I solved all but seven clues in the top half within 30 minutes then ground to a halt for 20 minutes. Having eventually cracked 7dn the remaining answers fell like nine-pins. I had a lot of little niggles about various clues but I’ve kept most of them out of the blog in case it’s just me being over-picky. I may add comments in the conversation later if others bring any of them up.
Across |
|
---|---|
1 |
BAGPIPES – BAG (appropriate), PIP (just defeat), |
6 | BUCKLE – Double definition |
9 |
SCAR – SCAR |
10 | DRAMA QUEEN – Anagram of MERE AND + QU (question) + A (answer) |
11 | SANDALWOOD – SAND (polish), AL (gangster), WOO (court), D (daughter) |
13 | ALSO – Hidden and reversed. ‘Influenced by spin’ is the reversal indicator and ‘shrinks’, apparently, the containment indicator though at the moment it seems a bit of a dodgy one to me. |
14 | EGG TIMER – Cryptic definition |
16 |
ONE-OFF – |
18 | OLD MAN – LD (lord) inside OMAN (place of sultan) |
20 | IN MY BOOK – Anagram of NOOK BY MI with ‘shady’ as the anagram indicator |
22 | OPAL – O (ring), PAL (familiar) |
24 | BEHIND BARS – BEHIND (supporting), BARS (blocks) |
26 | MARTIAL LAW – AIT (island) inside W (with), ALL RAM (maximum force) all reversed |
28 |
IDLY – I (one), |
29 | OLD VIC – O (ball), LD VIC (various Latin numbers). Why not just various English letters while we’re about it? One of London’s most famous theatres. |
30 |
SCYTHING – SC (Civil Service reversed), |
Down |
|
2 |
ARCHANGEL – |
3 | PERIDOT – I + DO (provide) inside PERT (fresh), |
4 | PEDAL – Sounds like ‘peddle’ (deal) plus it’s what you do when you press with your Oxford shoe |
5 |
SEA – SEA |
6 | BOARD ROOM – BOARD (get on), MOOR (fix) reversed |
7 | CRUSADE – AS (so) reversed indicated by ‘lofted’ inside CRUDE (rough) |
8 | LEEDS – LEE (sheltered), DS (Detective Sergeant, someone from the law) |
12 |
OGREISH – |
15 | MONT BLANC – MON (day) then LAN (network) inside TBC (To Be Confirmed) |
17 | FLOOR PLAN – Cryptic definition |
19 |
MOLOTOV – MO (doctor) then OT (Old Testament, books) inside LOV |
21 |
BABYISH – BY (past) + I |
23 | PEARL – P (pennies), EARL (British count) |
25 |
NEWSY – NEW (not used), S |
27 | LES – LES (Parisian’s the) |
Last in BAGPIPES (once PEDAL clicked and the second P appeared).
COD … EGG TIMER which just made me smile.
Might have been quicker without over-pondering actual cryptic (wordplay) components that were, of course, not there in the CDs (14ac & 17dn).
Slight typo Jack:”shire” in 12dn.
must admit didn’t/couldn’t parse martial law, “all ram” = maximum force???? Not heard that before.
In the 60’s frequently went rowing/canoeing/sailing with Sutton Grammar’s CCF naval section at TS Neptune on Raven’s AIT on the Thames somewhere near Kingston.
A faux pas has ruined my little run – can’t believe I mistyped SCAR, but that’s done me in.
Liked both of the CDs (especially 14) – and thought ALSO was nearly brilliant (if something shrinks, is it the middle bit that’s always left?) – but wasn’t so keen on the &litish OPAL or PEDAL.
I found it very hard going at first, and got just a handful of answers (mostly in the SE corner) when I was called away to a meeting and lunch. I picked it up again on returning and finished without a problem. Very odd!
I think I knew I was in for a struggle when I tried to create something with AGENDA in it at 6d – “get on” was such a clear indication for AGE… It kind of went downhill form there.
I’m with those who dislike random Roman numeral clues like 29, even if it was one I solved relatively easily.
MONT BLANCE was clever, but by then I’d stopped parsing answers that looked right.
A merited round of applause to Jack for cracking this one.
It was all a bit of a struggle. As Jimbo says the setter just seemed to be trying a bit too hard and my reaction on seeing the answer was more often “I suppose so” than “eureka!”.
Today I learned that ARCHANGEL is a place, and that NEWSY can mean almost the opposite of what it appears to mean. I also relearned what PERIDOT means: I knew it, but it was filed in my brain under “words that exist and mean something or other”.
Perhaps I’m missing something here, but I don’t think that would work would it? There are only 7 Latin numerals to choose from, and here the setter gives 5 of them, all different so I can’t see an issue. And “balls” seem a likely place for coming across Latin numbers.
Like DJ, I didn’t click with FLOORPLAN or OPAL, but my other reservations were about definitions, for which my non-UK syntax isn’t a reliable benchmark. So I won’t gripe there, with the exception of NEWSY which I just don’t like.
And ODO: “full of news, especially of a personal kind”. Example: “Susan’s short, newsy letters”.
Edited at 2014-01-10 01:14 pm (UTC)
*Don’t ask
It didn’t take long for sand/polish to come up again after collective eyebrows were raised at it last time.
Whilst I have no beef with the puzzle overall I did think that “influenced by spin… shrinks” and “work with press from Oxford” were just a little too strained.
Thanks to Jack for parsing martial law which I couldn’t parse at all (other than, erm, I for island).
I started slowly but then the lower half of the puzzle fell into place and I worked my way up. My last two in were the same as Sotira, PEDAL followed by BAGPIPES.
Let with several blanks in the top half. Lower half went in ok, even if I didn’t fully understand where MARTIAL LAW came from.
See what happens when I get 2 crossword in a row? I become grumpy at not sailing through the third – thank you, setter, for restoring my sense of perspective!
(prenominal) (nautical) on, at, or towards the side or part away from the wind ⇒ “on a lee shore”
What to do if caught on a lee shore in a storm:
Never get caught on a lee shore in a storm.
Rob
Unlike others, I found nothing to object to in this puzzle, and thought it was rather good. I particularly liked 1ac (even though it took me ages), and 29ac (which I got straight away without the need for any crossing letters) was just fine.
As I like to solve the puzzle in the newspaper, I am rather annoyed at the 20% price hike to £1.20. It seems that News International are determined to force readers into subscriptions for either the print or digital editions, and I wonder whether the days of print editions are numbered.