This was, on the whole, I would say, a pretty Mondayesque offering, which would not have been out of place on Verlaine’s watch of late. I managed it in bang on 18 minutes, showing rather less of the 13d that has characterised my recent attempts. Since I don’t have access to the magic widget on my iPad, this offering will be ‘imperial’ rather than ‘metric’, i.e. all answers and no clues. A bit like poor old Aphrodite without her appendages…
ACROSS
1 PLAYGROUND – PLAY G[ranted] ROUND
8 SPAR – DD (double definition)
9 INSOBRIETY – IN BRIE in SOT Y
10 BIRD – DD; girl=bird in many British people’s lexicons; a falcon is sometimes mistaken for a hobby
12 WATER BUFFALO – BUFF A[ctive] in WATERLO[o]
15 BILITERAL – B[ritish] I[ndustry] LITERAL; ME is a two-letter word, which is what the solution means
17 IRENE – I RENE (with acute disorder)
18 UPPER – [s] UPPER
19 PEACETIME – E in PACE (with deference to) TIM E
20 ESTRANGEMENT – STRANGE MEN in ET
24 EYED – sounds like IDE
25 TANTAMOUNT – ANT in TA MOUNT
26 SEMI – reverse hidden
27 STAFF NURSE – NUR (former rail union, run for eternity by the gloriously named Sid Weighell) in STAFFS (Staffordshire) [engin]E
DOWN
1 PRIM – P RIM
2 ALSO – A LSO (London Symphony Orchestra; geddit?)
3 GIBRALTARIAN – BIG reversed ALTAR in anagram* of RAIN
4 OLIVE – O [c]LIVE; Sir Robert Clive gained fame in India, but died, as I recall, in Quebec. His former residence in Kent is well worth a visit, along with Ightham Mote. On edit: I am getting my 18th century adventurers hopelessly mixed up. Clive was very much an India man, while it was Wolfe who found fame, as well as his end, at Quebec, and had a pile in Westerham, Kent, which is now run by the NT.
5 NOTABILIA – BATON reversed I AIL reversed
7 PHILATELIC – LATE in PHIL IC
8 RADIOMETER – TRIED A MORE*
11 OF MICE AND MEN – COMMEND A FINE*; when Hitchcock told Truffaut that it was easier to make a film from a short story or a novella than a long novel, he could have been thinking about Lewis Milestone’s faithful adaptation of the Steinbeck story.
13 OBTUSENESS – extended definition, as some angles are obtuse, i.e. more than 90 but less than 180 degrees. (Yes, I had to look that up.)
14 SLIPSTREAM – PILS reversed MASTER*
16 REPUGNANT – PUG NAN in RET (to soak)
21 MOTIF – MOT (test for used cars in the UK) IF (the poetical ide of the cruciverse)
22 BURR – RUB reversed R (king). Apparently, some older Northumbrians produce their R in this way (along the lines of the French R in ‘restez ici’). Daniel Defoe picked this up in his travels through the land: ‘I must not quit Northumberland without taking notice, that the Natives of this Country, of the antient original Race or Families, are distinguished by a Shibboleth upon their Tongues in pronouncing the letter R, which they cannot utter without a hollow Jarring in the Throat, by which they are as plainly known, as a Foreigner is in pronouncing the Th: this they call the Northumberland R, or Wharle; and the Natives value themselves upon that Imperfection, because, forsooth, it shews the Antiquity of their Blood.’
23 STYE – T[ack]Y in SE
MER at ‘Bird’ for Girlfriend. I know, but must we?
Spent too long looking for an obscure battle to complete an obscure Buffalo, neither of which turned out to be obscure.
Thanks setter and U.
NHO hobby = BIRD so was questioning whether there was some other type of arcane METER at 8d.
Wasn’t sure whether BILITERAL was actually a word.
Guessed that a fricative trill is a BURR rather than a PURR from wordplay.
Didn’t quite get RE……..T from REPUGNANT.
Edited at 2019-06-24 07:29 am (UTC)
Nice to see the old blog format. Reminds me of the days when we had to send in comments with a stamped addressed envelope. Ee, we didn’t ‘ave much but we were ‘appy ….
Dnk pace or ret.
Cod also.
FOI 1dn PRIM and proper
LOI 18ac UPPER
COD 13dn OBTUSENESS
WOD 10ac BIRD – the hobby gave its name to the table football game Subbuteo – Its creator Peter Adolphus wasn’t allowed to use the generic name ‘The Hobby’, so he elected for half of the bird’s latin name, which is ‘subbuteo subbuteo’!
A game of two halves as they say.
Remember the Liverbirds? It’s ‘ow we spoke in them days.
Ee, we didn’t ‘ave much but we was ‘appy!
Edited at 2019-06-24 08:31 am (UTC)
I finished with a tentative BILITERAL, having been tempted by BILATERAL on the basis that I knew it to be a word but I managed to resist this temptation.
Funny you should mention having a nap on the train, used to be a common occurrence for me, directly related to the previous night’s alcoholic excesses!
Get on at Coventry, do about a third of the Times before nodding off (probably much to the annoyance of my fellow passengers as I snore very loudly), then wake up at Watford fully restored, finishing off the Times and Guardian before reaching Euston.
It also felt like there were a lot of random blokes and –ahem- birds in the frame.
For what it’s worth, ulaca, I quite liked the old school blog, though I had to look up General Wolfe of the Quebec Heights of Abraham to be sure it wasn’t Clive, who apparently died either at his own hand or of natural causes or an opium overdose at his home in Berkeley Square.
Enjoy Milos, and please post a picture of the falcon if you see one!
I would prefer not to see words like BIRD, personally. Lowers the tone a bit.
The reference to this kind of BURR reminds me of Unlucky Alf from the Fast Show. Bugger.
What I like about Clive
Is that he is no longer alive.
There is a great deal to be said
For being dead.
15.03 after dithering over BILITERAL/lateral. Yes, BIRD is not quite passe enough to be entertaining.
I managed to avoid the bilateral hazard. I literally missed it by one letter.
COD: OF MICE AND MEN.
Edited at 2019-06-24 04:29 pm (UTC)
Few odd words here like BILITERAL. Notes for the archive like RET = steep/soak.
FOI was 1a which is always a boost at the start of a puzzle, but could not get anything to flow from that, annoyingly. LOI 2d which I couldn’t parse at the time, ie BIFD but was the only word that I could see that fitted.
Thanks to blogger and setter
WS
Challenge total 51/53.
Edited at 2019-06-25 06:31 am (UTC)
Second single letter error in consecutive days – the B.I. bit was easy enough – but then got mixed up with definition and word play – had LATERAL for ‘like me, the setter” and never quite working out what the definition was. Oh well !!!
Other than that, found it mildly challenging with a mix of easier clues, some new terms such as ‘fricative’ and that BILITERAL, some tricky word play and well disguised definitions. Was a little surprised to see the BIRD definition but took no offence at it.
Started of with the two shorties (1d and 23d) at opposite corners of the grid and finished back at the top with the clever ALSO and OLIVE (which took much longer to convince myself of than it should have).