My time of 57 minutes was rather too slow, but it was a very enjoyable solve finished without any major problems so I’ll content myself with that and wish you all a very Happy New Year!
As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]
| Across | |
| 1 | Blown, three sheets to the wind (6) |
| WASTED – Two meanings (i) a ‘blown opportunity’ is one that’s wasted, (ii) drunk | |
| 5 | Change required around odd parts of Antrim — might this be tried? (8) |
| PATIENCE – PENCE (change – coins) containing [around] A{n}T{r}I{m} [odd parts of]. As Collins notes: If someone ‘tries your patience’ they annoy so much that it is very difficult for you to stay calm. | |
| 9 | Operative relocating us, a girl needing Charlie to fill in (8) |
| SURGICAL – Anagram [relocating] of US A GIRL containing [to fill in] C (Charlie – NATO alphabet). Operative – resulting from a surgical operation (Colllins again). | |
| 10 | OK swimmer keeping in trim, doing the backstroke? (6) |
| RATIFY – RAY (swimmer) containing [keeping] FIT (in trim) reversed [doing the backstroke] | |
| 11 | Losing tie, I’m sorry to have got involved (6) |
| BEHIND – BIND (tie) with EH (I’m sorry?) contained [to have got involved] | |
| 12 | Figure you grind down (8) |
| THOUSAND – THOU (you), SAND (grind down) | |
| 14 | Ancient orcas swimming across the Pacific, say? (12) |
| TRANSOCEANIC – Anagram [swimming] of ANCIENT ORCAS | |
| 17 | Measure of his work written with determination, mere poet (7,5) |
| WILLIAM BLAKE – WILL (determination), IAMB (measure of his work – in poetry), LAKE (mere) | |
| 20 | One warmed by this retrospective poem, stay (8) |
| FIRESIDE – IF (poem – Kipling) reversed [retrospective], RESIDE (stay) | |
| 22 | Sculptures possibly in bronze material (6) |
| TARTAN – ART (sculptures possibly), contained by [in] TAN (bronze) | |
| 23 | Podgy middle in sight (6) |
| STUMPY – TUM (middle – stomach), contained by [in] SPY (sight) . ‘Sight’ and ‘spy’ are verbs in this context. | |
| 25 | Drinking one huge quantity of wine, fair to drool (8) |
| SALIVATE – SALE (fair – as in book fair), containing [drinking] I (one) + VAT (huge quantity of wine]. A vatful would indeed be a ‘huge quantity of wine’ but I’m not sure that justifies VAT being clued as such. At best it’s an unsignalled DBE. | |
| 26 | Cordial communication ultimately distributed in plate? (4-4) |
| IRON-CLAD – Anagram [distributed] of CORDIAL {communicatio}N [ultimately] | |
| 27 | Chicken like a canary (6) |
| YELLOW – Two meanings | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Around America, a large body of water diverted (6) |
| AMUSED – A, MED (large body of water), containing [around] US (America) | |
| 3 | Identify a report in story that may be panned by Italians? (11) |
| TAGLIATELLE – TAG (identify), then A + TELL (report) contained by [in] LIE (story) | |
| 4 | Undertake something to chew on, stuff on a programme (9) |
| DOCUDRAMA – DO (undertake), CUD (something to chew), RAM (stuff), A | |
| 5 | Exercise hard, a cheek aloft (7) |
| PILATES – SET (hard) + A + LIP (cheek) all reversed [aloft] | |
| 6 | Body like that shouldering rock (5) |
| TORSO – TOR (rock), SO (like that) | |
| 7 | Going topless, flesh to put away? (3) |
| EAT – {m}EAT (flesh) [going topless] | |
| 8 | Force in liquid, bottling a drink (4,4) |
| CAFE NOIR – Anagram [liquid] of FORCE IN containing [bottling] A | |
| 13 | Journeying afar, vaster place to tour around (5,6) |
| SPACE TRAVEL – Anagram [to tour around] of VASTER PLACE | |
| 15 | In hostile environment, soldier that’s whipped in France? (9) |
| CHANTILLY – ANT (soldier) contained by [in] CHILLY (hostile) [environment]. Named after a town in France it’s cream that’s sweetened and whipped. As teenagers of the 1960s will know (Hallooooooo, Baby!), Chantilly is also famous for its lace – a rival to Honiton perhaps? | |
| 16 | Agent in male clothes (8) |
| MINISTER – MISTER (male) contains [clothes] IN | |
| 18 | In sheets and blankets etc, not as much being darned (7) |
| BLESSED – LESS (not as much) contained by [in] BED (sheets and blankets etc). ‘Darned’ and ‘blessed’ are both mild oaths. | |
| 19 | Design one has to beat (6) |
| TATTOO – Two meanings | |
| 21 | Perfect situation, part equally distributed served up (5) |
| IDYLL – Hidden [part] and reversed [served up] in {equa}LLY DI{stributed} | |
| 24 | Crew from the galleon, all at the bottom (3) |
| MEN – {fro}M, {th}E, {galleo}N [all at the bottom] | |
47 minutes, as with Kevin feeling rather obtuse this morning (not hungover, unusually, but thickheaded nonetheless.) Perked up by what I thought was a fun puzzle, with good surfaces and some well-hidden definitions about the place. FOI 2d AMUSED, LOI 12a THOUSAND where the “thou” took me far too long to come up with even though I guessed the SAND quite quickly.
Enjoyed 9a, with “operative” unusually not meaning a rep or a spy, the IRON-CLAD solidity of 26a and the oblique definition of 3d that had me wondering if it had something to do with panning for gold in the Po…
I liked this teaser. Mostly I liked Ratify and Cafe Noir.
Thanks clever setter and elegant J.
Unfortunately, the smallest one is 4kg
Thanks to the setter for fitting SPACE TRAVEL in on the day that New Horizons meets Ultima Thule 4 billion miles away, another fine achievement by NASA, though at the time of writing we’re awaiting confirmation from the brilliant spacecraft.
And Happy New Year to you, Jack, and all of this most excellent community.
Edited at 2019-01-01 10:17 am (UTC)
Nice gentle workout to start the year. Don’t remember the cream in the 1960s but FIRESIDE revived memories of roasting chestnuts in the 1950s. Can’t remember the last time I sat by a FIRESIDE – a radiator doesn’t quite engender the same ambience
One of those mostly straightforward with a few sticky patches puzzles, although as usual none of them seem so in retrospect.
An excellent start to 2019, and thanks to the setter, and to Jack for his usual excellent analysis, especially the parsing of TAGLIATELLE, one of my pair of biffs. STUMPY was parsed post-solve.
FOI TRANSOCEANIC
LOI STUMPY
COD CHANTILLY
TIME 13:43
FOI 2dn AMUSED
LOI 20ac FIRESIDE
COD 8dn CAFE NOIR
WOD CHANTILLY
Why do I not like the word at 5dn PILATES?
Edited at 2019-01-01 12:04 pm (UTC)
I thought you might have commented on the word order at 17a, as it seems to follow the same structure you queried with last week’s PERPETUATE?
Edited at 2019-01-01 04:01 pm (UTC)
16:20 for this, which I found very enjoyable. Nothing obscure but lots of slightly off-beam definitions that required a bit of lateral thinking.
Happy New Year to all TfTTers. And thanks to all our setters and bloggers for the year just gone and the year to come.
This one took me 33 minutes, split into several intervals in the cooking of the New Year’s meal. This year, we decided to go vegetarian, apart from the turkey and the pigs-in-blankets, and it worked out quite well.
As always – and not unlike a typical working week – I find that I get to the end wondering what took me so long. Looking back, I can’t see a single clue that should have taken very long, and yet the timer cannot lie. I am still in awe of those of you who can regularly finish in under 20, let alone 10 minutes. My LOsI were BEHIND, TATTOO, and RATIFY (which I always think ought to mean to get someone 1ac).
Edited at 2019-01-01 10:28 pm (UTC)
it fits (luckily as it was my FOI) and I still think it works (RAT on someone to blow their cover, and one of a myriad of terms for inebriation)
We get them late … but not this late – it was sitting in a backlog pile. Found this a lot harder than most here, taking an hour and a half to get it finished.
An enjoyable puzzle with a lot of misleading definitions and word plays in the clues. A lot of others were quite convoluted charades, in particular TAGLIATELLE, DOCUDRAMA, SALIVATE and RATIFY.
Finished in the NE corner with THOUSAND, TORSO and RATIFY the last few in.
(I’ve found a Jan19-shaped hole in my solving)