Faced with this, bleary-eyed after a sleepless night coping with an ill and distressed Ted (our elderly wire-haired fox terrier), I was relieved to find I had finished this off in 20 minutes or so, with only one word ‘unknown’ but deduced correctly from wordplay. It’s a solid, MOR puzzle with a couple of definitions (11a, 17d) which made me smile.
Across |
1 |
FLOATY – OAT (grass) inside FLY (insect); D light and delicate. I toyed with a new strain of marijuana called UFF before OAT popped up. |
4 |
CLADDING – CL (exterior of cell), ADDING (building up); D an insulating layer. |
10 |
CATAMARAN – CAT (Tom, maybe), A MAN insert A R(iver); D boat. |
11 |
GIMME – Hidden word in BA(G I’M ME)RRY; D putting piece of cake. It’s putting, as in golf, not putting as in placing. A gimme is a very short putt which your matchplay opponent concedes rather than wasting time holing out. Not allowed in competition play, unless you’re French it seems. |
12 |
DON – NOD = bow, reverse; D flower, rivers in Aberdeenshire, Yorkshire, and probably others. |
13 |
LIQUIDATION – (LATINO, I)* around QUID (some tobacco); D company’s demise? |
14 |
LOUCHE – D ignominious; LO then initial letters of all the following words in the clue (except ‘initially’ of course). |
16 |
TRICKLE – Insert R (king) into TICKLE (please, as in amused, by Ken Dodd perhaps); D move slowly. |
19 |
ON THE GO – (ONE GOT)* around H; D very busy. |
20 |
ENTOMB – (NOTE)*, MB (doctor); D bury. |
22 |
BUMBERSHOOT – Insert UMBER (brown), SH (extreme letters of SmootH) into BOOT (rear of car); D brolly, umbrella. Ironic that Wiki tells me this is American slang for a brolly, but no doubt our US and other non-UK solvers are wondering what footwear has to do with the rear of a car. |
25 |
SIR – STIR (slang for prison); T to escape; D knight. |
26 |
EXTRA – Attach RA to the final (right-wing) letters of ThE BronX NoT; D particularly. |
27 |
ESTIMATED – E (justice finally), STATED (said), insert IM (Mimi’s heart); D rough. |
28 |
SPENDERS – SUSPENDERS (garters) is missing US; D shoppers perhaps. |
29 |
CREASE – CEASE = stop; insert R (rear of flanker); D ruck. |
Down |
1 |
FACADE – Insert A C(old) into FADE (melt); D front. |
2 |
OUT-AND-OUT – D total; if you’re OUT and OUT, you’re dismissed twice in cricket. |
3 |
TAMIL – Insert M (problem, ultimately) into TAIL (behind); D Asian. |
5 |
LONG IN THE TOOTH – Witty DD, and a write-in. |
6 |
DOGMATIST – DOG (trail), MIST (film); insert A T(ermagant); D opinionated type. |
7 |
IAMBI – A giant may say I AM BIG; briefly = drop the G; D more than one foot, plural of iambus, a metric foot in poetry. |
8 |
GREEN TEA – GREEN = politician, TEA sounds like T (Tory leader); D drink. |
9 |
CROQUE MONSIEUR – CROQUE sounds like CROCK (container), (SOME URN I)*; D French dish, a sort of toasted ham sandwich with bechamel sauce on top, add a fried egg and you have a Croque Madame, even more delicious. |
15 |
CLEVELAND – C (Conservative), LEVEL (matched) AND (with) ; Grover Cleveland, the 22nd and 24th President of the United States (1885-89 and 1893-97). The only one to serve two non-continuous terms. Impressive in the moustache department too, I see. |
17 |
KAMA SUTRA – Cryptic D, ‘relations’ of a sexual nature; a text not recommended for those like me with dodgy backs. |
18 |
COBBLERS – Cryptic DD. |
21 |
BRIDGE – Another DD, part of a violin and a card game. |
23 |
MITRE – Insert R(ector) into MITE (little one); D headgear, as worn by a bishop. |
24 |
TAMAR – All reversed (‘rising’), RAM AT (force in the direction of); D the river which forms a border between Devon and Cornwall, also famous for its rail bridge (Royal Albert) designed by Brunel. |
Dictionaries aside, the amber in my personal mind-picture is a yellowish-brown colour. And it has an ancient fly stuck in it.
Edited at 2016-02-24 09:29 am (UTC)
Only in a crossword might a rector aspire to a MITRE, even a little one, but that’s one of the reasons I like crosswords.
A lot of contributory letters from the front, back and sides of words today: possibly a record?
25 minutes with some fine surfaces – 1d, 11a, 3d and 17d for example.
Edited at 2016-02-24 09:25 am (UTC)
Anyroad, a cracking crossword, I thought, with my last two in (CLEVELAND – nicely clued, with not an Ike in sight – and LOUCHE – nicely hidden) my joint CODs.
Edited at 2016-02-24 09:48 am (UTC)
I saw GIMME quite early but didn’t put it in until quite late as I wondered if this was maybe a French word sounding like gym. Funny how sometimes you see a word you know but don’t recognise it like that. Reminds me of the time I wondered why there was a one coat paint called Once which I saw as a word rhyming with bonce. Maybe it’s just me.
I spent several minutes yesterday trying to work an anagram in this week’s Azed puzzle into some obscure unheard-of term until finally realising it was an entirely commonplace six-letter word. The last thing I considered!
BUMBERSHOOT was no problem for me as I spent a few years living in rainy Seattle, whose main music festival is self-deprecatingly called that. But I can see how many non-Pacific-Northwesterners might throw the newspaper across the room.
Edited at 2016-02-24 11:28 am (UTC)
Can’t even be happy with sussing out BUMBERSHOOT. I’d rather have got it wrong and gone out in sympathy with my fellow solvers, who have every reason to be stroppy IMHO.
All of which adds to the delights of solving, sort of. Thanks setter and Pip.
I had never heard of ‘bumbershoot’, and it had to be constructed from the cryptic. Fortunately, I am aware that the best way to find records and turntables in the UK is to go to lots of boot sales.
This puzzle features the first French dish that I have actually ordered and eaten!
Edited at 2016-02-24 04:03 pm (UTC)
I enjoyed the def for gimme and didn’t know cobbler as a drink: in culinary terms I thought it was a dumpling.
there was an earlier Bamber in the family.
Gascoigne is the elder son of Lieutenant-Colonel Derek Ernest Frederick Orby Gascoigne (himself the son of Brigadier-General Sir Ernest Frederick Orby Gascoigne) by his marriage in 1934 to Mary Louisa Hermione O’Neill, a daughter of Captain the Hon. Arthur Edward Bruce O’Neill and Lady Annabel Hungerford Crewe-Milnes.
His great-grandfathers include Robert Crewe-Milnes, 1st Marquess of Crewe, and Edward O’Neill, 2nd Baron O’Neill.[3] He is a nephew of Sir Julian Gascoigne who was in charge of the Household Division during the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.[4]
He is a direct descendant of the 18th-century Lord Mayor of London Sir Crisp Gascoyne and the 19th-century Tory politicians Bamber Gascoyne (the elder) and Isaac Gascoyne. Isaac’s son General Ernest Frederick Gascoyne, of Raby Hall (1796–1867),[1] was his great-great-great-grandfather.
Edited at 2016-02-24 05:17 pm (UTC)
If this was a medium one then my times are coming down as it took me around 40m.
I could see the Gimme in 11ac but never 100% understood the clue until coming on here (so still plenty to learn).
That said, I didn’t really think for long about Bumbershoot as 1. it fitted the clue and 2. it put me in mind of a similar portmanteau type brolly construct: the Brumbrella used at Edgbaston cricket ground.
Very enjoyable test.
Edited at 2016-02-24 09:20 pm (UTC)
Somewhat distracted by listening to Man. City remembering how to play footie.
Much better after my lousy performance yesterday.
Moreover, I had “flouty” for 1ac, which is apparently not a word in any language known to Google.
I join those unhappy with LOUCHE = “ignominious”. Maybe it’s me, but there always seems to be something rather attractive about people described as “louche”. I see that among the citations in the OED there’s “I knew of a louche little bar quite near here.” from Brideshead Revisited – clearly just the sort of place to spend an interesting evening :-).