By the light of day I can’t see anything particularly gruesome in this puzzle, and actually plenty of things that could be write-ins to a solver in the right frame of mind. Where some grids contain a welter of classical references, this seemed quite European: with 9ac, 22ac, 2dn and 7dn from the French, and I always assumed for some reason that 18d was French too (le bergamot juste, anyone?) but that along with 26ac is of Italian origin. I don’t think I knew the true geographical origin of 22dn, either, so that was another lovely thing to learn from this well-travelled international puzzle.
Solving-wise 19ac *was* a write-in for me, 22ac and 23ac went in really fast too, and then I polished off the SW corner in excellent time before grinding to a halt for no reason that I can readily explain. I do remember, perhaps fooled by the Gallic lingo coming thick and fast, getting stuck in the dead end of being sure there was a 13 letter word for “thick lentil soup” if only I could summon it up, along the lines of VICHYSSOISE or BOUILLABAISSE or such. LOI was 16ac (which could easily have been someone else’s FOI, I suspect) after the MANGETOUT – such a familiar face in crosswordland, but always a tricky one to discern from the crossers – penny dropped.
Anyway all told this seemed an excellently fair and well-constructed puzzle that I’m sure won’t be as Marmitey as the one I enjoyed so much to everyone’s amazement last week. Great job setter and thanks! Special mention to 1ac: I’m very fond of that subgenre of clues that look like the route to the solution is obvious, but are in fact leading the solver up the garden path. The amount of time I spent trying to find a four letter word for “case” I could put MB or DR inside…
| Across | |
| 1 | MOLEST – bother: M.O. LEST [doctor | in case] |
| 4 | CUSTOMER – “whose opinion one should never doubt” (because the customer is always right): O.M. [order] “filed by” CUSTER [general] |
| 9 | GOURMET – bon vivant: GOT [understood] about U R{o}ME [posh | European city, “nothing less” (i.e. minus an O)] |
| 11 | INNINGS – one’s life: {w}INNINGS [“skim off” profits] |
| 12 | BISON – wild thing: BI SON [“boy enjoying a varied love life”] |
| 13 | ARTILLERY – troops: ILL [suffering] in ARTERY [Channel] |
| 14 | CENTREFOLD – nude model: (COLD FEET N{eve}R*) [“outrageous”, “though not Eve”] |
| 16 | SOAP – double def: pre-watershed programme / cleaner |
| 19 | SITE – place: homophone of SIGHT [“sound” faculty] |
| 20 | ACCIDENTAL – chance: and an accidental musical note may be natural (or sharp or flat) |
| 22 | BRICOLAGE – diverse parts assembled: BRIE [French product] with CO LAG [company | delay] “going in” |
| 23 | GABLE – old player (i.e. Clark): B [“beginning to” B{attle}] into GALE [wind] |
| 25 | TOEHOLD – initial advantage: TOLD [reported] with E HO [European | house] “claimed” |
| 26 | TIMPANI – members of the orchestra: reverse [“it looks the other way”] all of IN A P.M. IT [in a top position, it] |
| 27 | KEYSTONE – everything depending on it: KEY’S TONE [opener’s | character] |
| 28 | ETHENE – gas: “entering” {engin}E THEN E{xpanding} |
| Down | |
| 1 | MEGABUCKS – a lot of money: BUCKS [county] with (GAME*) [“fixed”] “at first” |
| 2 | LOUIS – French king: OUI [his assent] in LS [“outskirts of” L{imoge}S] |
| 3 | SEMINARY – school: SEMI NARY [house | never] |
| 5 | UNINTELLIGENT – thick: (LENTIL*) [“soup”] + I “put in” {p}UNGENT [strong, “then lid taken off”] |
| 6 | TANGLE – get caught: T [“first of” ten] + ANGLE [fish] |
| 7 | MANGETOUT – vegetable: GET OUT [extract] “is beneath” MAN [valet] |
| 8 | RUSTY – out of practice: {t}RUSTY [reliable, “though not at first”] |
| 10 | TRAFFIC WARDEN – street worker: TRAFFIC WAR DEN [trading | hostilities | room for relaxation] |
| 15 | NOT LIKELY – I don’t think so: ELY [see] under reverse of KILT ON [tartan on, “being lifted”] |
| 17 | PULVERISE – crush: (REPULSIVE*) [“outlandish”] |
| 18 | BERGAMOT – oil: (EMBARGO*) [“abandoned”] + T [“ending in” {Kuwai}T] |
| 21 | TO BOOT – as well: BOO [shocker, as in, something intended to give someone a shock] “penned by” TOT [child] |
| 22 | BATIK – Indonesian design: B.A. [graduate] + reverse of KIT [paraphernalia “brought up”] |
| 24 | BRACE – double def: supporter / two |
12ac was a gem, and 15dn at least a semi-gem. 4ac clever definition – I could go on… Loved it.
Thanks for great blog Verlaine.
Edited at 2015-08-21 07:02 am (UTC)
Tried for ages to create something French or Italian from the anagrist for CENTREFOLD, real PDM there. Will give it COD along with BISON, but there were many worthy candidates.
Thanks setter and blogger.
The “pre-watershed” thing for SOAP definitely cropped up not that long ago and stuck in my memory.
COD .. probably MANGETOUT for the “vegetable extract”.
I thought the absence of a requirement to lift and separate in the Penthouse clue was rather cunning.
I confidently put in Here for Site at 19a which made 1d and the excellent 15d a tad difficult.
Too many great and varied clues to pick one.
I also spent time trying to find the name of a soup at 5dn: my first thought was MULLIGATAWNY.
And I was also led up the garden path by 1ac, but it was a different path. Fortunately CASEIN doesn’t mean anything remotely like ‘bother’.
Thanks for the blog, v. I enjoyed your title: I was expecting a reference to the J. Geils Band.
MULLIGATAWNY was probably the very word that was hovering somewhere just beyond the reach of my brain. Considering how simple a foodstuff soups are, they don’t half have some elaborate names!
Edited at 2015-08-21 12:28 pm (UTC)
This was one where a break helped a lot. I had about 10 left by the end of the commute but looking again at lunchtime I finished them off in about 5 minutes. No time given as I’d managed a typo but must have been somewhere around 45 minutes in total.
I see from Wikipedia that they’re still going, but without J. Geils!
Fail.