Solving Time: About 40 minutes in all, which makes it significantly harder than average, for me at least. 1ac & 1dn went straight in and I polished off the top half in fine style but gradually ground towards a halt in the lower part, especially the SW corner. I have no complaints, and enjoyed several of the clues. Only one word (at 9ac) was actually unknown to me but quite a few were rather out of my way, as it were. I suspect some might struggle, rather
cd = cryptic definition, dd = double definition, rev = reversed, anagrams are *(–).
ODO means the Oxford Dictionaries Online
Across | |
---|---|
1 | mountain-top – second = MO + UN + spoil = TAINT + work = OP |
7 |
dim – dim( |
9 |
riot grrrl – I laughed when I discovered that this unlikely word actually exists, because I can’t imagine what some of our number will make of it. Suffice it to say that this is the first of several words today that are outside my comfort zone to say the least! It’s *(TRILOG( |
10 |
zoned – ZON( |
11 | patient – PATENT (leather) containing I |
12 | Swahili – *(HAILS I W) |
13 |
Urals – ( |
15 | Bronze age – *(BEGAN + ZERO) |
17 | elsewhere – E + college = LSE + W(H)ERE. This took me a while because I am conditioned when I see “East London” to start looking for words with the first letter missing. But this is no cliché, actually quite a good clue I thought |
19 | see to – the golf tournament can’t start because there are 0 TEES, with “recurring” as the (unsatisfactory, in my eyes) rev. indicator. But they manage perfectly well without tees for all their strokes bar the first ones, don’t they? |
20 | unicorn – college = UNI + do = defraud = CON containing R. It appears, alongside much other stuff, on the Queen’s coat of arms. The heraldic description in the link provided consists almost entirely of words that will probably turn up here one day or another, to general dismay |
22 | omitted, hidden rev. that took me far too long to find |
24 | tweet – “times” = T + T containing “scaled down for scotsman” = WEE. Apparently a tweet is a short message passed on via a computing device or a smart telephone, M’lud. |
25 | quidditch – change = pound coin = QUID + channel = DITCH. An imaginary game played by a Mr Potter in a popular work of fiction, M’lud. |
27 | nut – a triple def: fan = aficionado, “something turned when making fast,” ie on a bolt, and food, as in hazel nut. Another tricky little clue |
28 | rubbernecks – RUBBER + sinks = drinks = NECKS, in keeping with today’s argot |
Down | |
1 | mar – sign = Aries = RAM, rev. |
2 | u-boat – I struggled a bit with parsing this one, though it went straight in after 1ac. It is a TAU cross, (though it isn’t one actually, is it?) containing OB = pupil no longer, all rev. |
3 | tigress – stray = DIGRESS, with a T replacing the D |
4 |
irritable – another tricky one. Short is the def., sort of light = I( |
5 | talus – alternate letters of SkUlL pArTs, rev. |
6 | pizzazz – PI + buzzing = ZZZZ containing A. Another word I don’t use a lot |
7 | Dunsinane – Dunsinane is a rather bleak Scottish hill, rightly Dunsinnan, and the supposed site of Macbeth’s castle. “Visit of Forest” is a disguised reference to the plot of the play |
8 | midwife toad – crazy = MAD containing I’D WIFE + TO. Cleverly worked surface reading. |
11 | pause button – pop = PA + milk = USE + container = BUTT + ON. |
14 | abstinent – *(BEST AT INN) |
16 |
overdrive – OVER + DRIVE( |
18 |
Wooster – without = WO + notice = ( |
19 | stand-in – small = S + brown = TAN + racket = DIN |
21 | niqab – collar = arrest = NAB containing degree of brightness = IQ. |
23 |
optic – plump = choose = OPT + ( |
26 |
has – mess = HAS |
Away from my Mac until the weekend, so apologies for absence. (Might just have to w[r]angle a Windoze box.)
So some wonderful words. A word with three RRR in a row, a word with 4 ZZZZ, a word with Q but no U after it. Very inventive. I’ve never read the Harry Potter books, m’lud, but even I’ve heard of Quidditch (I think it is something to do with brooms).
Edited at 2012-09-05 10:15 am (UTC)
I wish. I did finish with the character from the books I’ve never read but only after getting a jump-start from the blog on, ahem, 5 occasions, one of which showed me that my ‘zones’ was WRONG!, as John Dunn used to say. Totally zonked now, and off for a lie down.
Compliments to setter and Jerry, and hats off to McT for a Bolt-like breeze to the tape.
ELSEWHERE, all my troubles (or at least 20 minutes of them) stemmed from a careless ABSTAINER at 14d, which locked up almost the whole of the left hand side. Check the anagram, stupid!
My parsing of 11d, until I realised none of the components meant what I thought they meant, included the anatomically dubious and unindicated sound alike of ewe’s butt for milk container. That’s how mashed I was by that stage.
One of those ferocious workouts where the extreme deviousness of the majority of the defs and plays blinded one to the easier ones. Or one.
Personal favourite was MIDWIFE TOAD.
According to the fount of all knowledge, Top Gear, no car since the seventies has an overdrive unless it’s made in China. My Ford automatic has mysterious settings of 1 and 2 alongside the normal letters. My dealer said they were of no interest.
Edited at 2012-09-05 10:46 am (UTC)
19 ac 0 tees – not just the little wooden things, but the teeing grounds are also tees, so I guess this works, although it’s hard to imagine why anyone would try to organise a golf tournament on a course with no tees.
Unlike my fellow golfer, Jimbo, I can’t see anything wrong with 19 ac if you take “tee” to mean not the wooden/plastic peg on which you may place the ball but the teeing-ground itself into which you stick the peg (as in, say, “the 12th tee”). It’s difficult to see how any round of golf, let alone a tournament, could begin without any place to tee off, whether using a peg or not.
When I was a lad people made tees from a bit of sand, anyway…
I too can remember – just – those little tins of sand from which to construct a tee, which I think survived as a a sort of decorative/historic feature on many courses long after the advent of the peg tee.
(The anecdote is recorded in Gyles Brandreth’s Something Sensational to Read in the Train and also here.)
I actually knew “riot grrl” thanks to a daughter who was at GeorgetownU in the 90s – where they were popular. But I let it stew for many minutes, disbelieving that I’d find it in a Times puzzle.
Dunsinane reminded me of my Alevel English days when my pals and I were “doing” the Scottish play. Someone had a wonderful record of Cleo Laine and John Dankworth singing Shakespeare and one of the tracks had Birnam Forest advancing on Dunsinane. Can’t find the original but here’s a reprise if anyone’s interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p33NN7LHNVY
Edited at 2012-09-05 12:24 pm (UTC)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3nelAhuEC8
You can still know the game without being a HarryP fan (I’m not). Once you have the Q from “niqab” it’s got to be that, or “quadrille” which doesn’t work.
On the other hand, I had heard of ‘riot grrrls’, ‘niqab’, and ‘quidditch’, and got the ‘midwife toad’ and ‘zoned’ from the cryptics. I might have been able to finish had I persisted, but I gave up after 3 hours.
17.0
Actually, about half an hour before filing under “Life’s too short”.
I suppose there’s something to be said for keeping the level of the Times puzzle so unpredictable – it makes it a more plausible challenge when you have to work out the degree of difficulty for yourself. But I’m going to reinstate my former practice of the 30-minute guillotine for Wednesdays and score my effort by number of clues solved!
[p.s. My Auntie Edna’s cakes are famously inedible.To my knowledge, no one’s ever finished one]
Edited at 2012-09-05 01:14 pm (UTC)
On the other hand perhaps I’m just in a 4dn mood at the moment because yesterday’s puzzle irritated the hell out of me. Fortunately for everyone else I didn’t get a chance to comment.
I did very much like RIOT GRRRL (which, for reference next time you use it, can also be spelled RIOT GRRL) and PIZZAZZ.
Enigma
Edited at 2012-09-05 04:48 pm (UTC)
http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/2012/06/25/
Nobody ever asked about that one…..
‘Willow, exceptionally large one seen approaching centre of Limerick’
Thanks.
In which case the last bastion has fallen and it’s back to the barbarians. Feeling morose today.
With today’s offering, and the insidious increase in the use of the corny clue cross-reference device (e.g. 25254), perhaps it’s time to just sell up and move to the Gruniad where at least the abuse is for free.
SJ
On the GRRRL, we will have to agree to disagree. I’d never come across it before but the wordplay was entirely clear and I love these wacky modernisms. Where’s the joy of language if we can’t make up new stuff?
Mainstays of The Times include biblical knowledge, Shakespeare, obscure European composers and artists, the odd musician and conductor, musical notation, newspaper slang, English poets and writers particularly Brontes and Dickens. As a not-particularly-widely-read engineer, atheist and non-musician with no artistic bent I have little knowledge of all the mainstays listed. So this puzzle is no different in subject matter to the average puzzle as far as I’m concerned. It is harder, but due to the cluing not the answers.
Rob
I’ve come across RIOT GRRRL (or some other similar GRRRL) in some other crossword, but I can’t remember which. (The T2 quickie, perhaps? Not Mephisto, I think, since I only do that very rarely.)
A delightful puzzle, full of clever ideas. My compliments to the setter. I just wish they’d saved it for the Championship.
7 Sept
For the record, RIOT GRRRL appeared in The Times Crossword Club’s Monthly Special No. 20081 (June 2007) as the answer to “I got embroiled in profusion of rights and left punk feminist (4,5)”.
Edited at 2012-09-07 01:00 am (UTC)
I agree that “recurring” is a someone dubious reversal indicator, and therefore apologies for using it.
No apologies though for any of the rest of it, though whilst having little sympathy with the DUNSINANE objectors, I do agree also that perhaps the DRONE reference to WOOSTER was a tad more obscure. (It would be interesting to define the term “general knowledge”. I sometimes feel it gets used to mean “stuff I didn’t happen to know” 🙂 )
I had a chuckle when Boko Fittleworth and Pongo Twisletons’ mate popped into view at 18d. I found this tough and did it in dribs and drabs through the day, but enjoyed it. I was disappointed not to finish, but had no chance of coming up with the 2 I didn’t know. It took me a while to see 11d but I thought it was quite clever. I liked the crazy toad too. John