Solving time: 37:04
Took my time over this and had my mind on more serious problems than the puzzle itself. Fair bit of dictionary work required post-solve. And, to boot, there’s one answer I don’t quite understand. Help appreciated as ever.
Across
1. GODOWN. A warehouse and also the two words GO, DOWN.
4. GRUBBER. G, RUBBER (series of matches in e.g., bridge, tennis, etc.). A ball bowled along the ground, usually by accident. (No comments on underarm bowling accepted.)
9. GOFER. A GOER might be a promising project. Insert F for “female”.
10. CALVINISM. Insert V (very), IN (well favoured) and IS inside CALM.
11. BACCHANTE. Insert CHANT in B (bishop), A and CE (church).
12. OP ART. Read as “zero part”.
13. THOR. This is the one I can’t quite justify. I suspect it’s THOREAU minus AU (gold). How we get to delete the E as well, I’m not sure. Scrap that, it’s the much simpler: {au}THOR. Thanks to Jack (first comment) for correcting my usual over-egging.
14. BEFRIENDED. BE FRIED including END.
18. SALIVATION. Insert I in SALVATION.
20. SPAM. Two indications here. (1) S{erved} + PAM; (2) SAM including P (quietly).
23. CAMEL. “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” — Matthew 19.
24. COTANGENT. A N (new) GENT, after COT.
25. DRACONIAN. Anagram of “rain and” containing CO.
26. GUESS. Hidden answer.
27. RED ARMY. Reverse REAR, insert D (democrat), add MY (gosh).
28. CROSSE. Sounds like “cross” and is a weapon used in lacrosse, whence the name. Apparently taken from a bishop’s crook. How I wonder?
Down
1. GIGABYTES. GIG (concert), anagram of “by seat”.
2. DE FACTO. DEF = excellent, I’m told. ACT (deed), 0 (nothing).
3. WORTHY. WOR{d}, THY.
4. GALLE{y}. On the SW coast of Sri Lanka. A new one on me.
5. UNIRONED. Anagram of “reunion” and D{ance}.
6. BRIGAND. BRAND including a reversal of GI.
7. REMIT. A reversal of TIMER.
8. SCAN,DENT. Which describes the bottom part of 24dn. Equally new to me but, again, the cryptic gives it away.
15. ROO,STING.
16. DEMITASSE. Which we have seen recently. Anagram: a side stem.
17. EVILDOER. Since “rode” might be clued as “evil doer”; with “evil” as the anagram indicator. This is a MBACF type: “might be a clue for”.
19. LOMBARD. L (Liberal), OM (Order of Merit), BARD (poet)
21. PEERESS. PRESS containing E{xhausted} E{ditor}. Is it true that the toilets in the House of Lords have the signage: PEERS and LADY PEERS?
22. ONAGER. Reversal of REGAN and O.
23. CIDER. {de}CIDER.
24. CHIVY. CH (Companion of Honour), IVY which, as we have learned, is scandent.
Add about an hour to your solving time, mct, to get mine. And I’m afraid it wasn’t entirely unaided.
There are far too many wordy clues for my taste and a higher than usual proportion of unknowns such as GODOWN, GRUBBER, BACCHANTE, SCANDENT, CHIVY with only one V, GALLE and CROSSE. I felt somewhat ashamed about the depth of my ignorance but I have just taken heart that each of these words apart from GRUBBER was underlined with a red wavy line as I typed it, indicating that the spell checker doesn’t recognise them either. RED ARMY came up very recently didn’t it?
Edited at 2014-05-07 01:39 am (UTC)
Edited at 2014-05-07 05:42 am (UTC)
That said, I really enjoyed the puzzle with my COD going to DRACONIAN.
Edited at 2014-05-07 02:21 am (UTC)
Wow… am happy with my time of just over an hour for all but three, then I went to bed, and got up to get the last three: SCANDENT, BEFRIENDED and CROSSE in that order.
Lots of unknown vocab, but I felt the cryptics were for the most part fair, if tough.
PS Ref Regan (22dn). Anyone else seen the superb production of King Lear at the National at the mo? Fantastic performances by Simon Russell Beale et al.
It was Ian Holm, also at the National, about 15-odd years ago.
GALLE was familiar from TMS commentaries and from news reports of the ’04 Tsunami.
I enjoyed this one the way I enjoy a hill walk on a cold day: nice when it’s over and I’m damned glad I did it. Very satisfying.
And BEFRIENDED and CAMEL both made me chuckle.
Nice, testing puzzle. Thanks, setter.
My only possible quibble was the spelling of CHIVY which I thought should be CHIVVY; the OED agrees with me but I expect that there is another dictionary which justifies it.
GRUBBER – thanks Jack (as for much else) for forestalling the argument over whether its legal or not. It is in GALLE.
SCANDENT and CROSSE new to me but friendly enough wordplay.
Was that SPAM SPAM SPAM I saw? I don’t like SPAM!
CAMEL I got from the checkers well before the penny dropped. I’d like to point out there’s no I in needle.
I got THOR from Thoreau too with more than a hint of smugness: what you don’t actually write in you don’t actually misspell.
I liked best the inside out clue to EVILDOER, but there were many fine clues that you simply had to parse just for the satisfaction.
I either didn’t know or had forgotten SCANDENT but the wordplay was clear enough, and CROSSE, my LOI, went in with fingers crossed from its possible lacrosse connection. I’ve come across GODOWN a few times before in other puzzles and I would be very surprised if none of them were Times puzzles.
My only minor quibble is that the clue for UNIRONED seems to be suggesting that the D should be inserted somewhere inside the anagram fodder and not at the end of it. Nobody else has mentioned it so maybe I’m missing something.
Put me down as another who would always spell ‘chivvy’ with the double ‘y’. Nevertheless, all in all, a very satisfying puzzle.
Most of the time on this one seemed taken up by the NE corner, with CALVINISM providing the key. FOI THOR (nicely confusing AU and OR), LOI BEFRIENDED. Also my COD, for being nicely hidden.
After the recent exabytes, mere GIGABYTES seemed a bit of a let-down! And after Regan, once again, when is Goneril ever going to make an appearance?
Nice to see a word like DEF appearing, and be reminded of the iconic Def Jam Recordings, which of course launched the careers of LL Cool J, the Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, and various other hip-hop luminaries. No doubt everyone else here thought the same…
Word.
Please excuse the typo in my previous posting, I meant double ‘v’ of course.
I didn’t enjoy this as much as others and found it rather uneven
I only knew godown from having encountered it before in the Times Daily and a quick spot of Googlage reveals that it came up in April 2012. I’m shocked that I was able to recall a new word from so long ago.
PS, seeing that the second qualifier is only a week away has anybody who submitted the first one heard back from David Levy?
Edited at 2014-05-07 11:51 am (UTC)
Couldn’t parse 13 at all. Thank you for the blog.
Nairobi Wallah
For those interested, the US college championships are played off over the end of May bank holiday weekend (Memorial Day in the US) (US Civil War), and may well be televised. If you understand football you will be able to follow the strategy and most of the rules.
I’m glad to see I wasn’t the only one to waste time on THOREAU, wondering whether I’d been spelling him wrong all these years – that is until light finally dawned. I hadn’t heard of GALLE, but there didn’t seem to be any other possibility; and SCANDENT sounded just familiar enough for me not to be too worried about it. For the record I think I’ve always spelled CHIVY like that.
Over all, an interesting and enjoyable puzzle.