pipkirby today so I’ll keep things short and sweet. I did this funny and ingenious puzzle on paper, in 9 minutes and 18 seconds according to stopwatch, so by no means a walk in the park compared to its two predecessors this week. FOI was 23dn which jumped straight out at me, LOI 2dn which is at least straightforwardly clued, but I won’t be the only one to have struggled with the definition part.
Of particular note, not one, not two, but three clues where something has to go inside something else and then inside something else again: the title of this blog was almost going to be “March of the Matryoshka” until I noticed the 12ac/11dn meta-double-def. I’ll nominate 11dn as my Clue of the Day for cleverness and economy. Many thanks to the brilliant setter for making me question my axiom that Friday is always the best day of the crosswording week. And talking of which, I’m sure you’ll have an unusually good Friday this week with the blog in Pip’s capable hands. See you all in 9 days!
Across
1 Supporter penning a line on cricketing trophy for writer (10)
JOURNALIST – JOIST [supporter] “penning” A L [a | line] on URN [cricketing trophy]
6 Bird hissing back, not half! (4)
IBIS – reverse of SIBI{lant} [hissing “back”, “not half”]
9 Sticky food, say, including piece of chicken munched by friend (7, 3)
CHEWING GUM – E.G. [say] “including” WING [piece of chicken], “munched by” CHUM [friend]
10 List staff that everyone can see (4)
MENU – MEN U [staff | that everyone can see]
12 Record score broken by one male in particular (14)
DISCRIMINATING – DISC [record] + RATING [score] “broken by” I M IN [one | male | in]
14 One live broadcast from West European peninsula (6)
IBERIA – I BE [one | live] + reversed AIR [broadcast “from West”]
15 Plant shoot died, one in meadow (7)
BUDDLEIA – BUD D [shoot | died] + I in LEA [meadow]
17 Brother keeping mum (8)
TRAPPIST – cryptic def (for a monk who has taken a vow of silence)
19 Searcher, try and look (6)
GOOGLE – GO [try] and OGLE [look]
22 Ideal state to always always stay up then? (5-5, 4)
NEVER-NEVER LAND – if you NEVER NEVER LAND you “always always stay up”
24 Shade in colour certainly retro (4)
ECRU – hidden reversed in {colo}UR CE{rtainly}
25 Asian set out to maintain reputation amid challenge (7)
VIETNAMESE – (SET*) [“out”] “to maintain” NAME [reputation], amid VIE [challenge]
26 Abandoned building (4)
SHED – double def
27 Good luck, lock’s opening ancient city secured by key (3, 3, 4)
ALL THE BEST – L{ock} + THEBES [ancient city], “secured by” ALT [key]
Down
1 Raise flag (4)
JACK – double def
2 Retinue surprisingly not having the same parents (7)
UTERINE – (RETINUE*) [“surprisingly”]. Uterine means “born of the mother but not having the same father”.
3 Secure ships, cutters (4, 8)
NAIL CLIPPERS – NAIL [secure] + CLIPPERS [ships]
4 Register those in the vanguard in Germany in art gallery (6)
LOGGIA – LOG [register] + G{ermany} I{n} A{rt}
5 In team I am indebted – debatable (8)
SPURIOUS – in SPURS [team], I.O.U. [I am indebted]
7 Quickest way to drop priest into Roman well (7)
BEELINE – ELI [priest] into BENE [Roman (i.e. the Latin for) well]
8 Resentful criticism from those downtrodden and spoiled? (4, 6)
SOUR GRAPES – grapes are trodden down to make wine, but these are sour ergo spoiled.
11 Particular type of car hire (4, 2, 6)
HARD TO PLEASE – HARDTOP LEASE [type of car | hire]
13 Huge vessels, large troughs actually, all beginning to feed swine (3, 7)
OIL TANKERS – L{arge} T{roughs} A{ctually} “to feed” OINKERS [swine]
16 Peculiar concoction of ale and spice (8)
ESPECIAL – (ALE + SPICE*) [“concoction”]
18 Bad jingle? (7)
ADVERSE – a jingle is a verse in an advertisement, i.e. an AD VERSE
20 Italian certainly not donning some layers (7)
GENOESE – NO [certainly not] “donning” GEESE [some layers]
22 Something to do with an egg that’s hit the road (4, 2)
BEAT IT – One thing to do with an egg is BEAT IT
23 Most courageous removing bra, item of underwear (4)
VEST – {bra}VEST [most courageous, “removing BRA”]
I pushed on for fifteen more minutes, but still never thought of the obvious “disc” for record, otherwise I might not have given up. As it was I also had LOGGIA—thought of but not known, and oddly I didn’t spot the GIA in the wordplay—and the unknown UTERINE still to go. Ah well.
Strange when you plough though what feel like harder clues only to run aground on things that seem a bit more obvious in retrospect. FOI 1d, COD 6a.
Thanks to setter and blogger.
BTW not sure chewing gum is food.
JOURNALIST taught me a good lesson in not relying on chestnuts – supporter? Must be bra, tee or fan surely! And if I’d looked past ASHES, which was so clearly not going to be part of the answer, I’d have got this much quicker. Harumph.
Really lovely puzzle all told. Many thanks, setter and Verlaine.
… and today’s One Error is ‘studious’ at 5dn. When will I learn that if I need to come here to find out how to parse that one last pesky unparsable clue, it could actually mean that that one is wrong…?
Edited at 2017-04-26 05:46 pm (UTC)
Describing 9ac as ‘food’ was unhelpful – I’d EGG from e.g. which didn’t work.
Edited at 2017-04-26 09:27 am (UTC)
Liked the split of HARDTOP LEASE, but for reasons above it’s really hard to get from ‘a type of car hire’.
Lots of fun, especially the naughty bit about bra removal. Chewing gum is not, however, a food. It’s pavement glue.
(Hag is today’s setter.)
Edited at 2017-04-26 05:46 pm (UTC)
Like dining in an understaffed restaurant it took me far too long to get MENU: without the second letter I mused if a RODU or MANU might be some kind of (no doubt classics or theology-related) list.
My one quibble is that the editor should coordinate the Quickie and the regular puzzle. I do the Quickie for a warmup, and today’s has ‘discriminate’, making ‘discriminating’ very easy.
I did like the clue where they chuck the priest down the well as quickly as possible.
As far as Vinyl’s point about answer similarities is concerned I did the Quickie at lunchtime like I usually do, and by the time I got home to start this one I’d completely forgotten that DISCRIMINATE was in the Quickie so it didn’t help me with 12ac in the slightest, and I needed quite a few checkers before I got it.
Still enjoyed the hardtop lease. Thanks setter and V.
An interesting mixture. One of the things I wanted to check was whether anyone else thought that “West” in 14ac should have been “East” (or if I was simply losing my marbles), so I’m relieved to hear from mal26. And I wasn’t too keen on CHEWING GUM being “food”, or SOUR GRAPES being “spoiled”, or “Beat it” for HIT THE ROAD – all just a bit too loose for my taste.
On the other hand I loved the clues for OIL TANKERS, ADVERSE and HARD TO PLEASE, particularly this last (a definite COD), which I’m amazed to say I don’t ever recall coming across previously since “type of car hire” seems such an obvious (and delightful) construction.
Overall the pluses outweigh any minuses (mostly just me being too picky), so I raise my hat to the setter. I should have been faster than my 13:49, but (once again) I blame my tiredness.