Time: 14 minutes
Music: Nutcracker Suite, Reiner/CSO.
We have here another easy Monday for experienced solvers. My time was certainly fast enough, and I’m sure the speedsters will be off to the races. I do not see many chestnuts, but the basic techniques are certainly familiar.
I must confess to never having read the Dickens novel. My Austin-Dickens seminar at Yale grad school skipped The Pickwick Papers, Nicolas Nickleby, and Barnaby Rudge. Don’t worry, we still had a lot of reading! My term paper was on Little Dorrit.
| Across | |
| 1 | Old court bible, originally only this size? (6) |
| OCTAVO – O + CT + AV + O[nly]. | |
| 5 | Dickensian simpleton involved in tedious donkey-work (8) |
| DRUDGERY – D(RUDGE)RY, from Barnaby Rudge. | |
| 9 | Skilled workman arranging courses in building? (10) |
| BRICKLAYER – A cryptic definition, referring to courses of bricks. | |
| 10 | Pout when ship runs out of creamy dessert (4) |
| MOUE – MOU[ss]E. | |
| 11 | Robbers identified in simple song picked up at bar (8) |
| BANDITTI – BAN + sounds like DITTY. | |
| 12 | Quiet chap serving alcoholic drink (6) |
| SHANDY – SH + ANDY, today’s random man. | |
| 13 | Fashionable greeting used among Conservatives (4) |
| CHIC – C (HI) C. | |
| 15 | Generous with son in domestic situation (8) |
| HANDSOME – H(AND S)OME. | |
| 18 | Take part in game with extremely eager theatre attender (8) |
| PLAYGOER – PLAY GO + E[age]R. | |
| 19 | Woman securing Labrador’s first bone (4) |
| ULNA – U(L[abrador])NA, today’s random woman. | |
| 21 | Make fun of butt during first half of meal (4,2) |
| SEND UP – S(END)UP[per]. | |
| 23 | Supporter church allowed wrist ornament (8) |
| BRACELET – BRA + C.E. + LET. | |
| 25 | Smell of game? Not half! (4) |
| PONG – [ping]-PONG. | |
| 26 | Initially such indolence brought about European corruption (10) |
| SLEAZINESS – S[uch] + L(E)AZINESS. | |
| 27 | Support Liberal party at last: not to begin with (8) |
| SECONDLY – SECOND L +[part]Y. | |
| 28 | Comfortable about first of these luxuries being expensive (6) |
| COSTLY – COS(T[hese]L[uxuries]Y. | |
| Down | |
| 2 | First-class police force once set up court in Rome (5) |
| CURIA – A.1. R.U.C. upside down – our old friends the Royal Ulster Constabulary. | |
| 3 | Day church converted Austrian prince’s estate (9) |
| ARCHDUCHY – Anagram of DAY CHURCH. | |
| 4 | Old boy, recent monastic dedicatee (6) |
| OBLATE – O.B. + LATE. | |
| 5 | Overt criminality that leaves us in the dark? (8,7) |
| DAYLIGHT ROBBERY – Cryptic hint, if the daylight is what is stolen. | |
| 6 | Leader of union forcing rebellion (8) |
| UPRISING – U[nion] PRISING. | |
| 7 | Old instrument found by a medic in Georgia (5) |
| GAMBA – G(A M.B.)A, the viola da gamba. | |
| 8 | He delivers drinks possibly, meeting crew (9) |
| ROUNDSMAN – ROUNDS + MAN, as a verb. | |
| 14 | Plant from east — a chap will be tedious about that (9) |
| HELLEBORE – HE’LL (E) BORE. | |
| 16 | Wine transforming nurse’s tea (9) |
| SAUTERNES – Anagram of NURSE’S TEA. | |
| 17 | Level-headed business manager initially worked as model (8) |
| COMPOSED – CO + M[anager] POSED. | |
| 20 | French writer left variable account supporting airline (6) |
| BALZAC – B.A. + L + Z + A/C – British Airlines. | |
| 22 | How some may lie over goods held by party! (5) |
| DOGGO – D(O, G,G)O. | |
| 24 | Sly person loses head, finding support (5) |
| EASEL – [w]EASEL, a chestnut. | |
All correct after I changed my original guess of gamoa to GAMBA when I thought that sounded marginally more likely so phew! BANDITTI and MOUE also unknown but seemed likely. Not as easy as the snitch suggests as far as I’m concerned. Thanks setter and blogger.
Nice and easy today. I don’t time myself but certainly less than 20min. Don’t understand why pong is not the other half of ping.
Went through this without much head scratching. I did it in two sittings , divided by a gym Boot Camp .
I love this daily mental workout so much so , that if I finish without chewing gristle, I feel cheated, after all, there would be nothing to look at with a mid morning espresso.
Apart from thinking about EMBEZZLING before the crossers came in for 26a , everything else was straight forward. There’s always a frisson when a rare letter appears…..
Hellebores are great value, they are hardy, flower for months , but are very promiscuous, so it’s impossible to get them to breed true.
Thank you to setter for an ego stroke and as always to blogger and contributors.
Completed in 15.27, which is four and a half minutes less than it took me to do the QC.
No real problems, other than the spelling of BANDITTI.
Mousse does not have to contain cream. My favourite recipe for chocolate mousse uses just eggs and dark chocolate. Delicious, but not creamy.
Creamy in texture, though??
Very quick (for me) 20 minutes or so – but I reverted to aids for 7dn not knowing if it was Gamoa, Gamba or Gamda.
Don’t worry Andy, I can claim a positively sluggish 36:36, plus a made-up instrument of GAMDA. Anyway, I still enjoyed it & learned a few new words along the way. Thanks setter & vinyl.
Under 25 minutes, so very easy indeed, despite a very slow start (CHIC my FOI) and lots of unknowns: RUDGE and the ROUNDSMAN (I too thought of drinks in a pub), DOGGO and HELLEBORE. But the wordplay and eventual crossing letters were very helpful and the puzzle, despite it’s being easy, was also a lot of fun. COD to PONG.
Pretty straightforward. Liked daylight robbery as it reminded me of a St Austell brewery beer so called when produced especially for the eclipse in 1999. Proved so popular they kept it and renamed it Tribute Ale!
Austin car or Austen Jane with Dickens?
Well – I am not too unhappy with my time of around 30 minutes, as I stopped to parse everything correctly after biffing , which i don’t always do. Unlike most, first in was MOUE ( which was a gimme for me), and although DRUDGERY was obviously the answer to 5a, I had the wrong Dickens character in mind! Thinking of Joe Gargery , since I have not read Barnaby Rudge , and spent an age trying to work out the ‘drud’ bit…forgot all about the RUC (even though it’s in my very lengthy word list), so didn’t have a starting letter for 2d, and so on. But enjoyed, especially DAYLIGHT ROBBERY and HANDSOME.
I, too, liked daylight robbery. Banditti last in, a NHO,but parsable so entered WFG (with fingers crossed).