The last time I blogged a daily, I started slowly and accelerated rapidly; today I was fast out of the blocks before grinding to halt in an empty SW corner. Eventually a bit of hard staring gave me 14dn and a way in, so it ended up being a 20 minute solve, even if a bit of an uneven one (though now I come to blog it, of course, I can’t really see why that should have been the case).
Across |
1 |
HAD A BASH – [A DAB] in HASH. |
5 |
PROP UP – or, spaced another way, PRO PUP. |
9 |
DIALOGUES =”DIRE LOGS”. Sounds OK to me, though you never can tell with homophones. |
11 |
TIGHT – sTrInG tHaT. I got this totally a about f, and spent some time wondering if either PLETU or ULDAT might actually be words. |
12 |
ONEROUS – Old NERO, U.S. |
13 |
SPINACH – Samosa, PI, NACHO. Good, if slightly convoluted, surface. |
14 |
DETERMINATION – M1 in DETER NATION. |
16 |
HOME SECRETARY – ME in (ATORYCHEERS)*. |
20 |
RAGTIME – R.A., relaxinG, (EMIT)rev. |
21 |
HERETIC – HER, (CITE)rev. |
23 |
RIGHT =”RITE”. |
24 |
SUPPORTER – PORT, of which Liverpool is an example, inside SUPERintendent. |
25 |
SEE RED – RE(“about”) in SEED(“children”). |
26 |
FLAT RACE – FLuid, A TRACE. The sort of course run by a horse. |
|
Down |
1 |
HUDSON – (HOUNDS)*. Large enough, and historically important enough, to be readily familiar to people on both sides of the Atlantic. |
2 |
DRAKE – RAKED with the D raised up. |
3 |
BOOT OUT – BOON, TOUT; the less reputable sort of solicitor. |
4 |
SQUASH RACKETS – SQUASH(“eliminate”) RACKETS(“dishonest practices”). I started trying to research the distinction between racquets and rackets, but it got too confusing, especially after I saw one definition of “racquets, n., a game played with rackets…” Anyway, the game of squash is properly called “squash rackets (racquets)” to distinguish it from plain “racquets (rackets)”. |
6 |
RETSINA – CANISTER reversed after losing the Circa. |
7 |
PUGNACITY – (‘ANG-UP)rev., CITY. |
8 |
PATCHING – (NIGHTCAP)*. |
10 |
SISTINE CHAPEL – CHurch in (PALESTINEIS)*. |
14 |
DEMAGOGUE – GAME in [E.U. GOD], all rev. |
15 |
CHARTRES – CHAR(=”daily”), TREKS minus the Kilometres. |
17 |
SWIFTIE – (IT)rev. in [Son, WIFE]. In the amorphous language of the English pub, a swiftie might indeed be the proverbial “quick half” (though I’ve known people for whom “a swift half” always means a pint, and possibly more than one). |
18 |
AIRPORT – AIR(“cool”), PORT(“drink”). |
19 |
ECARTE – (CREATE)*. Elegant, simple clue. |
22 |
TATRA – reverse hidden in stART A Trend; a bit like yesterday’s RATHE, something I definitely hadn’t come across before a word I may well have seen before and forgotten, but which couldn’t really be anything else from the wordplay and checkers. For anyone else who’s forgotten, the Tatra Mountains are in the Carpathians, between Slovakia and Poland. |
I did get a moment of amusement thinking of the Dire Logs of Plato, the sort of thing that might turn up in Finnegan’s Wake.
Worked out raked = inclined from the rakish angle of Quentin Crisp’s headgear. Game for strategy had me scratching my head, until I thought of the ‘what’s your game?’ connection.
Edited at 2014-02-25 02:39 am (UTC)
Subsequent research tells me that Tatra is the third-oldest car company and is still in business producing trucks.
7dn put me in mind of Sotira’s ’Angonamo joke from a while back. Especially in combination with the surface to 24ac.
Not so easy for me, with my time going well over my targeted hour, but all correct in the end. Not helped by taking far too long to see the two long down clues. TATRA unknown/forgotten; DRAKE = LOI as I wasn’t sure of the rake=lean bit; SUPPORTER unparsed.
DIALOGUES made me smile, so gets my COD (I always err on the side of generosity regarding homophones…)
> I bunged in CISTINE CHAPEL. Yeah I know. [Hangs head in shame]
> I wasn’t sure it wasn’t DEMOGOGUE (and initially figured MO could be “strategy”), so had to figure out the wordplay, which was tricky.
HUDSON was no problem for someone linked to Canuckland by marriage. We have a Hudson’s Bay blanket at home. It’s a traditional woollen blanket used by beaver hunters, or moose trappers, or something, easily identifiable by its distinctive price.
Mild disappointment at 7 – I so much wanted cockney obsession to be “fing”, but no, we just had to lose an H as usual.
SWIFTIE not in my vocab or Chambers but not tricky and now included. Must be careful to distinguish from a quickie if I try using it.
The Tatras are indelibly engraved on my memory: in 1975 we essayed a car journey in search of ancestors through East Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia, and came into the last at the eastern end. The Tatras emerged cloud-like on the horizon as we travelled from Presov towards Poprad, overwhelming to a first-time foreign traveller once we realised those clouds were mountains. Majestic.
When I first looked at 24ac I only had the P checker, I thought it was going to be a homophonic clue, and I was trying to think of an expression for a Liverpool fan other than Kopite that began with KOP. Then the penny dropped.
25:17 by the way.
Still struggling to make sense of PI as “really good” in 13 (got the S and NACH so had to be the Popeye fuel), and also still don’t get 2 at all (other than Drake being a male duck). Sorry if I’m missing the obvious, but really appreciate any further clarifications. Thanks very much.
If “RAKED” = “inclined”, as in the rake of a cinema auditorium, then you can take the “tail” of the word, i.e. “D”, and move it upwards to the top of the word, i.e. have it “held high”, to make the duck.
Hope this helps.
The particular usage of rake is new to me – need to lock that one away! Thanks again.
Nick
Thanks for the blog and thank you to the setter.
Nairobi Wallah
Other than that got bogged down with 24A thinking the police officer and Liverpool fan was some play on COP/KOP.
Nice puzzle, thanks for the blog.
Edited at 2014-02-25 03:38 pm (UTC)
I did my best to mess this one up, but somehow finished up with all the right notes in the right order. I typed in HABADASH (cloth for brains), I can’t spell Cistine or spinich, HUDSON was my last one in, despite (in Canadian terms) the Bay being up the road from here, and it took me 4 attempts to spell SQUASH RACKETS and squash it into the grid. Otherwise, a smooth solve. Next!
Oh, COD .. CHARTRES
Brian
1. Puffin web browser app. Bit clunky, but it works.
2. Buy the more expensive digital subscription and get the dedicated Times app.
If you have a regular web subscription, it will work fine on a regular computer with Windows, OSX or Linux and any standard browser.
Like Tim I started solving 11 from the wrong end and, thanks to an inability to count alternate letters across words, very nearly went for pleat.
Like others, I ended up with blanks in the SW. LOI SWIFTIE, preceded by RAGTIME and DEMAGOGUE.
Some nice clues: Spent too long looking for the non-existent anagram in DETERMINATION. Delighted by the economical misdirection of SUPPORTER, my COD. Particularly enjoyed DIALOGUES, DEMAGOGUE and SISTINE CHAPEL. Pleased with myself for getting (eventually) the parsing of DEMAGOGUE.
Nope. Well, I finished but had two wrong – BLOT OUT for 3d, and a desperate SKINTIE (like, wot you drink if you’re skint, innit?) for 17d. Both were underadequately parsed, so it serves me right. The entire southern half was a bit of a slog for me. I put it down to too much of the wrong type of solvents.
I liked 7d (PUGNACITY), even though I cringe every time the ‘ackneyed Cockney makes han happearance. Isn’t it about time the Pearly Kings of Crypticdom were allowed to retire?
TATRA just serves to reiterate the point I’ve made here before: it’s just no good giving in to these Johnny Foreigners’ place names. I’m sure that, like Everest, the Tatras have a proper English name bestowed by a proper English cartographer.
Tatra was one of my first entries – I used to be a bit of a climbing nut and have a good few Polish friends. They are quite a large range!
DEMAGOGUE has been on my list of difficult words for years (I keep wanting to spell it DEMOGOGUE, taking the O from δῆμος rather than the A from ἀγωγός) and for some reason I got it into my head that the “idol” was GOG (I’m relieved to see I wasn’t the only one). Eventually I twigged GAME = “strategy”, which hadn’t felt obvious at the time.
After I’d finally cracked that, I returned to 17dn, with SPITTLE still looking as if it might be the answer, but for no good reason that I could come up with other than that it fitted. Eventually I twigged WIFE = “mate”, and finally finished in a miserable 9:45, when I’d thought at one time I might be heading for a clean sweep. (Sigh!)
Edited at 2014-02-25 11:54 pm (UTC)
Thanks
Brian