Pretty straightforward 11 minute solve without being detained by anything in particular for very long (I think it helps that this grid, especially if you spot the long words early on, is quite a user-friendly one). My general knowledge, especially natural history, proved up to the task, and the wordplay all seemed pretty clear. A couple of quibbles which didn’t amount to more than a slightly raised eyebrow; all in all, a nice puzzle.
Across |
1 |
BUBBLE GUM – BUBBLE(=”scam”), +[MUG]rev. First eyebrow raised as I wondered if a bubble was really a scam, and not just something which happens in capitalist economies without any evil intent, even if lots of people end up poorer at the end of it; but Collins has it as “an unreliable scheme or enterprise”, so I guess it can accommodate both. |
6 |
BOUND – double def. |
9 |
PULL ONE’S SOCKS UP – [ONLUCKLOSSES]* in PUP(what you get sold proverbially in a bad deal). |
10 |
DROP IN – DR. + HOPING. |
11 |
OAK APPLE – A KAPPa in OLE! I vaguely recalled this having something to do with a wasp, which is indeed the case. |
13 |
HOW DO YOU DO – double def. |
14 |
MIRO – reversed in interiOR IMage; Joan Miro, noted painter from Barcelona (also, not a woman, as I thought when I first saw his name, and knew nothing of matters Catalan). |
16 |
LYNX =”LINKS”. |
17 |
ISRAELITES – (REALISEITS)*; suddenly leaps out when you realise you’re looking for the name of a people of old, not a synonym for “pensioners”. |
19 |
BEEFIEST – a party with lots of buzzing might be described as a BEE FIESTa. |
20 |
MASCOT – MA’S COT, after I’d discarded PASBED and MUMBED and other mombles. |
23 |
KEEP ONE’S SHIRT ON – appropriate at World Cup time, where the shirt-swapping is currently being screened three times a day; I’d naturally say “keep your hair on” rather than shirt, but now I think about it, the shirt makes much more sense. |
24 |
DISHY – double def., one coming from the playful observation that a dish could be described as dishy (see also the old joke “What’s brown and sticky?”, answer: a stick). My only quibble would be that I’d already noted and enjoyed the same device at 18dn, so it seemed a little odd to be using it again so soon… |
25 |
TAILENDER – where the Bangkok banker is a THAI LENDER, who then loses his Hard. |
|
Down |
1 |
BIPED – P.E. in BID. |
2 |
BOLTON WANDERERS – [ON WANDER] inside BOLTERS gives the XI probably most famous for not winning the FA Cup in the Matthews final of 1953. |
3 |
LEO MINOR – (ORIONMELTED)*. |
4 |
GLEE – double def. Glee singing has a whole new life these days because of the eponymous TV show. |
5 |
MUSTARD GAS – [STAR(“leader”) in MUD(“damaging allegations”)] + GAS(“talk”). Even when the answer became pretty clear, I spent a while trying to work out who on Earth was this Mustard who was a leader in making allegations…Colonel Mustard? Someone else who was keen as mustard? Luckily the penny dropped. |
6 |
BUCCAL – (CUB)rev. + CALM. “Cheeky” as in “relating to the cheeks”. There it is again… |
7 |
UNSOPHISTICATED – (NUTSRED,PISTACHIO)*, jumbling up NUTS RED without the Right, and PISTACHIO to match the definition “green”. |
8 |
DIPTEROUS – (SPIDEROUT)*. A specialist zoological term, but some combination of O-level biology, knowledge of Greek and ability to concoct convincing anagrams should make this gettable. |
12 |
CONSISTENT – SIS in CONTENT. One of a number of very concise and elegant clues. |
13 |
HALF-BAKED – where the “bloomer” is a loaf, which would not be terribly tasty if only half-baked. |
15 |
FLEABITE – [A BIT] in FLEE. |
18 |
SIMONY – I’m guessing this is the most obscure element in today’s puzzle; I spotted it from the very clearly highlighted definition, and then chuckled at the clueing, i.e. if you were like Simon the Zealot, you could be described as “Simon-y”. |
21 |
TENOR =”TENNER”. |
22 |
ASTI – using both the crossword staples of S.A. (sex appeal) and “IT” (likewise) written in reverse to get the Italian wine. |
Of course, I saw ‘simony’ and ‘dipterous’ right away. I vaguely recall some Greek drama where a series of epithets starting with di- were stuck together in a single line; there is probably some technical term of rhetoric for this. ‘Buccal’ was also pretty good.
My last in was the apian gala, a very clever clue.
BUBBLE both as a noun (a fraudulent scheme eg. the South Sea Bubble) and as a verb (to defraud) occurs regularly in 18C and early 19C literature.
Edited at 2014-06-17 05:01 am (UTC)
The LYNX is certainly not an endangered species in Crosswordland.
Another DNF for me today, as I was left with blanks at the two unknowns OAK APPLE and DIPTEROUS. Knew 8dn was an anagram, but wasn’t confident on the order of letters.
BOLTON WANDERERS went in unparsed. Glad O-level biology comes in useful on occasion (BUCCAL)…am trying to persuade the 15yo that a few hours put in revising can reap plenty later on. Not sure he’s convinced…
Not keen on “eleven” as the definition at 2D. B-W is the name of the football club which has a staff and a playing squad from which a selection of about 16 represent the club on match days, only 11 of whom are allowed on the pitch at any one time.
I enjoyed this puzzle. The two slightly out-of-the-way words, BUCCAL and DIPTEROUS, were eminently accessible via the cryptic parsing without knowledge of the literal refs, always a sign of a good cryptic. A childhood spent going to too many G&S operas came to my aid at 13A. Here’s Yum Yum from The Mikado:
“Here’s a how-de-do!/If I marry you,/When your time has come to perish,/Then the maiden whom you cherish/Must be slaughtered, too!/Here’s a how-de-do!”
Bit of a football theme? Since Englend have to do both 9ac and be more 12dn and 23ac if they are not to be a 25ac. I blame the 20ac, obviously not working for them..
On Simon the Zealot, does it help to know that he’s not actually the same Simon that gave his name to Simony – that was Simon Magus? Thought not.
Are there flies that aren’t dipterous?
I knew ‘Diptera’, so 8dn was no problem. I have a notion in my head that they are ‘true flies’, although I don’t have any kind of notion what an untrue fly might be.
I’ve never heard of Simon the Zealot. That could be a nasty clue for those unversed in the matters ecclesiastical.
Edited at 2014-06-17 08:59 am (UTC)
I have no problem with a football team being defined as an eleven, in exactly the same way as I would have no trouble with a rugby union team being defined as a fifteen, because they are the numbers of players that start a match for a team irrespective of the number of substitutes allowed.
Other than that, my lord, parts of this crossword were excellent.
I don’t know what the setter drinks, but anyone giving me a glass of ASTI immediately diminishes their sex-appeal by 50%. Mind you, it’s probably mildly more palatable than Babycham …
Nice puzzle.
No problems with ELEVEN, which has always been synonymous with a soccer or cricket team, regardless of the size of the squad.
Nice crossword, and pleased to find that I remembered SIMONY. Really liked the clue for LYNX. Clever.
BUCCAL Knew this because years ago I had a dentist who, during the examination, called out descriptions of my teeth to his nurse, who wrote them down. One word he regularly used was BUCCAL, which at the time I thought was spelt “buckle” and must have something to do with twisted or even buck teeth. It was only years later that a dentist friend used the term and explained its meaning to me.
Delighted that the puzzle has returned to the back page of the paper; I hope it stays there. Now, if they printed it sideways on, that would really make me a happy old gentleman!
Interesting that the qualifying puzzle is to be re-set. I thought last Wednesday’s might cause aspiring entrants to underestimate the difficulty of the competition: if I could solve it in under 15 minutes it must have been very straightforward.
20.5. I’d have been a bit faster but had never heard of “bloomer” as a loaf of bread.
Dishy, Simony and cheeky could all have come out of the Uxbridge English Dictionary, speaking of which, I’m off to see a live recording (if that makes sense) of ISIHAC tonight. I’ll report back if there are any noteworthy additions to the UED.
(Surely Don Manley is the only setter who’d clue SIMONY with reference to Simon the Zealot!?)
George Clements