Solving time: 29:39 but with one letter accidentally missed out.
I found this quite straightforward. A sub-30 minute solve on a blogging day is pretty good going for me. That said, I was too quick to hit Submit with the half hour seconds away, and I completely failed to notice the middle letter of 25d hadn’t been filled in. My actual solving time would have been about 30:30 as it took me about a minute to talk myself out of OBE as it didn’t fit the wordplay, and then get to the correct answer.
13d was my COD, but there were several others I liked – 15a, 17a, 24a, 5s, 7d & 20d. An enjoyable canter, well, trot at least.
cd = cryptic def., dd = double def., rev = reversal, homophones are written in quotes, anagrams as (–)*, and removals like this
Across | |
---|---|
1 | BOGOTA = A + TOGO + B |
4 | ST(OP)OVE + R |
10 | WATER CLOSET – usually abbreviated to W.C., so a reference to the comic actor W.C. Fields |
11 | LAG – dd |
12 | OUTFLOW = OUT + WOLF rev |
14 | ALDGATE = L |
15 | ELECTRONIC MAIL = (REMOTE CLINICAL)* |
17 | QUEEN ANNE’S LACE = QUEEN/ACE (pack members) about SENNA (medicinal plant) rev + L |
21 | ORC + HARD |
22 | EAR(THE)N |
23 | SKI |
24 | PROFITEROLE = T |
26 | UNSTEADY = (TUNED SAY)* |
27 | AT REST = A + TEST about R |
Down | |
1 | BOW LOVER |
2 | GUT = TUG rev |
3 | TART + LET |
5 | TASMANIAN DEVIL = (MANTIS AND A)* + EVIL |
6 | POTSDAM = MAD + STOP all rev |
7 | VOLCANIC ASH = CAN I? + CASH all after VOL (book) |
8 | RUGGED – dd – If a floor has a rug on then it might be referred to as rugged. |
9 | BLOW HOT AND COLD – dd – Sirocco and Mistral are hot and cold winds respectively |
13 | THE MUNCHIES = (ITCHES)* about H |
16 | REIN + VEST |
18 | EXAM + P |
19 | SUR(F |
20 | HONSHU = U (Uranium, radioactive element) after N/S (poles) in HOH (H₂O, water) |
25 | ODE = “OWED” – I can’t believe I missed this one out! |
I had put ‘Honshu’ and then erased it, for some reason thinking waster was HO2 rather than H2O, only to realize my error much later. I also had to think carefully as to whether the Tasmanian critter was the devil or the tiger.
All correct and complete, so I have made it through a difficult week unscathed. Of course, I’m on the blog in a couple of days, so…..
But for all that effort I still ended with one wrong at 25dn where I had toyed for ever with OBE and then settled on OLE. Mixing cultural traditions rather nicely, I reasoned that OLE! is a tribute paid to the skill of a Spanish bullfighter while “it’s said” signals a homophone of ‘0 LEI’ or what you have when you arrive in Polynesia and the natives haven’t yet got round to honouring you.
Edited at 2014-03-28 03:00 am (UTC)
In my theory above, the homophone is only supposed to apply to ‘lei’ and not include the zero, but I can’t edit it now.
I found this crossword just the right level, where I’d seem to be stuck for a while but slowly things fell into place. In fact I’ve generally enjoyed the standard recently, and tip my hat to the setters and the new editor.
10ac reminds me of the old gag: what’s the difference between W. C. Fields and Flushing Meadows?
Edited at 2014-03-28 11:40 am (UTC)
Found it hard going, but, encouraged by Penfold’s kind comment yesterday, I persevered… and got all but one in about 90 (!) minutes. That one was 20dn, where I, like Pootle, had honsou, thinking I would finish the week with a momble, but no, ’twas my chemistry that let me down. I incorrectly thought H2O=HOO. So a simple error then (if that’s how these mombles work…)
Happy to work out QUEEN ANNES LACE, remembering the plant from the days long ago when my bumpkin brothers used to try smoking it in the fields.
CsOD to THE MUNCHIES and WATER CLOSET, both of which held me up for far too long.
Thanks for sorting out PROFITEROLE, couldn’t for the life of me see how that one worked.
Unlike Vinyl, I got AR’s BANE through the wordplay, once I stopped thinking about wolves and mules, panicking about two plants in one clue and thinking it had to be BANE at the end. ST AGNES’ BANE sounds as if it ought to exist.
THE MUNCHIES (Hey hey we’re…) took for ever, as I kept trying to thing of something Goonish and failed to translate “itches” into “craving”.
I nearly had DUE at 25, but was puzzled by the fact that it wasn’t a soundalike, it just was.
HONSHU my last in, after UNSTEADY meant that I didn’t have to look for a radioactive element other than Uranium. No issue (indeed, some admiration for) HOH to represent water.
Odd fact of the day: two East End clues, neither of which dropped aitches or had to rhyme dubiously with something. Well played, me old fairisle!
A good, chewy set of clues, less irritating than yesterday’s
Edited at 2014-03-28 09:44 am (UTC)
Must say I had my doubts about it right from the beginning. Even assuming that such a river does exist, it would surely be even more obscure than yesterday’s Benares.
Happy week-end all.
Nairobi Wallah
Now, Queen Anne’s Lace is another thing entirely. Unless you’ve heard of it (which I hadn’t), it’s impossible to solve. By the way, I fell headlong into the OBE trap.
I managed to solve QUEEN ANNE’S LACE without knowing it. It’s not exactly easy but doable if you can spot the queen and the ace.
Thanks for explaining profiterole Dave. Like Z8 I toyed with Saint and Bane at either end of the dreaded plant clue and my first thought for the runner/jump was Lea.
In my bumpkin days we used to try smoking hogweed, cow parsley’s chunkier cousin.
Nice puzzle.
Mr Pedantic me says: Hydrogen bonding makes water rather more complicated than just HOH, although as steam / water vapour, single molecules can exist.
A nice one with no obscurities and everything fitting well – once seen. Thank you, setter.
QUEEN ANNE’S LACE was my LOI and I needed the wordplay to get it. I have to confess that I didn’t bother to parse THE MUNCHIES and PROFITEROLE, and I only saw the parsing for HONSHU post-solve.
Edited at 2014-03-28 07:05 pm (UTC)
As with so many things to do with food and drink, I’d never come across THE MUNCHIES before, so that was my LOI, solved purely from the wordplay. At least they were offset by the East London answers which went straight in (with no checked letters needed) – apart that is from LEA, which for some reason didn’t occur to me.
I’d passed by QUEEN ANNE’S GATE this morning on my way from St James’s Park underground station to see an exhibition at the Royal Academy (the park itself very pleasant in the hazy sunshine), and spent some time imagining that the answer was going to be QUEEN ANNE’S SAGE (“pack members” = QUEENS; “beginning to look” = AGE, “look” perhaps being equivalent to “look a bit ancient”, like me – Sigh!), but decided that there might be a better alternative, and luckily found it by searching through the alphabet.
20dn was one of those annoying clues where HONSHU looked the obvious answer from the checked letters but I couldn’t make head or tail of HOH = “water” for simply ages.
Another very fine puzzle.
I wasn’t anywhere near the setter’s wavelength, and had to grind this one down slowly. But I was stumped by OUTFLOW and TARTLET. Is OUTFLOW really synonymous with “running away”? I suppose, at a stretch, it is. But, unless I misunderhend the clue, it seems unnecessarily inelegant to me.
It was, however, a good puzzle. I enjoyed (despite myself) WATER CLOSET, and also ELECTRONIC MAIL, the latter being my COD.
Note to [pipkirby] – take no notice of the French and their perverse abbreviations – they only do it to annoy. They are a nation that can’t even get “DNA” right, for goodness sake. We long ago informed the world that English was the language of international aviation; it’s about time we did the same for medicine before someone gets hurt. While we’re at it, we really ought also to tell them that many medicines can be given orally, rather than the other way. In any event, I hope all went well.
One good thing about MRI: most problems can be fixed in Photoshop rather than resorting to surgery.
I assume that in France “DNA” is already taken by the Association Nationale Dyslexique 🙂