Well, I’ve paid up for my final burst of Gigabytes from that robber, Señor Vodafone, as we’re heading back to the land of Monsieur Orange and his unlimited ADSL on Saturday. 17 gigabytes in ten weeks; it was interesting to see with how much (or how little) we could reasonably exist.
Today’s puzzle was a pleasant, rapid solve, nothing unknown, although 10a and 20a held me up for 3 or 4 minutes, making 18 in total. No antelopes, obscure birds, faux chemistry or schoolboy Latin required today.
Across |
1 |
CURATES EGG – (GUEST GRACE)*; D &lit. |
6 |
BLAH – BAH! around L; D tedious speech. |
9 |
BREAK POINT – Amusing double definition, one tennis related. |
10 |
BETA – ABET = help, move the A to the end; D such a test; a beta test e.g. of a new software version. |
12 |
MALEVOLENTLY – MALE = man, V(I)OLENTLY = using force, the I removed; D with hatred. |
15 |
UNASHAMED – Insert SHAM (fraud) into (AUDEN)*; D blatant. |
17 |
RANGE – Insert N into RAGE (strong feeling); D limit of operation. |
18 |
ELGIN – This one may cause trouble to our non-UK solvers. EEL gutted = EL; GIN = alcohol; D what’s found in Moray. A pleasant town in the Moray region of Scotland, with a fine parkland golf course as I recall. Nice misdirection in the surface reading; lift and separate, as Jimbo would say. |
19 |
RURITANIA – RU(H)R = German area, remove H; (T)ITANIA = queen, remove the T; D land of romance. Originally invented by Anthony Hope in The Prisoner of Zenda, as a fictional central European country, it came to be used for a genre of adventure stories as Ruritanian Romances. |
20 |
BEND THE ELBOW – Insert D(ay) into BENT (crooked), HEEL (unreliable type), BOW (inclination, as in slight bend); D to drink too much. Not an expression I’d ever heard used, but it does exist. |
24 |
AJAR – A jar is a bit of a shock; a door AJAR will admit a draught. |
25 |
CONTRIBUTE – CONTRITE = sorry, insert BU (half the bush); D throw in. |
26 |
NILE – Anagram of (‘sort of’) LINE, D where crocodiles are found. Go to the naughty step if you biffed FILE as in single file. |
27 |
BEFORE LONG – D soon; you’ll find ‘lone’ and ‘lone wolf’ alphabetically before LONG. |
Down |
1 |
CUBA – RUMBA is a native dance of Cuba, we replace RUM with CU to get the country. Thanks, Sawbill, for explaining it. |
2 |
REEL – LEER (lascivious look) is reversed, D feel giddy. |
3 |
TAKE A SHINE TO – Double definition, one literal. |
4 |
SCORE – SORE = angry, insert C; D state of match. |
5 |
GUNPOWDER – GUN = arm, POW = prisoner, DER = RED reversed; D in such a plot. |
7 |
LIEUTENANT – LIEU = French for place; TENANT = someone ‘sitting’ in a place; D he’s commissioned. |
8 |
HEAVY METAL – Cryptic definition, where ‘lead’ is the metal, not pronounced to rhyme with seed. |
11 |
SECRET POLICE – (LEICESTER COP)*; D a more sinister organisation. Clever. |
13 |
SUPERBRAIN – SUPERB RAIN would be marvellous weather (of a sort!); D being exceptionally bright. |
14 |
MARGIN CALL – (ALARMING C L)*; D money demand. Not the phone call you want to get from your broker. |
16 |
MORSE CODE – SECO(N)D = nameless backer, inside MORE = further; D messaging system. |
21 |
LET GO – TG = extremely tiring, inside LEO = sign; D drop it. |
22 |
JUNO – June 6 was D-Day, so Jun O is perhaps six days before; D preparing to land here (on a D-Day beach). My CoD. |
23 |
BERG – Insert R(oyalties) into BEG (request humbly); D composer, Alban Berg, Austrian composer who used the twelve-tone technique; an acquired taste I have yet to find tasty, except the violin concerto. |
20a is BOW for inclination?
I presumed it had to be LONE WOLF rather than LONE or it wouldn’t be immediately before LONG in the dictionary?
About 30 minutes. Good crossword.
Edited at 2016-03-23 09:25 am (UTC)
Before checking the parsing, I was sure 20ac was BELT THE BOOZE, a phrase used in a Goon Show or two. Not sure what Milligan’s cockney policeman was called but, having apprehended Seagoon for such, he says “I’ve a good mind to arrest you for impersonating a newt”. Oh for the days when you couldn’t say “pissed” on the BBC and had to imply it, giving a much funnier outcome.*
Mixed feelings about JUNO. Clever if you forget the surface padding and don’t get too literal (littoral?) about the calendar. On the other hand, I like June and might now start it early by renaming May 31st.
* On edit: it’s here:
http://www.thegoonshow.net/scripts_show.asp?title=s08e13_the_plasticine_man
And the policeman in “Willium”.
Edited at 2016-03-23 09:45 am (UTC)
Favourite short story is of course “The Hammer of Evil,” in the same collection, closely followed by “Master Plan.” “Elephant with Wooden Leg,” too, was brilliant. In fact the whole anthology is highly recommended.
Strange puzzle, barely filled in any acrosses start to finish, but only missed 2 downs on first read – Superbrain, and Juno, where I knew neither the beach nor the date, but they both seemed reasonable. About average 23 minutes.
Rob
It was a bit like cracking a combination safe (of which I’ve done a lot, obviously). Took a while to get a feel for the mechanism but, once it was found, things started tumbling into place.
Some obvious standouts, but for some reason JUNO makes me especially happy.
Edited at 2016-03-23 10:35 pm (UTC)
Feeling particularly virtuous for having ‘superwoman’ first at 13d. Okay, when ‘superman’ wouldn’t fit…
Edited at 2016-03-23 09:49 am (UTC)
ELGIN cropped up not long ago and does indeed boast a good golf course with another right opposite across the Moray on the Black Isle
After an hour I resorted to a solver. Got CONTRIBUTE, but still had a blank at 22ac …
If I buy a copy of the book, do you get a royalty? If so you can buy me a drink!
(Despite being christened John Anthony, I ended up being called Tony because my (much) older brother and sister took to singing “Oh, Oh, Antonio (and his ice-cream cart)”. I’m assuming that John Antony Crawford Hugill ended up being called being called Tony for a more refined reason :-).
Nearly sunk by the JUNO clue: for some reason I got temporarily beached on MAYO. Now that is clever.
Edited at 2016-03-23 12:56 pm (UTC)
I took Juno just to be Jun 06 without the 6 but that’s probably not the intention.
Not sure why this one suited me, perhaps it was because there were no plants (unless you count half a bush). Will doubtless come crashing back down to earth tomorrow.
LOI and COD BEFORE LONG. Thanks setter and Pip.
Oh, and I’m stunned that BEND THE ELBOW was unknown to some distinguished solvers. Thought it was in common use universally, which shows how much I know.
11d gives me an excuse to mention the Foxes continuing good fortune. The dream is still alive!
Edited at 2016-03-23 01:48 pm (UTC)
I really struggled for some reason with 10ac BETA.
Four letter words all round!
I also thought that 20ac DEND THE ELBOW enjoyed universality.
FOI 1ac CURATES COD 22dn JUNO
horryd Shanghai
Of course JUNO has turned up in crosswords before, with somewhat more dire consequences, namely in the Telegraph BEFORE D-Day, along with UTAH, OMAHA, OVERLORD, MULBERRY. The composer of those crosswords was subjected to some unpleasant interviews by MI5 but managed not to be shot as a spy. He was a teacher who had his schoolboys suggest words for his puzzles, and they picked up interesting terminology from the American GIs posted nearby whom they used to hang out with (it was all very easygoing — they were even allowed to drive tanks!).
Apart from that, an interesting and enjoyable puzzle.