Time: 26 minutes
Music: Shirley Collins, Adieu to Old England
Well, I raced through 90% of this puzzle in about 12 minutes, and then became thoroughly stuck. It can happen. Unfortunately, enterprise and frangipane nearly did me in, primarily because I thought of frangipane as a pastry rather than a cream, and was unable to hit the enter key.
The puzzle was a good one, and contains some novel ideas, along with a few overused clues. Using European to clue continental, the Los Angeles clue, and the steel basins were impressive.
| Across | |
| 1 | A room containing receptacles in the centre for bonsai, say (3,4) |
| ART FORM – A + R([recep]T[acles]FOR)M. Probably a biff for most solvers. | |
| 5 | Researcher requiring support over in Washington (7) |
| POSTDOC – POST + D(O)C, as in Washington D.C. | |
| 9 | Dish seen in latter parts of trip to Hawaii (3) |
| POI – [tri]P [t]O [Hawai]I, a bit of a semi-&lit. | |
| 10 | European intent on travelling in California (11) |
| CONTINENTAL – C(anagram of INTENT ON)AL. | |
| 11 | Charity concerned with carbon in waste (3,5) |
| RED CROSS – RE + D(C)ROSS. | |
| 12 | Mistake that’s terrible (doubly so!) (3-3) |
| BOO-BOO – BOO + BOO, in the sense of boo and hiss. | |
| 15 | Remnants of wine found in old ewers periodically (4) |
| LEES – [o]L[d] E[w]E[r]S. | |
| 16 | Moved a finger round pot to get cream (10) |
| FRANGIPANE – Anagram of A FINGER around PAN, my LOI. | |
| 18 | City spanning both halves of Bel Air? (3,7) |
| LOS ANGELES – As found in [be]L A[ir], but also literally, since Bel Air is in the middle of Los Angeles. | |
| 19 | Couple from India got together in retirement (4) |
| ITEM – I + MET backwards, a bit of a chestnut. | |
| 22 | Splendour of limitless wines stored by cook (6) |
| FINERY – F([w]INE[s])RY. | |
| 23 | Smartphone programme put up for review (8) |
| APPRAISE – APP + RAISE. | |
| 25 | I make gibes about Northern people, creating outrage (11) |
| INDIGNATION – I (N) DIG + NATION. | |
| 27 | It’s scary to carry on endlessly being knocked back (3) |
| EEK – KEE[p] backwards. | |
| 28 | Male poet close to female fashion designer (7) |
| MODISTE – M + ODIST + [femal]E. | |
| 29 | Clearly show trade fair leads to substantially increased transactions (7) |
| EXPOSIT – EXPO + S[ubstnatially] I[ncreased] T[ransactions]. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Threads appear to change length (7) |
| APPAREL – Anagram of APPEAR + L. | |
| 2 | They maybe drop hints, surprisingly concealing evidence of doubt (5,6) |
| THIRD PERSON – Anagram of DROP HINTS around ER. | |
| 3 | Big vehicles getting performance awards (6) |
| OSCARS – O/S CARS, a chestnut if there every was one! | |
| 4 | TV format popular among unhappy types (10) |
| MINISERIES – M(IN)ISERIES, another often-used clue. | |
| 5 | Coat lacking a bottom stitch, perhaps (4) |
| PAIN – PAIN[t]. | |
| 6 | How to use a stair climbing machine and look smart (4,2,2) |
| STEP ON IT – A cryptic hint, with a literal that is a bit deceptive. | |
| 7 | Mark the highest thing you can see in measuring? (3) |
| DOT – The one over the i in measuring, that is. | |
| 8 | Italian food unknown in the middle of Tuscany only (7) |
| CALZONE – [tus]C[any] AL(Z)ONE, one of my biffs. | |
| 13 | Unpleasant quality of rotten steel basins (11) |
| BEASTLINESS – Anagram of STEEL BASINS. | |
| 14 | Key trophy picked up for initiative (10) |
| ENTERPRISE – ENTER + sounds like PRIZE. | |
| 17 | He possibly angers working with it (5,3) |
| INERT GAS – Anagram of ANGERS and IT. I have learned to look at any initial He in a clue with suspicion. | |
| 18 | Political ideology of Liberal English paper is muted at first (7) |
| LEFTISM – L + E + FT + IS + M[uted]. | |
| 20 | Mammal, timid and occasionally nasty, circling river (7) |
| MEERKAT – MEE(R)K + [n]A[s]T[y]. | |
| 21 | Get ready to accept new universal union contract? (6) |
| PRENUP – PRE(N,U)P. | |
| 24 | Arrived in church before twelve (4) |
| CAME – C(A.M.)E. | |
| 26 | Some bad ideas successfully carried out (3) |
| DID – Hidden in [ba]D ID[eas]. | |
Did all but 4 of them in around 15, failed on POSTDOC and DOT like many others (couldn’t get WA out of my head, should’ve thought of DC) and somehow failed to get PAINT. The other mistake was ‘phi’ instead of ‘POI’ as I made use of the abbreviation for Hawaii, it doesn’t quite work but the actual answer was a NHO and I’m surprised no one else has yet admitted to doing that. I never even considered ‘frangipani’ as I always both spell and say it the French way with 3 not 4 syllables (FRANGIPANE) and cream seems wrong but not in fact as wrong as pastry would to me.
Biggest problem here was forgetting CALZONE as an Italian food ( and thankfully never having eaten one!), which resulted in FRANGIPANI and no idea about POSTDOC, which was one of my only two ‘look-up’s’. Had the L, the O and the E for ages without the penny dropping…in fact I’ve only ever heard of CALZONE on Seinfeld decades ago. Thought the clues for DOT and PAIN and THIRD PERSON were very good, along with most of the rest of the puzzle. A big thumbs up from me, Jalna!