Solving time: 46:26
I consider anything less than hour to be a good result on a blogging night, so I’m quite happy with this time. I went through the NW corner quite quickly, then slowed down on the RHS quite a bit.
No new words for me today – even Finno-Ugric seemed vaguely familiar. Plenty of good clues here, although 18a is my personal favourite. An enjoyable crossword – not too difficult, but not too obvious either.
cd = cryptic def., dd = double def., rev = reversal, homophones are written in quotes, anagrams as (–)*, and removals like this
Across | |
---|---|
1 | FINNO-UGRIC = (ICING ON FUR)* |
6 | HARD |
9 | RE + CYCLE |
10 | T + |
12 | RESENTMENT = MEN in (RESENT + T |
13 | A + |
15 | RARITY = PARITY with R (queen) for P (page) |
16 | LIBRETTO = LIBR |
18 | ANTEATER = T in (A + NEATER) – ‘Individual living off workers’ was the inspired definition. Great misdirection here. My LOI and COD. |
20 | W + |
23 | C |
24 | IMAGINABLE = (BIG ANIMAL)* + E |
26 | UNCANNY = |
27 | PO(THO)LE |
28 | B + ROW |
29 | NEGLECTFUL = (GET UNCLE + L + F)* |
Down | |
1 | FARE = “FAIR” |
2 | NUCLEAR = UN rev + CLEAR |
3 | OR + CHEST + RATION |
4 | G |
5 | INTREPID = (I + PRINTED)* |
7 | ATTRACT = A + CART rev in TT (motorbike race) |
8 | DEEP-ROOTED = D (key) + EE (errors excepted) + PRO (for) + OT (books) + ED (editor) |
11 | INTERGALACTIC = (CLEARING ATTIC)* |
14 | BREADCRUMB = BRUM + B about (CARED)* |
17 | MEGABYTE = (A + GEM) rev + BY + TE (tellurium) |
19 | TOBACCO = CABOT rev + C (about) + |
21 | FALLO |
22 | DISPEL = DI |
25 | WELL – triple def – Very much / a plentiful supply / all right |
Aside from that, a nice steady solve.
I had TRACT at 7dn from quite early in the proceedings but couldn’t get past RE- or just possibly EX- as the first two letters, and this left left me stranded trying to think of a possible author at 6ac. Incidentally, with reference to another clue in this quarter I have never come across EE = errors excepted before, which I find incredible. I looked it up eventually with little hope that it would be listed.
I was unable to parse 17dn for the simple reason I had the wrong answer having settled for TERABYTE, never considering for a moment that tellurium might be clueing the last two letters instead of the first two.
Edited at 2014-01-31 02:16 am (UTC)
DNK finno-ugric, but working on Finn = Lapp it was the only anagram that seemed reasonable.
Yesterday’s was a DNF stroll through the bramble patch.
Naturally, Finno-Ugric was a write-in for me, but I had lots of trouble with the other parts. ‘Intergalactic’, in particular, proved elusive. But my last two were ‘pothole’ and ‘well’.
I’m still working on yesterday’s. I will definitely set a record for the slowest successful solve if I ever finish.
COD to TOBACCO (19dn) for a great surface.
Incidentally, has anyone seen the letter in today’s Times from Mr Neil Jones complaining about the crossword’s “consistency of difficulty, which…has been noticeably lacking in recent months”? I couldn’t disagree more. It’s the variability that makes a lot of the fun – sometimes it’s a breeze, sometimes a slog – but you never know how it’s going to turn out until you get stuck in.
I do hope Mr Jones isn’t one of our number, or if he is perhaps he can explain his views further.
Edited at 2014-01-31 03:26 pm (UTC)
Unlike Galspray, my letters didn’t fall into the right places…
However, the rest was fine, but I didn’t parse GHETTO, and couldn’t parse DEEP-ROOTED. Like Jackkt I couldn’t imagine that EE would be clued as ‘errors excepted’. Will have to try to remember that one…
About an hour for me today.
I don’t think I’ve come across 1A before and had to get checkers to see both “finno” and then “ugric”. Other than that no problems. I’ll bet George, and other Mephisto regulars, have no problem with EE for “errors excepted”. I especially liked 18A and 19D
LOI 18ac, lovely clue, nice to finish on a smile
The affinity between Hungarian and Finnish is well known in this household, which has a connection with the former. It still helped to know which letters to use, but it was my SOI after the gimme at 1d.
I have a blind spot with regard to RARITY, wanting to spell it with an E, so again the cryptic was kind and another strong argument for not doing T2.
22 took a while, as I had NEGLECTFUL already and “fuel” without its E gives you another obvious -ful.
ANTEATER was my LOI – “smarter” gives a lot of options – but I liked the definition.
i wasn’t keen on ‘top of Everest’ to indicate E in an across clue.
Enjoyed ANTEATER.
Like others I favoured the vermilingua for COD
I did know the language because I once had to test solve a crossword that contained a couple of the more unknown languages of the world. Having a memory that retains obscurities is obviously the answer to cryptic solving.
I thought the clue for FALL OFF was particularly clever.
2) ‘Mr Jones’ is an idiot.
3) 57 minutes.
4) Happy weekend.
Edited at 2014-01-31 02:15 pm (UTC)
Lots bunged in from definition today, so I didn’t even notice EE.
For an obvious anagram, INTERGALACTIC took a long time to unscramble. GHETTO and POTHOLE very nice clues. Indeed today’s offering is full of clues where, for me at least, the penny took a long time to drop but all were clear and not over-complicated in retrospect. Bravo setter. And thanks Blogger for clearing up the parsing of ATTRACT. (I’d ventured AT T-RAC-T, which was clearly wrong.)
Touched the 30 minute mark with the NE still blank. Held off entering DEEP-ROOTED until I had a few checkers, and only then unpicked the parsing. Had never heard of EE before (E&OE yes). LOI the hard HARD. 50 minutes-ish.
Edited at 2014-01-31 11:45 pm (UTC)
My antepenultimate was DEEP ROOTED – I was lacking the D of 6ac (too many potential authors), and the other checkers were all fairly uninformative. Nor had I come across EE as “errors excepted”. LOI was LIBRETTO.
Nice to see my favourite plant – tobacco – make another appearance. I consider it to be one of my five a day. Good, too, to see a small smattering of science, with INTERGALACTIC (good clue, I thought) and NUCLEAR (nice to see the setter sticking to the English spelling on that one). And FINNO-UGRIC finally justified my long hours spent randomly browsing Wikipedia pages. I presume that the Ugs were the less successful nation in that partnership.
Edited at 2014-02-02 11:33 am (UTC)