1 | EYEBALLED, sounds like I BAWLED in most dialects. |
6 | BLOOM, B(L)OOM. |
9 | HEARTEN, HEAR TEN. |
10 | YEREVAN, YE(AVER backwards)N. At first I thought this had something to do with Virginia, and had put in the answer from the literal before realizing my mistake. |
11 | SUPERSEDED, SUPER + sounds like CEDED. In Latin, ‘cedo’ and ‘sedeo’ do not sound at all alike, but in English anything is possible. |
12 | GRAB, G(R)AB, would be omitted if we still did that. |
14 | STELA, ST + ELA[n]. I had put ‘stele’ at first, then corrected it based on the cryptic. |
15 | MATCHLESS, double definition, one jocular. Once a make of motorcycle as well. |
16 | RESIDENCE, [diffe]RE(SIDE)NCE. A rather elaborate cryptic for the obvious answer. |
18 | ARGUS, ARGU[-e +S]. A simple letter-substitution clue. |
20 | ALMA, hidden in [minim]AL MA[ke-up]. |
21 | STAGGERING, STAG(G)E + RING. |
25 | INSULAR, double definition, where Man is deceptively capitalized at the start of the clue. |
26 | APOSTLE, A PO(ST)LE. |
27 | GENET, GEN(E)T. |
28 | STOCKINGS, COTS backwards + KINGS. |
Down | |
1 | ETHOS, ETH + O.S., one an Old English letter, the other a nautical abbreviation. Careless solvers will put ‘ether’ without thinking. |
2 | EXAMPLE, EX + AMPLE, a clue identical in concept to Paul’s in last Friday’s Guardian puzzle. |
3 | AFTERWARDS, AFTER WARDS, which are used in District Council elections in some parts of the world. |
4 | LUNGE, L[o]UNGE. |
5 | DAY CENTRE, DA(Y + CENT)RE. This would be a Day Care Center in the U.S. |
6 | BURY, double definition, where ‘put down’ takes an oblique sense. |
7 | OBVERSE, anagram of VERBOSE. |
8 | MINIBUSES, M(I NIB)USES, where ‘inspiration’ is used literally as an enclosure indicator. |
13 | PHRASE BOOK, cryptic definition. |
14 | SPREADING, SP[a] + READING, perfectly simple although I tried ‘sprawling’ first. |
15 | MEN AT ARMS, anagram of MEAN + anagram of SMART. It’s not often we see two separate anagrams. |
17 | SIMPSON, PM IS upside down + SON. How Bart caused a constitutional crisis is not known…. |
19 | GLISTEN, G + LISTEN, a chestnut. |
22 | GUANO, anagram of A G[r]OUN[d]. |
23 | GUESS, GUES[t]S. |
24 | FLAT, triple definition, chestnuts all. |
I was like mctext. Had the whole right side filled in in no time and then ground to a halt for a time. Don’t know why, nothing seems obscure in retrospect but crosswords are like that
Can either be the correct answer or am I missing something in the cryptic?
Same as the above posts re the right side.
By the way, for the benefit of those not blessed with a visit to 6d, it is not only the home of black pudding but also of Sir Robert Peel (who looking at the current state of the Met must be turning in his grave!)
Cozzielex (I forgot to sign in)
Since it couldn’t be VirginiA, I checked on acronymfinder . com for both EV and VE, and (along with another 90 options) it says that VE is the international abbreviation for Venezuela (country = state).
That doesn’t preclude any of the other 90 options being an acronym for some sort of (chemical/physical/mental?) state.
However, for cars & planes, it’s been YV since 1955.
regards, Keef (pppd off, another crosscheck letter typo)
Edited at 2013-11-18 05:55 am (UTC)
I wonder if I was the only person to see John-Paul and “disciple”, and immediately think “a pope… APOSTLE”. I didn’t see that he wasn’t actually here in his professional capacity until after the fact. This tells you something about the way I solve, and explains a lot of my mistakes.
PS did not write in ANGUS, although that is the name of the collie
Edited at 2013-11-18 08:45 am (UTC)
STELA – initially looking for something that ended -ESA, assuming that the a in the clue was there for a reason. S can be (has been) stone. When I finally conceded that STELA was the slab, I still couldn’t work out why TEL was a short dash.
SPREADING – Spa didn’t occur to me as a resort (tsk tsk) and I was looking for a resort (maybe even a last one) without A and U followed by Tring (the town), though that left me with a girl who was T?M?. I considered SCRUMPING at one point (I had the M), since it might whimsically be defined as taking over the local countryside.
ALMA – in the make-up of minimum there she is, take a few letters away and mess about. I’d already ticked off my “hidden” for the day (not having unticked TERM). I was going to complain about pick ‘n’ mix anagrams.
I’ve included this detailed account of my descent into complete mental rhubarb in the hope that it might a) be of help to other fellow nstrugglers and b) be cathartic. Not sure of the latter, can’t say anything about the former.
PS SUPERSEDED has to be right, but in my inked copy you can’t see whether it’s a C on an S.
Edited at 2013-11-18 10:41 am (UTC)
I thought this was going to be much trickier than it eventually turned out to be, and on my first read-through of the acrosses I didn’t enter an answer until APOSTLE. However, I got onto the setter’s wavelength and picked up a lot of speed towards the end. I lived in Basingstoke for many years and as Reading is just up the road and I knew about the university 14dn didn’t present a problem. SIMPSON was my LOI after INSULAR.
I found this a bit harder than a typical Monday, but finished in 32 minutes. I couldn’t think of the French writer until I had the G in place, when it jumped out.
25:30 with 1 wrong – it turns out BARB is not part of Greater Manchester, but for me matches “put down” poorly, albeit better than BURY does.
Rob
Couldn’t parse INSULAR, as I didn’t know the literal definition. Just decided that Man must lie somewhere in the previously unknown South ULAR sea (I know, I know..).
Lots of fairly tricky clues which look easy in retrospect. Liked EXAMPLE and DAY CENTRE, and grinned/groaned at AFTERWARDS. The two classical references, though, were fairly tame “crosswordese”. If you want to know all about ALMA listen to Tom Lehrer’s song – it’s on YouTube.
So, vinyl1, Bart Simpson caused the Constitutional Crisis? I’d always thought that was Wallis and Gromit …
Stockings casually thrown over college beds, a nice image to finish on, raises thoughts of raffish student decadence … I suppose it’s all tights nowadays, not quite the same thing.
I didn’t know that BURY is part of Greater Manchester (but then, as a Yorkshireman, I don’t really give a damn whether it is or not :-).
Edited at 2013-11-19 09:36 pm (UTC)
SALE was the one 4-letter place name I knew for certain, but it was ruled out by the checked letters.