48:32 WOE
Pretty hard. I worked from outside in, and had most of it done in just over 30 minutes. But then I got stuck in the SE, and submitted forgetting to go back to an answer I promised myself to revisit.
The town at 1ac took me far too long (how did I not know this place?), and only faint bells rang at the sneaky 12ac. At the time of solving 2dn and the first half of 21dn were hit and hopes, and I could’ve spent another 10 minutes thinking about 23ac (and probably have got nowhere!).
Definitions underlined.
| Across | |
| 1 | Band bringing fuel meeting down town (7) |
| WICKLOW – WICK (band bringing fuel) + LOW (down). | |
| 5 | Way to get batter out of some fish? (5) |
| CATCH – double definition. | |
| 9 | Beckettian state? (5) |
| ASSAM – AS SAM (Beckettian). | |
| 10 | Hospital doctor after a driver to bring food (9) |
| HAMBURGER – H (hospital), then MB (doctor) after A, then URGER (driver). | |
| 11 | Bank, maybe, on second rate kitchen appliance (7) |
| BLENDER – LENDER (bank, maybe), on B (second rate). | |
| 12 | Rests, hugging little child: or no little one, perhaps (7) |
| LITOTES – LIES (rests) containing TOT (little child). Ironic understatement expressed as the negative of its contrary (“no little one”, perhaps). | |
| 13 | Quaint translation of Orwell: odd English (4-6) |
| OLDE-WORLDE – anagram of ORWELL ODD + E (English). | |
| 15 | Answer, understood, read out again (4) |
| ANEW – A (answer) + NEW (homophone of “knew”). | |
| 18 | Intelligence exercise (4) |
| DOPE – DO PE (exercise). | |
| 20 | Without planning, due for shake-up, games company caught short (10) |
| UNINTENDED – anagram of DUE, with NINTENDo (games company) caught inside. | |
| 23 | Still bitter maybe, writer, after months (7) |
| ALEMBIC – ALE (bitter, maybe), then BIC (writer) after M (months). Equipment for distilling, a still. I had seen the BIC part, and entered ‘acerbic’ on the vague connection with ‘bitter’. Can two pink squares count as one error, please? | |
| 24 | Boundless glee inside following gag (7) |
| SILENCE – gLEe inside SINCE (following). | |
| 25 | Superior keen to welcome sailor round five (1,3,5) |
| A CUT ABOVE – ACUTE (keen), containing AB (sailor) + O (round) + V (five). | |
| 26 | “Couple” has it in reverse (5) |
| UNTIE – &lit. UNitE (couple), with ‘it’ reversed. | |
| 27 | Demanding somewhat faster news (5) |
| STERN – hidden in faSTER News. | |
| 28 | Special fabric apparently so tight-fitting (5-2) |
| SPRAY-ON – SP (special) + RAYON (fabric). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Part of London Bridge couple are inclined to traverse slowly at first (4,3) |
| WEST END – W + E (West and East, bridge couple) and TEND (are inclined), to contain first of Slowly. | |
| 2 | Leave college in disappointment (8) |
| COMEDOWN – to ‘come down’ is the opposite of ‘go up’ to college, I assume. | |
| 3 | Composer or storyteller with what to replace one? (5) |
| LEHAR – LiAR (storyteller), replacing I (one) with EH (what). | |
| 4 | Wife one’s enticed to follow British sports tournament (9) |
| WIMBLEDON – W (wife) + I’M (one’s), then LED ON (enticed) following B (British). | |
| 5 | Our Rex, up for this show primarily? (6) |
| CRUFTS – &lit. CR (Charles, our Rex), then the first letters of Up For This Show. | |
| 6 | Tense gent hit out (7) |
| TIGHTEN – anagram of GENT HIT. | |
| 7 | Bucks? A different county, we understand (5) |
| HARTS – sounds like “Herts” (a different county). | |
| 8 | Bishop to carry on with book — John — in anger (3,5) |
| BAD BLOOD – B (Bishop) and ADD (to carry on), with B (book) + LOO (john) inside. | |
| 14 | Encounter urgent demand: a sign of the times? (3,6) |
| RUN ACROSS – RUN (urgent demand, run!) + A + CROSS (sign of the times). | |
| 16 | Credulous on hearing excuse for being late? (4-4) |
| WIDE-EYED – sounds like “why died” (excuse for being late). | |
| 17 | For Louis I, a bad, bad feeling! (8) |
| JEALOUSY – JE (for Louis, a Frenchman, I) + A + LOUSY (bad). | |
| 19 | First movement outside of prisoner, leading to escape (7) |
| PRELUDE – first and last of PrisoneR, then ELUDE (escape). | |
| 21 | Old archbishop’s demands for payment, with thank you note (7) |
| DUNSTAN – DUNS (demands for payment, NHO) + TA (thank you) + N (note). | |
| 22 | Get on a bit with work (6) |
| OBTAIN – anagram of ON A BIT. | |
| 23 | One’s being very slow to accumulate (5) |
| AMASS – I certainly AM ASS today (being very slow). | |
| 24 | Ultimately, this display shows promise (5) |
| SWEAR – last of thiS + WEAR (display). | |
Well, at least I’m not alone. Three hits at this one over the day and still a DNF.
Had to look up the unknown DUNSTAN, but in any case, I had HERTS & ACERBIC.
So a fail then. Yuk.
On a positive note, I liked WICKLOW & SPRAY ON.
Thanks and well done William. Setter too, I suppose. Grrrr.
I didn’t read your post, and see that I’ve reproduced yours…..
At least I’m not alone. Another ACERBIC and HERTS here.
No probs, comfort in numbers eh!
I liked the puzzle, and especially liked Crufts. As SteveB says somewhere above, oncenyou start to think the clues are difficult it’s easy to overthink – to wit, I tried like the devil to make Louis’s “I” be L’Etat. Thanks for Assam, Wm
36:42 but with ACERBIC and KNOW. Thanks setter and William.
48:59. Stuck for ages on 9a, as a result of having put RED BLOOD for 8d ( it almost works, if the bishop is a DD, carrying RE=on). Only on switching it to BAD BLOOD ( which I couldn’t parse) did I finally see ASSAM, for my LOI and COD.
I recently read Conn Igguldens’s novel based on the life of DUNSTAN – I’m not sure what the opposite of a hagiography is, but this novel made him out to be as un -saintlike as could be.
Thanks William and setter
Well, as a relative newbie, I was very happy indeed to finish this with no errors 😃 it did take a very long time but I don’t care a jot. There were a couple of NHOs (ALEMBIC, LITOTES) and several that were biffed but not parsed (DUNSTAN, UNTIE, ASSAM). Thanks for the blog W. Liked WICKLOW.
👍
Came to this when I got back from London this afternoon. The top half went in fairly quickly, but some lovely surfaces – CRUFTS was excellent! I can never remember the meaning of LITOTES, but luckily, I could spot that was where we were going with this one. (In future I’ll think of ‘The Secret Diary of John Major, aged 47 3/4’, from Private Eye – typical entry “I was not inconsiderably annoyed to discover…”). The bottom half was another country… I struggled particularly with the SE, though once DUNSTAN came to mind, it opened up the last five – SILENCE, SWEAR, SPRAY-ON, UNTIE and LOI, the excellent JEALOUSY, a great PDM.
One error, Herts for harts.
Not sure what The issue is with untie. William seems to have explained it perfectly for me, just as I saw it. Maybe I’m missing something.
Not too daunting for a Friday, and some wonderful clues in what’s been a classic week. But I do hope bic = writer isn’t going to become another it/sa = appeal.
Finally finished off the SE this morning. Many unknowns so pleased to unravel the wordplay successfully. It wouldn’t be me if I hadn’t fallen for at least one of the traps. Another HERTS here. Fun puzzle.
Thanks William
Sunday night solve, so I doubt anyone will read this, but who cares? A toughie. 33’39” with a narrowly-avoided error at HARTS. I decided the shortened form of the county was unlikely to be the answer. But I was misled for a long time by the thought that a HART was a female deer. Who remembers BLIND DOG AT ST. DUNSTAN’s by Canterbury scene prog-rockers CARAVAN? I retain a soft spot. Many thanks to all involved.
Thanks for the blog- took an age to be spoilt by a careless acerbic! Despite thinking of all the bits needed to make in unknown correct word!
Hopefully the upcoming week will be better!
Gratified to come here and find the difficulties I hadwith this one were standard: ACERBIC, etc.. and a fair bit of looking up to get me going an again. Caught out by several:ASSAM, ANEW, SPRAY-ON, but happy to have correctly guessed LEHAR (NHO), BAD BLOOD and OLDE WORLDE, my FOI. Failed on DUNSTAN, HARTS and JEALOUSY (v g). Setter 1, Solver 0.