A few unknowns here, but all getable. The answer for my LOI, 23dn, was obvious but it took an age to see the parsing. How did all of you get on?
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Definitions are in bold and underlined.
| Across | |
| 1 | Exhaust manifold initially receding in value (5) |
| MERIT – TIRE + M (M |
|
| 4 | Give queen chops after having taken large bite (8) |
| PIQUANCY – PLIANCY (give), with the L removed (taken), and QU inserted (chopping it). | |
| 8 | Maybe brief jibe spin doctor spun (3,11) |
| JOB DESCRIPTION – ANAGRAM (spun): JIBE SPIN DOCTOR. | |
| 10 | They rescue engineers bridging river banks in Rheims (9) |
| REDEEMERS – REME bridging DEE (river) + RS (banks in RheimS) | |
| 11 | Long thread contains garbage at the very end (5) |
| YEARN – YARN contains E ( |
|
| 12 | Waylay old US president on eastern half of Pacific island (6) |
| AMBUSH – AM (eastern half of |
|
| 14 | Confined by traffic bollard, one reversed to carry on (8) |
| CONTINUE – TINU (UNIT, reversed) confined by CONE. | |
| 17 | Graduates grasping right utensil that’s appropriate for high table? (3,5) |
| BAR STOOL – BAS grasping R + TOOL. | |
| 18 | Calm down — you have two presents (3,3) |
| NOW NOW – I’m calling this a WISIWYG clue: what it says is what you get! | |
| 20 | Tranquillity surrounds current exam (5) |
| RESIT – REST surrounds I (electrical current). | |
| 22 | Pottery sensible about opening (9) |
| AGATEWARE – AWARE about GATE. NHO. |
|
| 24 | Upset dim goons with bitter little digs? (10,4) |
| BEDSITTING ROOM – anagram (upset): DIM GOONS BITTER. | |
| 25 | Riskily name Peter, left trapped in Uruguay’s borders (8) |
| UNSAFELY – N (name) + SAFE (peter) + L, trapped in UY (borders of UruguaY). | |
| 26 | Shrink from Leicester finally entering late (5) |
| DREAD – R entering DEAD. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Former PM repeatedly to hinder adult play (5,7) |
| MAJOR BARBARA – [John] MAJOR + BAR (hinder) + BAR (repeated) + A. The play was by George Bernard Shaw. |
|
| 2 | Fanatical invasion involving British (5) |
| RABID – RAID involving B. | |
| 3 | Male with heartless jokes interrupts offensive wealthy hedonists (3,3,3) |
| THE JET SET – HE + JEsTS (heartless), interrupts TET (an action in the Vietnam War). | |
| 4 | Full agreement announced (6) |
| PACKED – sounds like PACT (announced). | |
| 5 | Collection of posers on TV? (4,4) |
| QUIZ SHOW – cryptic definition. | |
| 6 | Nervous glimpses of tracer shells, some circling (5) |
| ANTSY – ANY circling TS (“glimpses” of T |
|
| 7 | Hint of childhood memory soon includes grand old man? (3-6) |
| CRO-MAGNON – C (“hint” of C |
|
| 9 | Where one might look up who, having directed, failed to impress (12) |
| UNDERWHELMED – UNDER “W” (where one might look up “who”!) + HELMED. | |
| 13 | Painter supporting bishop and a German composer (9) |
| BERNSTEIN – B + ERNST + EIN (German for “a”). Eclectic references! |
|
| 15 | Type of stance Blair first described as bad, later better (3-6) |
| TWO-LEGGED – a reference to Animal Farm, as explained here. Blair of course wrote as George Orwell. | |
| 16 | For viewers, it’s comical to inhale flies (8) |
| IOLANTHE – anagram (flies) of TO INHALE. | |
| 19 | Insufficient care of people probed by Times (6) |
| LAXITY – LAITY probed by X. | |
| 21 | Work exploit raised huge cuts (5) |
| TOSCA – OS cuts TCA (ACT, raised). | |
| 23 | Almost from the start, English on high (5) |
| ABOVE – AB OVo + E. “Ab ovo” means “from the start” (literally, “from the egg”). I think we must have met it here before, but it took a while to remember! | |
49.38 I was stuck for fifteen minutes at the end on IOLANTHE and ABOVE. The former was obvious once I realised it was an anagram and I biffed the latter because the pangram needed a V. The penny dropped several days later when I checked my solution. I did like “where one might look up who”. Thanks branch.
This took me a long time, though I can’t remember why. NHO AGATEWARE. I biffed BOW-LEGGED (B for Blair), but soon enough corrected it. I liked PIQUANCY.
I spent 72 minutes on this but only completed the grid after using aids to find PIQUANCY, AGATEWARE and CRO-MAGNON with the last of these being completely unknown.
I missed the first bit of wordplay in AMBUSH and had no idea what was going on in ABOVE.
Likewise hadn’t heard of AGATEWARE, but it sounded more likely than AVENTWARE and AWAVENTKE which also parsed. I was also mystified by ABOVE, but I had the AB part as “from” in “from the start”: AB INITIO, so there was little alternative.
It was a pangram, and unusually this time it helped as I was looking for somewhere to put the missing V
27mins
Had to check that 22a NHO agateware existed.
1d Major Barbara was in a trilogy. I was supposed to be studying The Devil’s Disciple from the same book for O-level Eng Lang, but read Major B and Saint Joan instead. Grade 5. (7 8 & 9 were fails).
7d Cro-Magnon just didn’t come to me; cheated.
13d Bernstein; whilst cheating failed to find a German Bernstein who fitted, but noticed that Max Ernst was missing from Cheating Machine. I seem to remember that he was befriended by Peggy Guggenheim when she was seeking cheap art in France when both were overtaken by WWII.
16d Iolanthe; missed the anagrind for ages.
23d Above. Thought NHO “ab ovo” while checking the biff, but found it in CM so HHO.
HHO 🙂
DNF, in fact more like NNF (Nowhere Near Finishing) – didn’t get PIQUANCY, AGATEWARE, BEDSITTING ROOM, QUIZ SHOW, ANTSY, CRO-MAGNON, TWO-LEGGED, IOLANTHE, TOSCA or ABOVE. Also relied on wordplay for MAJOR BARBARA.
Thanks branch and setter.
COD Bedsitting room
27.33
IOLANTHE and AGATEWARE LOIs, otherwise reasonably smooth solve. Thanks Bruce and setter
Thank you for the blog.
There was an ABOVE/Ab ovo clue on a Saturday puzzle 4 months ago – and I think you made a similar comment back then!
I’m still getting used to living people appearing in the puzzle: John Major and (arguably) George Bush this time. A fortnight ago we needed to know about David Cameron being a life peer.
I think this rather put me off when trying to work out 15d. Although Animal Farm references crop up quite frequently, I found myself researching the history of the “Tony Blair Faith Foundation” in relation to the “Tony Blair Institute for Global Change”.