A somewhat quirky offering this morning, which I’m all in favour of. Slightly tougher than your average Monday. As occasionally happens, my last in was 1 across, where the literal is not very congruent, but somehow that accords with the overall whimsy.
25:06
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Greyish-brown VW Golf stops being in motion (4,6) |
| DUNG BEETLE – G (Golf) in DUN (greyish-brown) BEETLE (VW); dung beetles are smart cookies that navigate by sun, moon, wind and Milky Way. They also move and – on edit, their life revolves around bowel movements, i.e. motion. My last, as in final, car was a Golf GTi. I never fell in love with it. I pined for my Echo. Go fig, as those Americans say. | |
| 6 | Place small collection of bets (4) |
| SPOT – S POT (as in, ‘Have you put 50p in the pot yet, chuck?’) | |
| 10 | Crush advanced Ottoman position (5) |
| PASHA – PASH (God, I hate this word!) A ; here’s Collins – ‘a provincial governor or other high official of the Ottoman Empire’ | |
| 11 | Panhandle city confines American pop (9) |
| PENSACOLA – PENS A COLA; a write-in for me since |
|
| 12 | They might have eyes, but they won’t be peeled (6,8) |
| JACKET POTATOES – nice cryptic definition; baking potatoes rather than boiling them is a good way to make mashed potatoes if you have the time (less watery) | |
| 14 | Say G Company fitted with singular shell casing (3,4) |
| EGG COSY – EG G S (singular) in COY; gee, it’s 50-odd years since I’ve seen one of these | |
| 15 | Tiny child violinist failing to start on time (7) |
| TIDDLER – T |
|
| 17 | Criminal back in Parkhurst — old, abandoned (1,3,3) |
| A BAD LOT – a reverse hidden; ‘Ooh, Mavis, he’s a bad lot, is that one at No. 22!’ | |
| 19 | Arrogant, as Bill might be (5-2) |
| STUCK-UP – Who can ever forget the immortal warning, ‘BILL STICKERS WILL BE PROSECUTED’? Poor old Bill. | |
| 20 | Collection of poems represented real hardship so (1,10,3) |
| A SHROPSHIRE LAD – an anagram* of REAL HARDSHIP SO; I read it once, but probably got a bit lost when it became too lyrical, as I tend to do. | |
| 23 | Harsh, “discontented” Italian Pope? (9) |
| INCLEMENT – I~N CLEMENT (pope – quite a few of them, as I recall) | |
| 24 | Exclamation from Spooner upon seeing flying carpet? (2,3) |
| MY HAT – ‘High mat!’ Is this an all-in-one? Is it a plane? Is it Superman? | |
| 25 | Goddess last seen on gin, regularly pickled (4) |
| NIKE – |
|
| 26 | Starts to follow at distance, somehow intrigued (10) |
| FASCINATED – F~A~ DISTANCE* | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Patsy expected to absorb pressure (4) |
| DUPE – P in DUE | |
| 2 | North and east German area left Joe with a sense of wistfulness (9) |
| NOSTALGIA – N OST A L GI A | |
| 3 | Landmark new Waterloo block with parking thrown in (9,5) |
| BLACKPOOL TOWER – P in WATERLOO BLOCK* | |
| 4 | English course penetrating this writer’s compassionate feelings (7) |
| EMPATHY – E PATH in MY | |
| 5 | Rugby restart has popular centre finally punching oaf (4-3) |
| LINE-OUT – IN (popular) |
|
| 7 | Snap up hot oatcake wraps (5) |
| PHOTO – our second hidden | |
| 8 | Copy crossing underground cell, according to reports? (10) |
| TRANSCRIPT – TRANS (the prefix trans- means ‘crossing’, eg transatlantic) sounds like ‘crypt’ | |
| 9 | Mum, granny, daughter put together great piece for play (3,3,8) |
| MAN AND SUPERMAN – MA NAN D (you put these together) SUPER (great) MAN ([chess] piece); a play by Shaw which no one reads. The fate of all his plays these days. | |
| 13 | Fed up violin maker subject to calumny (10) |
| DEFAMATION – FED reversed AMATI ON (subject to – Collins has ‘a doctor on call’ as an example) | |
| 16 | Quickly left furniture store with picture (4,1,4) |
| LIKE A SHOT – L IKEA SHOT | |
| 18 | Part of picture from the Durbeyfield period? (7) |
| TESSERA – TESS ERA; from Housman to Shaw to Hardy; tesserae are the little tiles that make up mosaics | |
| 19 | To do with hip cats I managed on island clubs (7) |
| SCIATIC – CATS I* followed by I C; sciatic comes from the Greek word for hip bone. Most of the sciatica sufferers I know have pain in the legs or the lower back, which are of course both very much in the vicinity. | |
| 21 | Journo includes electronic attachment to letter from Prague (5) |
| HACEK – E in HACK; the háček, or caron, is the inverted circumflex (seen in the eponymous word itself) that indicates a change of pronunciation in Slavonic languages. | |
| 22 | Film maker sacking satellite boss (4) |
| STUD – STUD |
|
22.33 but fell foul of the toddler.
Almost got there, but having never come across pash/crush, and Aga being the limit of my knowledge of Ottoman commanders, a Pusha was the best I could manage. Pensacola was vho, and fortunately won the coin toss with Pinnacola. As a physicist, I also surprised myself by rattling off A Shropshire Lad and Man and Superman. CoD to Jack(k/e)t Potatoes for the smile. Invariant
Finished the next day (as I often do if finish at all) in 37 minutes, so a pleasing entertainment rather than a bruising education. Shaw’s plays are not much as plays, but reading them is instructive and entertaining. And at times appalling, my reaction to MAN AND SUPERMAN.
Thanks for this resource. I haven’t done the puzzle in years and managed three quarters. I convinced myself that 1A could be DUNE BEETLE : greyish brown VW (def) dune (golf stops because of ball in dune) + beetle (being in motion)