35:02
Easy to start and rather harder to finish, I found, with the 1s almost straight in but 5 or 6 scattered clues holding out at the end (LOI 9dn). I continue to wait with bated breath for my next proper Friday test.
After blogging I think this is quite a classy puzzle, much simpler than yesterday but not facile. I saw LOCKS before DrEAD, EID before ORGAN, and TELE before CASTER, and left feeling satisfied that I had won the duel against a worthy and generous opponent – thanks to the setter.
Definitions underlined.
| Across | |
| 1 | Picked up Asian needing sunshine in Asian island (6) |
| TAIWAN – sounds like “Thai” (Asian), then WAN (needing sunshine). | |
| 4 | Spooner’s relative speculates in toxic assets (3,5) |
| BAD DEBTS – Spoonerisation of “Dad Bets”. | |
| 10 | Some stock pine things, periodically stocking gold (9) |
| LONGHORNS – LONG (pine) + tHiNgS containing OR (gold). | |
| 11 | Magazine business means to make sound projection (5) |
| COMIC – CO (company, business) + MIC (means to make sound projection). | |
| 12 | Perhaps one clergyman with less sensitivity (8,6) |
| CARDINAL NUMBER – CARDINAL (clergyman) + NUMBER (less sensitivity). | |
| 14 | One of a couple particular about eating meat or fish (5) |
| SPRAT – double definition. | |
| 16 | Ties braids of hair Romeo’s cut (9) |
| DEADLOCKS – DrEADLOCKS (braids of hair) minus the ‘r’ (Romeo). | |
| 18 | Old exercise and food regime inspiring new, practical method (9) |
| EXPEDIENT – EX (old) + PE (exercise) + DIET (food regime) containing N (new). | |
| 20 | E.g. caviar dressing queens sent back? One may get cross (5) |
| ERROR – ROE (e.g. caviar) containing 2 x R (queens), all reversed. | |
| 21 | Revered figure, say, among trees with staff (5,9) |
| ELDER STATESMAN – STATE (say) contained by ELDERS (trees) + MAN (staff). | |
| 25 | Kind of poppy composition starts off in upbeat medley (5) |
| OPIUM – OP (opus, composition) + first letters from In Upbeat Medley. | |
| 26 | Take off and fly — go off on sortie originally (9) |
| SKEDADDLE – KED (fly) + ADDLE (go off), after first of Sortie. | |
| 27 | Fruit given to wee model of diminutive stature (8) |
| FIGURINE – FIG (fruit) + URINE (wee). | |
| 28 | Idiot guards empty space, which people are in until they come out? (6) |
| CLOSET – CLOT (idiot) containing the outermost letters from SpacE. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Person trying to package fancy lace, one responsible for what’s on the box (10) |
| TELECASTER – TESTER (person trying) containing an anagram of LACE. | |
| 2 | Private place to drink Erdinger on vacation (5) |
| INNER – INN (place to drink) + outermost letters from ErdingeR. | |
| 3 | One might shun temples where robbers are? (7) |
| ATHEIST – robbers might be AT HEIST. | |
| 5 | Losing head, churchman gives offence (5) |
| ARSON – pARSON (churchman) minus his first letter. | |
| 6 | Democrat with awful malice makes a kind of point (7) |
| DECIMAL – D (democrat) + anagram of MALICE. | |
| 7 | Very great king accepting a fair option? (6,3) |
| BUMPER CAR – BUMPER (very great) + CR (king) containing A. | |
| 8 | Belt in this fashion designer’s label (4) |
| SOCK – SO (in this fashion) + CK (Calvin Klein, designer’s label). | |
| 9 | Material in publication on Muslim festival coming up (8) |
| ORGANDIE – ORGAN (publication) + EID (Muslim festival) reversed. | |
| 13 | Bitter drunk neat, tucked into by saint with halo, say (10) |
| ASTRINGENT – anagram of NEAT, containing ST (saint) and RING (halo, say). | |
| 15 | Disgusting case of revenge beating (9) |
| REPULSING – outermost letters from RevengE + PULSING (beating). | |
| 17 | Might one take a group of workers for lunch? (8) |
| ANTEATER – cryptic definition. | |
| 19 | Utopian article in Bild covering lots of paper (7) |
| DREAMER – DER (German ‘the’, article in Bild) containing REAM (lots of paper). | |
| 20 | Look over confession of someone crying aloud (7) |
| EYEBALL – sounds like “I bawl” (confession of someone crying). | |
| 22 | Sometimes lazy female star without appeal (5) |
| SUSAN – SUN (star) containing SA (sex appeal, appeal). | |
| 23 | Servants bringing down article for legendary alchemist (5) |
| MIDAS – MAIDS (servants) with the A (article) moving further down. | |
| 24 | What’s uttered by setter in court loudly (4) |
| WOOF – WOO (court) + F (loudly). | |
I also put repulsive, meaning to check if it should be repulsing, and then forgot about it – that certain prolonged my solve. I also nearly put declaim as a blind anagram solution without considering the literal. In the end, I was left with the elder statesman clue, which I was convinced involved elm and acer. Elmer Spacerman? Then I suddenly saw the answer, and finished.
Time: 26 minutes
I was far better on this than I was on the QC, finishing in 32.15. Unfortunately it must count as a DNF as I failed to get 17dn ANTEATER. My answer for this was ACTUATEE which unsurprisingly turns out to be a non-word. I persuaded myself that it did just about work in terms of parsing … but no! Enjoyable puzzle nonetheless.
Totally in agreement with William’s assessment. I was flying for 3 minutes, and then the wheels didn’t quite come off, but became decidedly unstable. Still easy in comparison to the last couple of days though.
FOI TAIWAN
LOI FIGURINE
COD SKEDADDLE
TIME 9:46
ORGANDIE was one of the contributions from Countdown’s Dictionary Corner today.
31.39, but not really my cup of tea.
Thanks! Now fixed.
Always thought it was SKIDADDLE and that’s what I put, even though I couldn’t quite parse it. Which meant the ANTEATER was forever out of my reach. Ah well. Apart from that, enjoyable and not-too-hard puzzle.
30.14 with LOI anteater which was a guess based on using ant as a worker. Eventually realised what the joke was after the event and only when seeing it in print- thanks blogger. Lots of application needed on my part which I almost flunked.
Good puzzle , thanks setter.
I liked this quite a lot. It took 37 minutes and so was not too difficult, but not too easy either with many quite subtle clues. For one thing, the level of difficulty was homogeneous so the puzzle seemed more of a consistent whole than recent puzzles with very easy clues and one or two real stinkers making them impossible to finish. DODGEM CAR didn’t help much with the crossing clues (and didn’t fit the wordplay), but BUMPER CAR fitted much better. I never thought of REPUGNANT, but did think of both REPULSING and REPULSIVE, so reserved my opinion until my LOI, FIGURINE, went in. There would be many choices for a COD, among them FIGURINE, WOOF, SUSAN or SPRAT for that matter.
It is ages since I have posted a comment here, but I enjoyed this puzzle so much that I owe it to the setter to show my appreciation. So many smiles along the way and ticks all over the place:
12a, 14a, 16a, 18a, 21a, 27a.
7d, 9d, 13d, 15d, 17d, 22d, 23d, 24d.
Great stuff, setter. Take a bow.
With you on this, Shabbo! Some of the neatest cluing I’ve seen for a while – all the ones you mention. Some will be going into my book of BEST CLUES; I intend to attempt compiling a puzzle containing as many of these that will fit! Many thanks to setter on this, and William for his blog.
Anteater, Woof and Sprat were all hilarious and greatly enjoyed, but I’ve only ever come across Repulsing in the sense of “fending off”, not disgusting. However, everyone else seemed happy, so I’ll disappear again to wherever I came from.
😉
See my reply to shabbo.