Another Wednesday, another pleasant enough puzzle which I didn’t find to be a stiff test. My one unknown GK at 24a was clear from the wordplay. It took me 20 minutes, with nothing hard to explain except the singular / plural clash at 20a. I liked the construction of 11d and 12a reminded me of those happy years when we had a half share in a horse and went racing. (Actually, only one year, then Romantic Folly sadly died in foal). If you want to burn through money, buy an airline or a racehorse. Or these days, go into earth orbit, I suppose.
Across | |
1 | Minister full of energy facing a church is most inclined to sermonise (10) |
PREACHIEST – PRIEST has E, A, CH inserted. Superlative of preachy. | |
6 | Love of the French works of poetry (4) |
ODES – O (love) DES (of the, plural, in French). | |
9 | Fruit to worry about, having to be packed into vehicle (10) |
LOGANBERRY – LORRY a vehicle, has NAG (worry) reversed and BE inserted. | |
10 | Test for a learner is more than is needed here (4) |
ORAL – hidden as above. | |
12 | Like midnight store keeping quiet, providing a pre-purchase event (7,5) |
SELLING PLATE – A midnight store would be SELLING LATE if it were open; insert a P for quiet. A selling plate is a horse race where the winner has to be auctioned afterwards, so I suppose it’s the event before someone purchases the horse, so “pre-purchase”. | |
15 | A new hint regarding what could whet the appetite (9) |
ANTIPASTO – A N (new) TIP (hint ) AS TO (regarding). | |
17 | Order change — change initially involved (5) |
EDICT – EDIT (change) has C(hange) inserted. | |
18 | Banker gets cab finally entering rank (5) |
TIBER – B (end of cab) enters TIER = rank. | |
19 | Rocky lump is boundary by which there is old ceremony (9) |
METEORITE – METE (boundary) O, RITE (ceremony). Collins says METE is a rare word for boundary, often found in the phrase “metes and bounds”. | |
20 | What kind people possesses — Nora and Maud certainly do (1,5,2,4) |
A HEART OF GOLD – Well, Nora has OR at the heart, and Maud has AU, both meaning gold. I don’t quite see why it is “kind people” – better would be “a kind person”, singular. As it says “kind people (plural) it would have to be “possess” and “hearts of gold” which wouldn’t fit. Just saying. | |
24 | A garment — absence of it exposes old king (4) |
AHAB – A HABIT loses its IT. Apparently Ahab was the seventh king of Israel, I only knew him as the chap in Moby Dick. | |
25 | Travel round earth at first — rational in terms of earth science? (10) |
GEOLOGICAL – GO around E, then LOGICAL = rational. | |
26 | Pegs in river (4) |
TEES – double definition, pegs as in golf tees. | |
27 | One never out to give message in pandemic (4-2-4) |
STAY-AT-HOME – double definition, one a covid 19 advisory. |
Down | |
1 | Weary? Get a blanket (4) |
PALL – double definition; as a verb, meaning to become tiresome, as a noun, meaning a blanket e.g. of smoke. | |
2 | Encourages people to be regarded as good or bad? (4) |
EGGS – If you EGG someone on, you encourage them; one can be a “good egg” or a “bad egg” as a person. | |
3 | Today’s fugitive, prisoner earlier (12) |
CONTEMPORARY – CON = prisoner, TEMPORARY = fugitive, fleeting. | |
4 | Model from India wanting contract (5) |
IDEAL – I for India, DEAL = contract. | |
5 | Like an addict that’s called to get dark beer brought round (6,3) |
STRUNG OUT – RUNG (called) inside STOUT (dark beer). | |
7 | Skin problem that could be almost dire at times (10) |
DERMATITIS – (DIR(E) AT TIMES)*. | |
8 | Pride of mischief-maker in home counties joining revolutionary encounters (4-6) |
SELF-ESTEEM – ELF (mischief-maker) inserted into SE (home counties), STEEM (MEETS reversed). | |
11 | Traveller’s instrument on journey shows highest possible mph (5,2,5) |
SPEED OF LIGHT – SPEEDO (traveller’s instrument) FLIGHT (journey). Very nice. | |
13 | Officer reportedly given powerless role in contact sport (7,3) |
MARTIAL ART – MARTIAL sounds like Marshal, an officer; PART (role) loses its P for power. | |
14 | Well-balanced wife maybe — or a nag? (10) |
STABLEMATE – Maybe a stable mate could be a well-balanced wife. Nag as in horse. | |
16 | Thus maiden has no time for self-examination, being half-asleep? (9) |
SOMNOLENT – SO (thus) M (maiden) NO, LENT (time for self-examination). | |
21 | Seabird unknown in Channel? (5) |
GULLY – GULL, Y (unknown variable). | |
22 | City house for nymph (4) |
ECHO – EC (City of London postcodes) HO (house). | |
23 | Gel’s used regularly as binding material (4) |
GLUE – Alternate letters of G e L s U s E d. |
We’ve had Selling Plate recently, so perhaps you forgot it as a completely useless piece of GK unless you do crosswords or raise fast horses.
Andyf
As for 20a, the ‘possesses’ (rather than “possess”) went past me at the time, but I think it would work if ‘people’ was meant in the singular (ie “race” or “nation”) rather than the plural.
Thanks to setter and Pip
So if the short answers don’t come to you, then you might be stuck on a alphabet trawl for a while – never happens to the top solvers, of course.
PALL in the sense of ‘blanket of smoke’ did not occur to me until long after I’d written it in with fingers crossed.
LOGANBERRY was my FOI as my grandparents had one such bush in their garden growing over their air-raid shelter, so two things with great attraction for a post-war child when the berries were ripe for picking. There’s nothing wrong with ‘be = BE’ as it’s very common in wordplay to have one- or two-letter words being used literally in the answer. It happens with ‘a’ all the time.
And can give folks a terrible fright
It comes from outer space
At astonishing pace
And we call it a METEORITE
He lay in a Somnolent posture,
With the side of his face ‘gainst the bars
20 mins left the king A-A- which I trawled for a bit but gave up.
Some pretty clunky stuff today: Pall, Loganberry, posses(es).
Thanks setter and Pip.
Edited at 2021-08-04 07:09 am (UTC)
The bit I love is when they decide to walk across and Albert disappears under the waters of the Mersey but Mother says “I’ve got ‘old of ‘is hand ‘e’s alright!”
One of these is a grizzled old rescue cat called Wallace, that I’m looking after for a couple of weeks. He just came back from the vet after having some stitches removed from his nose…
Apologies for the digression, I just had to comment on the coincidence!
Anyway, very pleased to report my 3rd or 4th best time ever, 32:42 – last week’s sequence of DNFs now banished to the darkest recesses of my memory
Best wishes, Denise
No dramas.
I agree with you, Pip, about 20ac but that was one of my two CODs, the other being SELLING PLATE.
Who knows what c is in m.p.h. without calculating? I know it as 186 000 miles per second, or 3 x 10^8 metres per second. (Or twelve million miles a minute according to Eric Idle).
15′ 04″, thanks pip and setter.
Andyf
The speed of light is c divided by the refractive index of whatever it’s travelling in. So c in a vacuum, almost c in air, for fibre optics it depends on the glass but 2/3 c (RI = 1.5) is about right.
In multimode fibres – old, slow, fat ones about 50 um (thickness of a human hair) – you can consider the light in classical terms, bouncing off the inside of the fibre. In faster single-mode fibres, about ten times thinner, you have to use quantum physics to model the light transmission. Wavelength of light is close-ish to the thickness of the fibre.
And I’m getting bored with antipasto at every meal. Surely time for a different starter?
The British Crown had officially taken over the governing of British India from the East India Company in 1858, in the aftermath of what the British called ‘the Indian Mutiny’. Henceforth, the new British Raj was ruled directly from Whitehall via the India Office. Following the Delhi Durbar in 1877, Queen Victoria was given Imperial status by the British Government, and she assumed the title Empress of India. She was thus the Queen-Empress, and her successors, until George VI, were known as King-Emperors. This title was the shortened form of the full title, and in widespread popular use.
The reigning King-Emperors or Queen-Empress used the initials R I (Rex Imperator or Regina Imperatrix) or the abbreviation Ind. Imp. (Indiae Imperator/Imperatrix) after their name (while the one reigning Queen-Empress, Victoria, used the initials R I, the three consorts of the married King-Emperors simply used R).
Andyf
Like others, AHAB posed the most difficulty and was my LOI in 6m 30s.
SELLING PLATE was my last in, but oddly I remembered the thing before confirming it with the wordplay.
I was worried about PALL, thinking there might be an alternative; PALE perhaps with an oblique version of tire and a meaning of blanket I would ruefully acknowledge if it existed.
A singular people is perfectly possible, whether such a thing possesses a heart collectively is something else, but I shrugged and moved on.
STABLEMATE was fun, with its deceptive (and possibly slanderous) nag.
Edited at 2021-08-04 10:30 am (UTC)
1) (slang) Experiencing withdrawal symptoms of an addiction.
While he was strung out, he ranted about conspiracies that he couldn’t remember when he sobered.
2) Widely spaced.
After the storm the armada was strung out over the ocean, unable to cover each other in battle.
3) Prolonged in an unnecessary or time-filling manner.
Then I had to sit through a long strung-out discussion about nothing in particular.
Andyf
Thanks to blogger and setter.
Nothing too ungettable.
Unlike others not so keen on speed of light – good spot by the setter, but speed/speedo lacking that certain cryptic separateness. Liked stablemate best.
COD A HEART OF GOLD
COD A HEART OF GOLD is a nice reminder to give HARVEST a spin.
Thanks to Pip and the setter.
Edited at 2021-08-04 03:08 pm (UTC)
I enjoyed this crossword with plenty of interesting and well crafted clues, apart from the MER at 20 ac which others have already raised
5 ac “strung out” reminded me of the lyrics “Don’t seem right, I’ve been strung out here all night” from the poignant song “Dr Wu” by my all time favourite band Steely Dan.
Interesting that I shared a LOI with several others, 24 ac “Ahab”. I assumed that Moby Dick’s nemesis was named after an OT king and the wordplay sealed it.
COD 14 ac “Stablemate” , a rather fascinating surface I thought.
Thanks to Pip for the blog and to the setter for an entertaining puzzle.
Liked a lot of of this (HEART OF GOLD and SPEED OF LIGHT) but not so keen on my last two
Thanks Pip and setter
Thanks Pip.
Enjoyed it so thanks setter and blogger for the commentary. Time for 😴