Solving Time: About 15 minutes, a little faster than average for a blogging day. There are one or two tricky clues, but otherwise I don’t think there is much to detain the quicker solver for long. That isn’t a criticism – the crossword was a very respectable effort, and a bit of a relief after some recent ones, including the last one I blogged.
Very unusually for a Times crossword, there are no proper nouns at all, and no reference to cricket either!
Very unusually for a Times crossword, there are no proper nouns at all, and no reference to cricket either!
cd = cryptic definition, dd = double definition, rev = reversed, anagrams are *(–), homophones indicated in “”
ODO means the Oxford Dictionaries Online
Across | |
---|---|
1 | mannered – male = M + ANNE + RED |
5 |
captor – officer = CAPT( |
8 |
sow – S( |
9 |
supplicant – current = I + C |
10 | ideogram – fish = IDE + move = GO rev., + RAM (= Aries) |
11 | patois – PA + TO + I + S |
12 |
need – captured = NE( |
14 | watertight – not hard to work out why! |
17 |
cross-refer – annoyed = CROSS + spliff = RE( |
20 |
gall – GALL( |
23 | impact – devil = IMP + ACT |
24 | streamer – queen = R in STEAMER |
25 | aftershave – *(SAVE FATHER) |
26 | nun – “NONE” |
27 | barege – as an illustration = EG in unadorned = BARE. One of the trickier clues simply because barege is an uncommon word. A wool fabric named after a village in the Pyrenees, Bareges, where it was first made. I’ve been there. Like most ski resorts it’s a total dump in the summer, in an otherwise lovely area |
28 | initiate – I + NIT (= egg) + I ATE |
Down | |
1 |
messianic – a reference to Olivier Messiaen, ie MESSIA( |
2 | nowhere – NOW HERE, in (the middle of) nowhere |
3 | ensign – hidden, seek & ye shall find.. |
4 |
esplanade – *(SEAPLANE + D |
5 | clipper – dd |
6 | plaything – story acted on stage = PLAY + *(NIGHT) – a very neat clue |
7 |
ostrich – ( |
13 | dismantle – *(LENS + ADMIT) |
15 | eyestrain – looks at = EYES + TRAIN |
16 | tolerance – *(CLEAR TONE) |
18 | rum baba – dance = RUMBA + BA = degree |
19 | retiree – on = RE + TIREE, one of the flatter Hebridean islands. |
21 |
ammonia – bullets = AMMO + N |
22 | defect – a dd, to defect as in Burgess or Maclean, and defect as in fault. A tricky clue, with little help from the crossing letters, and my last one in. |
Edited at 2013-02-20 01:18 am (UTC)
Thought the insertion device in 9ac was good: “following the left”.
Edited at 2013-02-20 01:52 am (UTC)
I wasted a lot of time on the French composer clue with Manon and Massenet. Somehow, Messiaen is always turning up when you least expect him.
Unfortunately, I had one wrong, going for ‘desert’ instead of ‘defect’. Whether a desert is a place that’s gone wrong is an interesting question.`
To confirm mct’s point, Chambers lists 48 possibilities for ?E?E?T as I discovered when I resorted to aids.
I don’t think I would have solved 27 under any circumstances as I have not heard of BAREGE, nor anything like it, but unfortunately I never even got a shot at it as I had carelessly written DISMANTEL at 13dn so I was looking for a fabric to fit ?A?L?E. Having already given up the ghost I selected FAILLE from Chambers list of options, which fits the definition perfectly but left me floundering for the remaining wordplay.
Not my finest effort on a pretty easy puzzle.
Edited at 2013-02-20 02:20 am (UTC)
Straightforward but enjoyable, and as Jerry says a bit of a relief after some recent stinkers.
Others went in more by luck than judgement, so thanks Jerry for unravelling the wp for MESSIANIC, OSTRICH, SUPPLICANT and others. Also I didn’t see the anagram for DISMANTLE, but it had to be that.
Edited at 2013-02-20 11:13 am (UTC)
Eventually decided to save and do something else, and when I came back to have another look, DEFECT went in almost immediately!
DEFECT was a very fine clue if you spotted it, but open to semi-convincing alternatives which you might accept if they were the first you thought of. There have certainly been times when I have considered such clues rather unfair, but only when I have the “wrong” answer, of course.
COD RE/ TIREE, in a somewhat less than sparkly puzzle perhaps, though on the other hand it is a relief after Mon and Tue!
Is it necessarily true that the harder puzzles, by reason of longer thought-process on the part of their compilers, produce the highest ratio of pearler-to-plodder?
Who knows.
Chris.
Good day for crosswords today – some nice stuff (as always) from Dac in the Independent and a better-than-usual Philistine in the Guardian.
TIA