This wasn’t the hardest crossword I’ve blogged in the last five years, but it’s close to being the most fun to do; in 24 minutes I had it finished and was parsing a final couple while admiring the setter’s wit and ingenuity.
Not being an Old Harrovian, 12a was a guess from being something to do with gypsies, so I checked afterwards, while my being a French resident (soon to be no longer) helped with 13a and 22d as they’re everyday words here. There’s much to admire, but if I have to pick a favourite, it’s 23a for such a smooth, concise surface to give a relevant answer.
Not being an Old Harrovian, 12a was a guess from being something to do with gypsies, so I checked afterwards, while my being a French resident (soon to be no longer) helped with 13a and 22d as they’re everyday words here. There’s much to admire, but if I have to pick a favourite, it’s 23a for such a smooth, concise surface to give a relevant answer.
| Across | |
| 1 | Critic opinion of the unenlightened? (1,3,4) |
| A DIM VIEW – Cryptic definition | |
| 6 | Tricky things to play in piano classes (6) |
| PRANKS – P(iano), RANKS = classes. | |
| 9 | Fellow evidently about to drop off vital pump (7,6) |
| NODDING DONKEY – DON = fellow, KEY = vital; before that NODDING = evidently about to drop off (asleep). | |
| 10 | New Zealand port, one bringing in logs (6) |
| NAPIER – Double definition; City in North Island, New Zealand, and John Napier, Scottish peer who ‘invented’ logarithms. | |
| 11 | Misleading info put forward by a scoundrel (8) |
| AGITPROP – a PROP is a rugby forward, placed after A GIT = a scoundrel. I have two pedantic comments to add here; IMO a GIT is an annoying, silly, or unpleasant person, not necessarily as reprehensible as a scoundrel; and AGITPROP as it was in Russia was not intended to be ‘misleading’, it was a form of politically correct message conveyed in the media in the USSR and now means any form of political propaganda conveyed in art. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agitprop | |
| 13 | Pants shed, liable to be in this state? (10) |
| DESHABILLE – (SHED LIABLE) French for undressed, or in a scanty garment. | |
| 15 | Sandy area close to pool one loved previously? (4) |
| ALEX – A penny-drop moment clue. A(rea), (poo)L, EX = one loved previously. ALEX and SANDY are both short names for someone called ALEXANDER. | |
| 16 | Led by boss, regularly put out flags (4) |
| EBBS – Alternate letters of l E d B y B o S s. Flags, as in ‘my energy ebbs towards the end of a slow round of golf.’ We hate slow play. | |
| 18 | Run round in Ireland collecting fresh stock (10) |
| REPERTOIRE – R(un), EIRE poetic name for Ireland, insert PERT meaning fresh and O for round. R E (PERT O) IRE. | |
| 21 | To an extent, satirizing aristocratic amateur cricket club (1,7) |
| I ZINGARI – Hidden word in SATIR (IZING ARI)STOCRATIC. Left with *Z*N*A*I I dimly remembered Zingari was Italian for gypsies and therefore guessed the first letter was I and then saw the hidden answer. If you’re not a posh Brit the cricket connection won’t mean a lot, you’d have to go here and read it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Zingari | |
| 22 | Macmillan’s preference George, with wonderment, heard (3,3) |
| JAW JAW – … is better than war, war. J sounds here like a soft G for George, and AW sounds like AWE = wonderment. This quote by Harold MacMillan (made on a visit to Australia) is often wrongly attributed to Churchill, e.g. in Finest Hour. His actual remark in Washington in 1954 was “Meeting jaw to jaw is better than war.” https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/quotes-falsely-attributed/ | |
| 23 | One ITV acquire to play a typical local? (5,8) |
| QUEEN VICTORIA – (ONE TV ACQUIRE TO)*. The Queen Vic is the local pub in East Enders a long-running (and, these days, quite unpleasant to watch IMO) soap opera on British ITV. | |
| 25 | Come round on time before Easter (6) |
| RELENT – RE = on, LENT = time before Easter. | |
| 26 | Guy’s initial dread, meeting leading female criminal (8) |
| GANGSTER – G (Guy’s initial), ANGST (dread), ER = H.M., the leading female. | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Comic hero’s endless night in Hamlet? (3,4) |
| DAN DARE – DAR(K) inside DANE. | |
| 3 | Fabulous sight, mind: a French star at twelve! (8,3) |
| MIDNIGHT SUN – (SIGHT MIND)* gives you MIDNIGHT S then UN = French for a. | |
| 4 | Dearer pair relinquished? More reserved (5) |
| ICIER – PRICIER loses PR. | |
| 5 | Other half of footballer’s story recounted in flyer (7) |
| WAGTAIL – WAG (one of wives and girlfriends e.g. of footballers) TAIL sounds like TALE. | |
| 6 | Paid and trained: at any time killings his speciality? (9) |
| PROFITEER – PRO = paid, not amateur; FIT = trained, E’ER = ever, at any time. | |
| 7 | Get a load of that missing heroin in old vessel (3) |
| ARK – HARK loses its H in an East End version, ‘get a load of that’ being common parlance for listen and/or look at something exceptional. | |
| 8 | Central theme in books grasped by reformist, mostly (7) |
| KEYNOTE – KEYNE(S) grasps the OT. | |
| 12 | Instruction from ref: angry speech that can be ambiguous (4,2,5) |
| PLAY ON WORDS – The ref may say “PLAY ON” and to ‘have words’ can mean to exchange angry speech. | |
| 14 | Stop publication on the web, attracting stick? (3,6) |
| BAR MAGNET – BAR (stop), MAG (publication), NET (web). | |
| 17 | One buzzing around organised quiz game (7) |
| BEZIQUE – BEE goes around (QUIZ)*. A card game for two people, which I did play in my youth (I played them all, on caravan holidays in the rain) and which was also popular with Winston Churchill, apparently. | |
| 19 | Briefing is formal, stylish and grand (7) |
| PRIMING – PRIM (formal), IN (stylish), G(rand). | |
| 20 | ME airline, a casualty of America, turning bitter? (4,3) |
| REAL ALE – EL AL a Middle East airline, A, ER = American equivalent of Accident & Emergency ward. Reverse it all. | |
| 22 | Counter from judge upset me, for one (5) |
| JETON – J(UDGE), NOTE reversed; ME or MI is a note. En France, a (free) jeton is needed to unhook your supermarket chariot from the rack. In UK I think it’s a pound coin. I’ve never heard the word used in England. | |
| 24 | Old prior to look for an audience (3) |
| ERE – ERE as in an old word for ‘before’. Sounds like AIR = broadcast. Or, as jackkt suggests below, ere sounds like air = look. | |
Did this one much later than publication … but it also hung around in the WIP pile for about 6 weeks with the JETON / JAW-JAW pair holding out and a determination that they wouldn’t beat me. Finally, the word play for NOTE + J all reversed emerged and was confirmed by a dictionary look u, followed by an alphabet trawl googled with Macmillan to find his reference to the Churchillian quote. A technical DNF, but no less satisfying for it !!
There were many other difficult clues along the way that added up to about a 3 hour solve time across those elapsed days, with a number of new terms – NODDING DONKEY, I ZINGARI and those final two.
Being a maths graduate living in the antipodes, meant that NAPIER was one that didn’t present any difficulties !
A long time to get to, a long time to do … but an extremely enjoyable experience to do it.