Solving time : 15:26, and I’m currently fourth on the leaderboard, so I think I was just a little off on the wavelength here. Though there’s one that I can’t figure out the wordplay for right now, thankfully it’s near the end of the list so hopefully it will come to me.
I suspect there’ll be some scorching times from those that pick up on the definitions, with a lot of long entries where the definition stands out in the clue, you could complete most of the puzzle that way. I had a few I needed the wordplay for, particularly 14 down, where I initially played the “let’s go by definition alone” game and put in CARILLION.
Away we go…
Across | |
---|---|
1 | DELICATESSEN: ESSEN next to (CITADEL)* |
9 | WORST: hidden |
10 | REAR-LIGHT: EARL in RIGHT, and the estate is the setter’s favorite car |
11 | RELIABLE: ELI in RABBLE missing one B |
12 | INBRED: sounds like IN BREAD. Having lived in both Tasmania and North Carolina, I’m used to this having a more sinister meaning |
13 | PREACHER: P then CHE in REAR |
15 | KIDNEY: KID then YEN reversed, I think we’ve had this definition of KIDNEY recently |
17 | ENTOMB: MB(GP) after (NOTE)* |
18 | COVETING: COVERING with T for R |
20 | FINNAN: INN in FAN got this from wordplay, it’s a type of smoked haddock |
21 | PROSPERO: S in PROPER, 0 – the duke from “The Tempest” |
24 | CONTINENT: CONTE(story), NT(New Testament) surrounding IN |
25 |
|
26 | PERSISTENTLY: (STYLE,PINTER)* |
Down | |
1 | DEWDROP: WED reversed, then DROP(shed) |
2 | LORD LIEUTENANT: LORD(noble), TENANT(lessee) surrounding LIEU(place) |
3 | C,OTT,A: another one from wordplay, a surplice |
4 | THRILLER: RILL(runner), in THE,R |
5 | SPAT: double def |
6 | EGLANTINE: EG, then ANT in LINE(cable, as in “drop me a line”) |
7 | AGGRANDISEMENT: anagram of DEIGN and GREAT MAN’S |
8 | STODGY: DG(Director General – old BBC boss) in S,TOY |
14 | CAMP,A,NILE |
16 | SOCRATES: I liked this double container clue – RAT in CE in SOS |
17 | EFFACE: all six letters are musical notes |
19 | G,HOST,L(oft)Y |
22 | SCONE: this was my last in and I was convinced I was going to be incorrect. I’d never heard of the Stone of Scone |
23 | MESS: double def |
I don’t recall seeing that meeting of KIDNEY although it had to be right.
My piano teacher, who used to rap me over the knuckles with the sharp edge of a ruler, had a series of fill-in-the-blanks stories which included ALL the words possible with the seven letters of the scale, so 17 was ACE clue of the DECADE as far as I was concerned. As for DEFACE, I’ve always wondered if it’s a misprint in “God rest ye merry Gentlemen:
“This holy tide of Christmas all others doth deface”
We had KIDNEY/sort/kind in September last year. What do you mean, you don’t remember? Tim posted a Fry and Laurie video especially to bed it in the memory. Pay attention, class!
CoD, for want of better, to the matrioshka SOCRATES.
All done and dusted in about 30 mins, so good enough for me. Like our blogger I ended with SCONE, not quite knowing why.
Pretty boring puzzle really – 15 minute meander.
Interesting comment about inbreeding George. It’s allegedly commoner than one might think. Sotira will hear about in the deep of Cornwall I’m sure. In Dorset there are a set of hamlets between Dorchester and Bridport that lie between the sea and the scarp face where all sorts of things go on – so I’m told
I’m sure the good people of Cornwall were far too busy being great engineers and attending chapel for any of that nonsense.
Last in .. LORD LIEUTENANT, which gets my COD vote, too.
On inbreeding – my father’s eldest sister never really forgave him for marrying an ‘overner’: a ‘foreigner’ (from that unknown country. West Wight) might have been acceptable, but do real people live across the water ?!
I still don’t know why 15A is KIDNEY other than by wordplay. Can someone enlighten me to the definition I am missing please.
I shall not want Honour in Heaven
For I shall meet Sir Philip Sidney
And have talk with Coriolanus
And other heroes of that kidney.
All present and correct except went haywire in the south west (story of my life, really, as I look back on mis-spent youth in Somerset): frustrated by 17ac I put in Intern (knowing I could not parse it – dangerous move)which then led to Carmelite for 14 dn and Infect for 17 dn. Immature approach, as got over excited at prospect of finishing.
Agonised long over how “Che” could be put in place of a “light” reversed (rear) in a word “prea-r” meaning power. Left unparsed, so for me a DNF.
COD a toss up between EGLANTINE, for taking me back to Keats’ nightingale, and PROSPERO for reminding me of the National’s final season at the Old Vic (a real theatre not a concrete enormity), with Gielgud as the duke.
Cheers, Chris.
Nairobi Wallah
Much better than yesterday’s horror.
My only unknown was COTTA, which was fortunately clear from the wordplay.
On KIDNEY, does anyone know the origin of its use in the sense of ‘kind’ or ‘temperament’? I suppose it’s no more odd than the use of ‘spleen’ or ‘heart’ in similar senses.
Is it just me, or have philosophers been unusually and unnecessarily abundant of late? Still, at least this was one I’d heard of. In general, if they’re not included in Monty Python’s “Philosopher’s Song” I’ve got no hope. Oh, and Hippocrates, who I’m sure I’ve encountered in some context or other.
Thanks to Londoniensis, as ever, for the literary reminiscences: ‘eglantine’ for me immediately conjured up ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and Oberon’s instructions to Puck, referring to ‘sweet musk roses and with eglantine’, if I remember correctly.
Also got KIDNEY but had forgotten about the meaning of kind or type. Noah Webster was amusingly scornful in his first dictionary :
” 2. Sort; kind. [A ludicrous use of the word.]”
And has another interesting definition I’d never heard of:
“3. A cant term for a waiting servant.”
The 1913 edition is generous with quotations:
“There are in later times other decrees, made by popes of another kidney. Barrow.
Millions in the world of this man’s kidney. L’Estrange.
Your poets, spendthrifts, and other fools of that kidney, pretend, forsooth, to crack their jokes on prudence. Burns.
&hand_; This use of the word perhaps arose from the fact that the kidneys and the fat about them are an easy test of the condition of an animal as to fatness. “Think of that, — a man of my kidney; — . . . as subject to heat as butter.” Shak.
3. A waiter. [Old Cant] Tatler.”