After getting off to a flying start and completing around three-quarters of the grid I slowed right down and ended up making a dog’s breakfast of the remainder.
I had two outliers unsolved in the bottom row but the other five problem clues formed an interlinked chain of answers at 8dn, 14ac, 18ac,15dn and 24ac. Eventually I broke the impasse by revealing one of them and that did the trick. I also revealed one of the outliers. Pleased that at least I’d got to the end eventually I failed to check the parsing at 8dn where I had misremembered the writer’s name and had one letter wrong.
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]. “Aural wordplay” is in quotation marks. I usually omit all reference to juxtaposition indicators unless there is a specific point that requires clarification.
 Across |
|
| 1 | Returning show restricted by extremely corny humour (6) |
| COMEDY | |
| DEMO (show) reversed [returning] contained [restricted] by C{orn}Y [extremely] | |
| 4 | Name a soft drink containing a hint of orange (7) |
| APPOINT | |
| A, P (soft), PINT (drink) containing O{range} [a hint of…] | |
| 9 | Spice Girl accompanying a legendary soprano (5) |
| MELBA | |
| MEL B (Spice Girl), A. Dame Nellie Melba. | |
| 10 | Call into question opinion given by magazine? (4,5) |
| TAKE ISSUE | |
| TAKE (opinion), ISSUE (magazine) | |
| 11 | A way of identifying weapon immediately (2,1,6) |
| AT A GLANCE | |
| A, TAG (way of identifying), LANCE (weapon) | |
| 12 | Collection of books covering standard, illusionary works (2,3) |
| OP ART | |
| OT (collection of books – Old Testament) containing [covering] PAR (standard) | |
| 13 | Instrument does maybe turn around (4) |
| REED | |
| REED (does, maybe) reversed [turn around]. The reeds are a subdivision of the woodwind family of instruments, the most common being the clarinet, oboe, bassoon and saxophone. | |
| 14 | Teacher fabricated rubbish about God (3,7) |
| THE CREATOR | |
| Anagram [fabricated] of TEACHER, then ROT (rubbish) reversed [about]. I took far too long to find this one. | |
| 18 | Bird of course mostly seen in wild gardens (10) |
| SANDERLING | |
| LIN{e} (course) [mostly] contained by [seen in] anagram [wild] of GARDENS. I wondered if the shortened course might be LIN{k} as in a golf course, but I’ve only met that meaning in the plural. The bird has appeared here only once before, in a 15×15 I blogged in 2018. I didn’t know it then but it was clued as a pure anagram and easier to work out than today’s wordplay. |
|
| 20 | Parsnip oddly lacking flavour at first? Yeah, right! (2,2) |
| AS IF | |
| {p}A{r}S{n} I{p} [oddly lacking], F{lavour} [at first] | |
| 23 | Empty spaces in front of Tate taken on by an esteemed artist (5) |
| ANTRA | |
| T{ate} [front of…] contained [taken on by] AN + RA (esteemed artist). Before I had checkers I toyed with ATRIA here for a while but the wordplay saved me from myself. Antrum is a cavity in bones or a part of the stomach. | |
| 24 | Bachelor being slimy and being inclined to insobriety (9) |
| BOOZINESS | |
| B (Bachelor), OOZINESS (being slimy) | |
| 25 | Helicopter shortly to be scrambled for law enforcers (3,6) |
| THE POLICE | |
| Anagram [scrambled] of HELICOPTE{r}. I felt the setter was playing with us here as a slang word for helicopter is ‘eggbeater’. | |
| 26 | Demonstrated, perhaps, what couturiers may use (5) |
| SATIN | |
| SAT IN (demonstrated) | |
| 27 | Continue to obtain cheap Aussie wine from here? (4,3) |
| GOON BAG | |
| GO ON (continue), BAG (obtain). This was one of my two outliers. NHO, but I eventually managed it from wordplay and entered it with crossed fingers. Goonbag – Australian informal – the plastic bladder inside a box of (usually cheap) wine. | |
| 28 | Deadhead ultimately invested in excellent selection of albums? (2,4) |
| CD RACK | |
| {deadhea}D [ultimately] contained by [invested in] CRACK (excellent). My other outlier for which I eventually resorted to aids as I never considered the possibility that the two letter element may be an abbreviation. | |
| Down |
|
| 1 | Guy friends draw parallels between adopting daughter and son (9) |
| COMPADRES | |
| COMPARE (draw parallels between) containing [adopting] D (daughter), then S (son). Although the answer was write-in I puzzled a while when preparing the blog over the presence of ‘guy’. A little research reveals that a ‘compadre’ is specifically a male friend, and the female equivalent is ‘comadre’. One lives and learns! Amusing, given that in English the term ‘guys’ no longer necessarily makes that distinction. | |
| 2 | Virile guards fighting Trojan? (7) |
| MALWARE | |
| MALE (virile) contains [guards] WAR (fighting). A DBE. | |
| 3 | Departs too soon, at significant cost (6) |
| DEARLY | |
| D (departs), EARLY (too soon) | |
| 4 | Racehorse runs into lake, uncontrollably (5) |
| ARKLE | |
| R (runs) contained by [into] anagram [uncontrollably] of LAKE. Arkle won three Cheltenham Gold Cups and a number of other top races before his career was cut short by injury in1966. | |
| 5 | Ready to keep on getting corrupted (8) |
| POISONED | |
| POISED (ready) containing [to keep] ON | |
| 6 | Time for a quick coffee? (7) |
| INSTANT | |
| Two meanings | |
| 7 | Action of lifting the foot (5) |
| THEFT | |
| THE, FT (foot) | |
| 8 | Writer gets rising pulse (8) |
| STENDHAL | |
| NETS (gets) reversed [rising], DHAL (pulse). My LOI and I was careless here. After really struggling with this clue I thought I remembered a writer called Stenthal so I bunged it in, parsed ‘gets / NETS’ and assumed the rest of it fitted somehow. I know nothing of the man’s works. | |
| 15 | Cheered up after games machine finally arrived (8) |
| CONSOLED | |
| CONSOLE (games machine), {arrive}D [finally]. This should have been easy but I was looking for something more specific for a games machine, possibly a brand name that everyone but me would know. | |
| 16 | Dissident about to join family heading north (9) |
| REFUSENIK | |
| RE (about), FUSE (join), then KIN (family) [heading north] | |
| 17 | Love in Macbeth represented great sacrifice (8) |
| HECATOMB | |
| 0 (love) contained by [in] anagram [represented] of MACBETH. A word I knew but couldn’t have told you what it meant. |
|
| 19 | Emissions target number set up. It means nothing! (3,4) |
| NET ZERO | |
| TEN (number) reversed [set up], ZERO (it means nothing) | |
| 21 | Colourful arrays of Bond baddies very nearly dead just before the end (7) |
| SPECTRA | |
| SPECTR{e} (James Bond baddies) [very nearly], {de}A{d} [just before the end – tricky!] | |
| 22 | Film, we’re told, wasn’t a hit (6) |
| MISSED | |
| Aural wordplay[we’re told]: “mist” (film) | |
| 23 | Type of suit that’s partially water-resistant, I guess (4-1) |
| ANTI-G | |
| Hidden in [partially] {water-resist}ANT I G{uess}. Collins: A garment for fliers and astronauts designed to exert pressure on the abdomen and thighs to prevent or retard the pooling of blood below the heart under the influence of excessive head-to-toe acceleration forces. | |
| 24 | Aerospace company dismissing old person (5) |
| BEING | |
| B{o}EING (aerospace company} [dismissing old] | |
Like Jack I got off to a flying start and then made a dog’s breakfast of the SW corner. Having dredged out the unknown STENDHAL and then remembered SANDERLING, I wrote out the anagrist for HECATOMB, which almost arrived after I entered the BAG bit of 27a, except that I parsed it correctly and then typed in MEGATOMB. What a plonker! It didn’t really matter though, as I’d plumped for GROW BAG by then. 4 pink squares. Bah Humbug! CDs are very popular among folk club guest artists, as they make more from selling one CD than from a plethora of downloads. I buy them and then load them into iTunes and from there to my phone to play in the car. Saves changing CDs while driving (I still have a CD player too!)
I used to regularly drive past Arkle and Foinaven on my way to Durness in Sutherland. Two spectacular mountains not far from Laxford Bridge and Ben Stack where Robin Cook met his doom. 32,45 for the puzzle with 2 errors. Thanks setter (Jalna, I presume from a previous comment) and Jack.
Unlike Arkle, I fell at the last fence, entering Ad Rack instead of CD Rack – how annoying – I still have a CD Rack!
Despite this fail, I enjoyed the puzzle.
Season’s greetings to all.
Spent 75 mins but did get there in the end. A few too many obscurities but otherwise some excellent misdirection and self-inflicted missing the point.
HECATOMB is one of those words only ever encountered in crosswords. I can remember it at least 3 times in here. The problem is that the dictionary web bots will find this page and log it as evidence that the word is still in use and we’ll be stuck with it.
DNF Undone by cd rack. I mistakenly decided excellent would be A and never shifted. Now I’m kicking myself as I got the rack bit. 38 mins of enjoyment spoilt by my stupid mistake.
Merry Xmas everyone.
Failed also with NHO GOON BAG, mainly because I assumed it was some kind of BIN, which made BEING rather difficult. 35 mins with a little help from my friends…
85 mins! Not my finest hour (and 25 mins). NW corner lulled me into a false sense of security. Parsed everything OK, but NHO goon bag or anti-G. Liked spectra, once I eventually solved it. CD rack was final solve – had been trying to fit something into ‘A-OK’ for ‘excellent’!
About 8 minutes with a break and the bird being the last one in. I had a laugh at GOON BAG – it’s an expression I’ve heard quite a bit in the last 10 or so years, and yesterday my brother texted me a picture of the box wines at an Italian supermarket with the caption “found the goon section”
42’00”
Steady progress, stayed on gamely.
Liked this lots. Fortunate to get a clear run; Arkle’s portrait hung in what Grandma Edith termed the Champions’ Room and sanderlings were also familiar. The goon bag was constructed and entered with glee; if it wasn’t an Oz term for something that contained, in some way, gut-rot grog, it should be !
I miss my CD rack; having transfered my Mozart piano concerti and various operas to a computer prior to travelling and living abroad, I never really heard them again. The cretinous software couldn’t keep the movements in the right order and then the hard disk failed and lost the lot anyway. They tell me this is progress.
Season’s Greetings to Jack et al, the setters who have saved my sanity in this trying year, and the legion of erudite contributors here.
I had another of my occasional goes at this. Failed on 11! No chance at all of getting the unknown GOON BAG, ANTRA or ANTI G and found several other clues absolutely bewildering.
DNF. After needing multiple attempts to get close to the finish line, I blotted my copybook with ‘primoned’ rather than POISONED… at least I wasn’t the only one.
– Took far too long to separate ‘soft’ and ‘drink’ in the clue for APPOINT
– SANDERLING was only vaguely known if at all
– Relied on the wordplay for ANTRA, and like Jack I considered ‘atria’ for a while
– Same story for the unknown GOON BAG
– Dimly remembered STENDHAL from I-have-no-idea-where
– Again like Jack, I couldn’t have told you what HECATOMB means
Thanks Jack and setter. And Merry Christmas everyone!
COD Appoint
This took some work – I got a lot of these from the definition and then backed into the construction, which is surprising considering how well-hidden or allusional many of the definitions were.
Best to everyone for a Happy and Healthy Christmas
33.27. Had to deduce ‘Goon Bag’ – an expression unknown to me – and did not like ‘CD Rack’.
Season’s Greetings to all.
I had grow bag which sort of fits. Arkle was kidnapped by the IRA
I think the kidnapped (horsenapped?) one was Shergar.
Finished this on August 15th (Italian bank holiday called ‘Ferragosto’), and even then with help.
Never heard of SANDERLING or ANTRA or GOON BAG (I put GROW BAG, but was suspicious as it did not parse).
I should never have got CDRACK, but pleased to get ANTI-G.
I had heard of The ARKLE racehorse.
As an Italian speaker, I was aware that COMPADRE had to refer to men only.
Only ever completed a Times crossword fully, with no aids, twice.
Yes.
Made a dog’s breakfast of this! NHO ARKLE, ANTRA, SANDERLING nor GOON BAG, despite residing in Oz for 60 years ( don’t think I’ll miss the latter). Sure, I got a few, but then again, too few to mention…regrets? Nah, the definitions were too obscure to make a stab at most of them. BOOZINESS? Surely not. Liked some of the shorter ones, like AS IF, SATIN and MELBA, oh and THEFT.
Roll on tomorrow.