I probably deserved to come a cropper as I wasn’t entirely on the wavelength for this one anyway, needing to post-parse a number of the clues. My favourites were the &lit type clues, the dossier about the horse, and on sheer Lit Hum principle, 26dn. Been a very long time since I last opened a dusty Loeb of Livy…
How’d you all find it? You can answer that in or out of your underwear.
ACROSS
1 Such lies even Hitler couldn’t tell (9)
BAREFACED – I assume that this is because Hitler is well-known for always sporting a toothbrush mustache?
6 Sum up days lost by policeman (5)
RECAP – RE{d}CAP is the policeman who loses his D for days
9 Artless young woman is remarkably genuine (7)
INGENUE – (GENUINE*), FOI
10 Receiving bonus regularly, book one holiday camp (7)
BIVOUAC – B I VAC [book | one | holiday], “receiving” {b}O{n}U{s}
11 Come together on returning (3)
GEL – reversed LEG [on]
12 Idiomatic expression initially spelled out differently, in other words (4,2,2,3)
THAT IS TO SAY – I think this works as follows: take the initially letters of I{diomatic} E{xpression}, and spell them out differently as i.e.: now you have an expression meaning “that is to say”. Seems a little bit laborious though; any advances on that?
14 On protective coat receive mark (6)
TARGET – on TAR [protective coat], GET [receive]
15 Needless to say “astray” when a female’s lost (2,6)
OF COURSE – OF{f} COURSE [astray] losing an F for female
17 Find out about unusual sort of radiation (8)
INFRARED – (FIND*) about RARE
19 Explosion across dry valley (6)
BOTTOM – BOOM “across” TT
22 In early morning, Disney cooked some breakfast so? (5-4,2)
SUNNY-SIDE UP – in SUN-UP, (DISNEY*) [“cooked”]
23 Backing conflict in government (3)
RAJ – reversed JAR [conflict, stressed on the second syllable]
25 Lively music institute recalled in fury (7)
RAGTIME – MIT [(Massachusetts) institute] reversed in RAGE
27 One spring flower missing in eastern country (7)
ICELAND – I CELAND{ine} [one | spring flower, minus IN E]. Hope nobody biffs in Ireland!
28 Having insipid character, like a neglected garden (5)
WEEDY – double def
29 Came across party-goers in tweeds in odd places (9)
TRAVERSED – RAVERS in T{w}E{e}D{s}
DOWN
1 Ask about fashionable creature (5)
BEING – BEG [ask] “about” IN [fashionable]
2 Soldier in regiment with pistol raised (7)
REGULAR – reverse all of RA LUGER [regiment | pistol]
3 Determine fortnightly magazine is a swindle (4,3,4)
FIND THE LADY – FIND [determine] + THE LADY [fortnightly mag]
4 Old ruler a usurper, it is whispered (6)
CAESAR – homophone of SEIZER [usurper]
5 Extracts information by removing underwear? (8)
DEBRIEFS – cryptic definition by way of humorous misunderstanding
6 One ultimately knowledgeable in scripture? (3)
REV – RV [Revised Version = scripture], containing {knowledgeabl}E, &lit
7 Boxer’s pleasure boat (7)
CRUISER – cruiserweight aka junior heavyweight is a weight class in boxing; this clue made not much sense to me until I looked that up! But I expect it’s kosher.
8 One from unknown herd rampaging through wrecked camp? (9)
PACHYDERM – (Y HERD*) [“rampaging”] through (CAMP*) [“wrecked”], semi-&lit.
13 Hopes report when edited is something covering the whole world in some depth (11)
TROPOSPHERE – (HOPES REPORT*) [“edited”]. The troposphere is the lowest layer of the Earth’s atmosphere, average height about 13km up.
14 Close relatives man such a ship (4-5)
TWIN-SCREW – TWINS CREW [(the closest of) close relatives | man]
16 Writer on purpose omitting name — sorry! (8)
PENITENT – PEN [writer] on I{n}TENT [purpose, minus N for name]
18 Illegally obtain dossier about horse (7)
FINAGLE – FILE “about” NAG
20 Around hospital looks after dangerous people (7)
THREATS – around H, TREATS [looks after (lavishly)]
21 Flight concealed by the giraffes (6)
HEGIRA – hidden in {t}HE GIRA{ffes}. This is assassination-evading flight of Muhammad and Abu Bakr from Mecca to Yathrib in 622 CE. Can be spelt in a number of different ways too.
24 Tired of ornamental stone, given diamonds (5)
JADED – JADE [ornamental stone] + D for diamonds
26 Historian left out possible poisoner (3)
IVY – {l}IVY is the great Roman historian who wrote Ab Urbe Condita. Where I now live the danger is usually poison oak, not poison ivy, but the pain is still the same!
Edited at 2020-01-10 01:31 am (UTC)
DNK either “The Lady” as a magazine or “Find the Lady” as a swindle, so put this in as the most likely.
Thanks for the early blog and to the setter.
No time, as I was watching golf on TV while doing the puzzle, but about 60 minutes elapsed.
My old Latin teacher would never have allowed 4 down – he wrote his Harvard PhD thesis on Latin pronunciation, and taught us all to speak with a correct 1st-century BC pronunciation.
I do agree with Starstruck that ‘find the lady’ is likely to be difficult for overseas solvers, but it was actually the twins that gave me the most difficulty.
More seriously there are ways of working out so some degree of accuracy how dead languages were actually pronounced.
Edited at 2020-01-10 10:03 am (UTC)
Not sure how true it is, but it’s interesting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_enn7NIo-S0
Edited at 2020-01-10 11:32 am (UTC)
At 1ac it was rumoured that Hitler had a wart on his top lip (Fletcher) which is why he grew his idiosyncratic ‘tash. But it maybe a barefaced lie.
FOI 7dn CRUISER
LOI 6acv RECAP: REDCAP a Military Policemen no less
COD 21dn HEGIRA!
WOD 22ac SUNNY-SIDE UP
Edited at 2020-01-10 11:56 am (UTC)
You should visit watch unsuspecting American tourists getting fleeced! It also has a far ruder name, but we’ll not go there! Oh! and ‘The Lady’ is to be found on Bedford Street/Maiden Lane, next door to the legendary Vera Trinder.
Cruiserweight is well kosher! David ‘The Haymaker’ Haye was another legend.
A cruiser is a light, one cabin pleasure boat or yacht as well as a speedy naval vessel.
Edited at 2020-01-10 07:43 am (UTC)
And a long delay before BIVOUAC finally came to mind, wondering if I’d gone wrong somewhere else. It really is an odd-looking word. I’d always assumed its origin was French but apparently it’s Swiss German — bīwacht auxiliary patrol, equivalent to bī- by- + wacht patrol, watch
Always ‘appy when I gets me some edukation. Thanks, setter and errant V
Bristol’s replica of John Cabot’s Matthew is currently up on the patent slip in Underfall Yard, just around the corner, and anyone wandering through there at the moment is treated to the incongruous sight of the TWIN SCREWs of a 15th-century caravel while she’s out of the water. I’m told the crew who recreated her trip to Newfoundland would have been happy to forego the engine, but modern safety regulations intervened.
Couldn’t parse Thatistosay, so thanks for explaining. I never spot those ‘find the letters then dis-abbreviate’ clues.
Mostly I liked Finagle.
Thanks setter and V.
I interpreted 12ac slightly differently: if you take the first letters of ‘idiomatic expression’ you get i.e., so there’s no need to ‘spell them out differently to get… i.e. So I thought ‘spelled out differently’ was an instruction to convert i.e. to the answer. Not that it makes a blind bit of difference of course!
Thanks v.
I’ve most recently seen the three card monte scene in White Collar, and several times. I suppose it’s de rigueur in a New York show about a con man (hey, I’ve got to watch something while I’m on the exercise bike!)
Re CAESAR, pronounced as in the German emperor Bill as far as I knew, it only occurred to me in later life that RP Latin would be spoken in what we now call an Italian accent.
18 and a bit, thanks verlaine and setter.
Getting tapped on the shoulder by the Head Porter to recite the dinner Grace in Latin was always an ordeal, however you did it you’d be told afterwards it was wrong, too fast, too slow, not the correct pronunciation … Nos miseri homines et egeni …. … I think 50 odd years on I am still word perfect. But is it mIseri or misEri?
FOI RECAP
LOI CAESAR
COD BIVOUAC
TIME 16:01
I didn’t manage to parse RECAP or THAT IS TO SAY (a poor clue, in my view), and I didn’t know TWIN-SCREW, FIND THE LADY or HEGIRA. I’d heard of The Lady during Rachel Johnson’s traumatic editorship, but (like Tim) I’d thought Private Eye was the only fortnightly magazine.
“We’re a cracker jack brigade
On a pachyderm parade
But we’d rather stroll to a waterhole
Hup two three four
For a furlough in the shade”
Thanks setter and Verlaine (particularly for parsing 12ac)
Interesting to see that the missing N from ANNENCY (sic) earlier in the week showed up today in CELADINE (sic).
I got a bit of a shock trying to parse 12 when I scribbled down what THAT IS TO SAY comes out as when “initially spelled out”.
COD to FINAGLE mainly for the word itself.
I never did parse it, but a couple more checkers made it clear what was needed, so thanks Verlaine for explanation, and also 12ac.
Knew of the magazine in 3dn, though not how often it appeared – coincidentally I’m just about to tackle the Eye’s fortnightly Cyclops.
COD: INFRARED.
Edited at 2020-01-10 04:52 pm (UTC)
Many thanks for the blog, which made much more sense than most of my half baked post biff rationalisations!
Templar
Kind regards.
John W.
We get the crossword from The Australian, complete with its different numbering system!, and gradually work our way through randomly picked from the pile of older editions with much shared delight as we battle jointly through the various wordplays, etc. We’re in awe of those who finish in single figure minutes. And we enjoy getting to recognise the different contributors with their various icons. You all bring us much joy in this corner of the globe, despite the current COVID miseries. It’s also been a pleasure finding this coterie of cruciverbal colloquials (in a new sense of the word!)