Anyway this was a pleasant middle-of-the-road Friday puzzle that I solved on paper in 8 minutes 22 seconds and eight hundredths of a second (aren’t stopwatches brilliant?). Strangely heavy on the farmyard animals, though what kind of farmer would have a 9ac amongst his livestock I don’t know, probably only one who does the crossword during his tractor rounds every morning. Being a TLS blogger I especially enjoyed the Wilde reference (plus we Magdalenenses have to stick together, don’t you know) and the couple of other moderately erudite literary nods. 1ac was my LOI, being probably not the most obvious word conjurable from the C_A_R_ crossers.
Many thanks to the setter; and with that, I open this puzzle up to the floor…
Across
1 Church – a vessel of salvation, revolutionary centre of spiritual power (6)
CHAKRA – CH A [church | a] + ARK reversed [a vessel of salvation, “revolutionary”]
4 Nonsense in legal document put into understandable language (7)
DECODED – COD [nonsense] in DEED [legal document]
9 Number present, parting with fine, about to get cross (5)
TIGON – NO. GI{f}T [number | present, “parting with fine” (i.e. losing an F)] all reversed (“about”)
10 Thieves take risk with money, beginning to end (9)
PECULATES – SPECULATE [take risk with money], with the first letter moved to into last place (“beginning to end”)
11 Attack what a farmer may do, wanting variety of milk? (4,1,2,2)
HAVE A GO AT – a farmer may HAVE A GOAT, if he wants goat’s milk
12 Congregational members showing lack of discipline ignoring cross (5)
LAITY – LA{x}ITY [lack of discipline “ignoring cross” (i.e. losing an X)]
13 Sanction to restrict home producing beastly sound (4)
OINK – O.K. [sanction] “to restrict” IN [home]
14 Came across as very angry-looking, having swallowed drug after party (10)
DISCOVERED – V RED [very | angry-looking] “having swallowed” E [drug], after DISCO [party]
18 Expulsion of pub staff into street after this person had returned (10)
DISBARMENT – BARMEN [pub staff] “into” ST [street] after reverse of I’D [this person had, “returned”]
20 Foreign writer‘s demeanour putting the Queen off (4)
MANN – MANN{er} [demeanour “putting the Queen off” (i.e. dispensing with E.R.)]
23 Article about a knight, king’s companion (5)
THANE – THE [article] about A N [a | knight]
24 In a queue, you say? Allowance must be made (9)
WEIGHTING – homophone of WAITING [in a queue, “you say?”]
A weighting as in “an allowance or adjustment made in order to take account of special circumstances or compensate for a distorting factor”
25 Causes of disease and sympathy – information is suppressed (9)
PATHOGENS – PATHOS [sympathy] “suppressing” GEN [information]
26 Dance fantastic on gala shows (5)
CONGA – hidden in {fantasti}C ON GA{la}
27 Author gloomy about sin in retrospect (7)
DURRELL – DULL [gloomy] “about” ERR reversed [sin “in retrospect”]
28 British engineers commandeering one old vessel (5)
BIREME – B REME [British | engineers] “commandeering” I [one]
REME are Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers, who turn up in these puzzles once every so often
Down
1 Suffer financial loss – i.e. to do this to get diamonds? (8)
CATCH COLD – apparently financial jargon for making a loss or losing one’s investment. If “catch cold” is taken as a cryptic instruction, I.E. “catches” C to become ICE… which is to say diamonds. Clues can’t get much crosswordier than this
2 French person offering a local wine – no good champagne ultimately imbibed (7)
ANGEVIN – A VIN [a | local (i.e. French) wine], with NG {champagn}E [no good | champagne “ultimately”] “imbibed”
3 Charge subsequently going up, squeezing any number (6)
RENTAL – LATER reversed [subsequently “going up”], “squeezing” N [any number]
4 Plant little girl on bed (5)
DICOT – DI [little (as in abbreviated) girl] on COT [bed]
5 Infatuation of everyone gathered round female in coastal location (4, 4)
CALF LOVE – ALL [everyone] “gathered round” F [female] in COVE [coastal location]
6 Performer admits drinking nothing, one becoming more crazy (7)
DOTTIER – DOER [performer] “admits” TT I [drinking nothing | one]. I don’t know when TT was in common parlance to mean “teetotal”… but where would crosswords be without it?
7 Old-fashioned couple given dirty hovel for nothing (5)
DUSTY – DU{o->STY}: DUO is the couple, exchange STY [dirty hovel] for their O [nothing]
8 Saw a Miss Laetitia outside house briefly (8)
APHORISM – A PRISM [a | Miss Laetitia] outside HO [house “briefly”]. Miss Laetitia Prism is Cecily’s governess in Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest”, responsible for absent-mindedly placing babies in handbags
15 Show girl’s seen in court to be more wily than the rest (8)
CANNIEST – ANNIE’S [show girl’s] seen in CT [court]. Show girl as in Little Orphan Annie from the Broadway musical and films
16 I fret at the bottom of haunt that’s run down (9)
DENIGRATE – I GRATE [I | fret] below (“at the bottom of”) DEN [haunt]
17 Mark betting system involving a measure of understanding (4, 4)
TAKE NOTE – TOTE [betting system] “involving” A KEN [a | measure of understanding]
19 Ruin brought by second mad person (7)
SHATTER – S HATTER [second | (proverbial) mad person, q.v. Alice in Wonderland]
21 One receiving property, having right to enter a vacated estate (7)
ALIENEE – LIEN [right] to enter A E{stat}E [a | “vacated” estate]. Molto legalese
22 Fashionable greeting is pretentious (6)
CHICHI – CHIC HI [fashionable | greeting]
23 Kind daughter had an office job maybe (5)
TYPE – TYPE D [kind | daughter]
24 Feature of vehicle brings shout of delight to one kind of driver (5)
WHEEL – WHEE [shout of delight] + L [one kind of (learner) driver]
HAVE A GO AT earned a chuckle so it’s my COD
I was glad to get Laetitia Prism, but now the image of Margaret Rutherford in full flow is hard to get out of my head, like a visual earworm.
At 30 minutes start to finish and with some very cute cluing this was a very pleasant and pleasing end to the week.
HAVE A GOAT was laugh out loud fun for at least two of us.
My last one in was TAKE NOTE. Having all the checkers didn’t help much, as knowing the first letter had to be M(ark) left only MAKE LOVE as a solution, for which “(system involving a) measure of understanding” seemed a fairly abstruse, if not feeble, definition.
DICOT from wordplay only, and CATCH COLD from being in the general vicinity of a parse.
Sorry to be slightly grumpy, but I had the fortune to have an hour to sit on my sofa this afternoon and do this (and check the validity of 9, 10, 28 ac & 1, 4, 21 dn), but I think stuffing a crossword with quite so many obscurities would be quite frustrating if I had 30 minutes on the train or lunch break.
COD HAVE A GO AT. LOI CATCH COLD, strictly from the checkers as I never got close to the wordplay and didn’t really know the definition (although I’m familiar with the old expression “when Wall St sneezes, the world catches a cold”).
Felt a bit out of form this week, as my 23-over-par total would suggest, and went down 3-2 to The Man From Hong Kong. Well played him.
Still fun though. Thanks setter and Verlaine. Have a good weekend everyone. Go Swannies.
Anyway I struggled to get going and was almost ready to give up for the night when it started to come together and I was pleased to find myself finished with everything parsed after 45 minutes. I might not have had every last detail of the parsing at 1d but I was in the right area and knew the main definition.
The unknown answers were fairly clued but did take me a while to work out from wordplay and checkers: CHAKRA, ANGEVIN and DICOT.
Edited at 2016-09-30 07:14 am (UTC)
Ink is not an issue now that I’m on a contract paying so much per month although I still prefer grey as available in the Club so that I can annotate within the grid to show the parsing as I solve. Greyscale as available on the new platform it’s no use because it lightens the print for the clues too and causes further eyesight problems.
Utterly clueless as to who the setter might be, but then I only know a handful, and I don’t think it’s the Don (I finished it), John Henderson (ditto, and I didn’t hunker down for the weekend with camp-bed and flasks), Dean Mayer (not enough laughs), John Halpern (not enough smut) or “Harry” McLean (I was always more or less on the wavelength of this one).
Glad to have got the unknown ANGEVIN, DICOT and CALF LOVE from the wordplay. It’s also pleasing to note that some crossword words are starting to seep their way into my memory at last, like PECULATE and TIGON.
Not sure I’d have had the brain power to tease out the unknown CHICHI and ALIENEE even if I’d had a whole extra hour, mind.
Cow corner had me although 1dn CATCH COLD was known but as ‘CATCH A COLD’.
I found 11ac HAVE A GO AT pathetic – finally failed on 3dn RENTAL and ANGEVIN – I simply got bored and in mode meldrew. So DNF.
COD 24ac WHEEL WOD CHICHI
meldrew Shanghai
DICOT and CALF LOVE also from wordplay, but with less dithering.
I didn’t have a problem with 1dn but like galspray I only knew it in the form ‘when X sneezes, Y catches a cold’. X always used to be the US but these days is more likely to be China. At what point does a commonly used metaphor become an acceptable definition?
Nice puzzle, in any event.
Although I saw what 1dn was about, never did parse it properly, so thanks for that, also for identifying Miss Prism in 8dn. (I’d had a vague memory of there being a Miss Prune and Miss Prism somewhere as a fictionalised Miss Beale & Miss Buss.) In 17dn I thought of the gunslinger rather than the orphan after seeing CLASSIEST wouldn’t fit. I did like 11ac too, which was almost FOI.
Oh, I didn’t know CALF LOVE either, so my first stab was HALF LOVE but DECODED sorted that one out.
TAKE NOTE was LOI with its nasty checking letters.
Edited at 2016-09-30 02:35 pm (UTC)
As far as the “PRISM” element of 8dn is concerned I didn’t have a clue how it related to Laetitia, but the answer seemed obvious enough so in it went.
I finished in the SW with DURRELL after SHATTER, both of which took far longer than they should have done, as did THANE.
I thought of DICOT straight away, but couldn’t fathom it until I had all the letters in place when its longer form came up and bashed me over the head.
Nice puzzle though.
ALIENEE was an NHO, got it from wordplay and a vague idea of “lien” meaning something. ANGEVIN equally unknown, perhaps because the French clearly have no idea how to spell “Anjovian”.
Out of curiosity, I wonder what criteria the setters (or the relevant dictionarians) use to admit a foreign word into our fine language? Paella, pasta and baguettes must all have once been exotic foreign words for exotic foreign foods – what level of popularity do they need before they’re adopted?