Time: 25:21, so a challenging piece as far as I’m concerned, though full of delights and flashes of sudden realisation. I’d like to say, as a proper blogger, that I worked everything out as I went through. I’ll let Sir Humphrey comment on the accuracy of that.
This was my first experience of using the excellent new blog creator, which works seamlessly with less faff than the old version. We are blessed with people who know what they’re doing when messing about with computerese!
My habit is to show definitions underlined in italics, and to let the rest try to explain itself.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Excellent bishop that’s retired put to work since (7) |
| BECAUSE – Excellent is ACE, add B[ishop] and reverse the ensemble, then add put to work: USE | |
| 5 | Find Charlie back before Henry has left (4,2) |
| COME BY – I think this is C[harlie] plus HOME BY, which you expect your children to be “back before”, with the initial H for Henry deleted. | |
| 8 | Try to get shiny gem with discount? (3) |
| RUB – Select RUBY as your gem, and knock off the 25% as a discount. (Remove the Y!) | |
| 9 | Small quantity of ink left in well (10) |
| SPRINKLING – Don’t waste time thinking of a synonym for INK. Just put it in a SPRING or well after supplementing it with an L[eft] | |
| 11 | Fine pointer that’s showing north west (6) |
| NARROW – So much time lost trying to make FARROW work, but it’s ARROW for pointer with N[orth] placed at its west end. | |
| 12 | Fail to find gallery, say in error (8) |
| MISSTATE – An easy one: MISS for fail to find and TATE the inevitable gallery. | |
| 14 | Spying device in place across area revealing behaviour (9) |
| SATELLITE – Post submission solve: SITE for place is positioned round A[rea] plus TELL for revealing behaviour, such as Le Chiffre consistently placing his left hand on his wounded eye when bluffing in Casino Royal. | |
| 15 | Beautifully cut patch with a hole in it? (5) |
| GREEN – Just a CD. Reference golf (of) course. | |
| 16 | Nifty pseudonym such as Dr Dre? (5) |
| RAPID – Dr Dre is Andre Young, a rapper formerly with N.W.A. a combo which featured gangsta rap with explicit and violent lyrics. As such his the pseudonym is his RAP I.D. For me, a rarer meaning of nifty. | |
| 18 | Publican’s offering class A drugs to Spooner (5,4) |
| GUEST BEER – Pubs specialising in real ale will offer, as well as theiir usual beverages, such a temporary delight. Spooner would misrepresent it as BEST GEAR, loosely translated as class A drugs | |
| 20 | Confused at lingo on one engraved stone (8) |
| INTAGLIO – An anagram (confused) of AT LINGO plus I (one) | |
| 22 | Picture frames likely to burn, touching light (6) |
| PHOTIC – Touching meaning concerning, or about. Picture is just PIC, providing a frame for HOT, likely to burn. | |
| 24 | Celebrity on principle is most demanding type (10) |
| MAXIMALIST – The A-LIST is the elite group of celebrities, and it’s a bit of a push to match celebrity to ALIST, but the intention is clear. Tack it onto MAXIM for principle. | |
| 25 | A lack of finale for sluggish drama (3) |
| NOH – Japanese theatre, as if you didn’t know. So we have NO [sluggis]H | |
| 26 | Thin male bore (6) |
| MEAGRE – M[ale] plus EAGRE, a rising tide such as the one that surges up the Severn estuary. | |
| 27 | Side with props providing little support in drained fountain (7) |
| FIFTEEN – That’s a Rugby Union side, props being front row member of the scrum. Providing is IF, a little support TEE, enclosed in F[ountai]N minus its contents | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Live Wagnerian opera’s characteristic cold sound (6,6) |
| BERING STRAIT – Sound as in a stretch of sea, in this case between Alaska and Siberia. Live is BE, Wagner’s (series of) opera(s) the RING (include the ‘S) and characteristic is TRAIT. Assemble and respace. | |
| 2 | Show taxi ranks combined over the radio? (7) |
| CABARET – Aural wordplay of CAB ARRAY, taxi ranks. | |
| 3 | Doctor beginning to puncture delusion, as nice as it was (9) |
| UNSPOILED – An anagram (doctor) of P[uncture] and DELUSION. | |
| 4 | Make the sound of an eagle (4) |
| EARN – An alternative for eagle is ERNE. More aural wordplay. | |
| 5 | Clubs the right place for goalscorers, left-winger thought (10) |
| CONSIDERED – C[lubs] plus the position goalscorers have to be in if VAR is going to allow their effort, which is ONSIDE. Add RED for left-winger, unless you’re American, in which case it would be a Republican. | |
| 6 | Look pleased putting second last number on the clock (5) |
| MILES – The clock in this instance the mileometer in a vehicle. Look pleased: SMILE, put the S[econd] last. | |
| 7 | This put a stop to wound leaking in the morning? (7) |
| BANDAGE – This took some working out, though I think it works as an &lit. Put a stop to is BAN, wound leads you to DAMAGE, from which you “leak” the AM, morning. | |
| 10 | Composer associated with Hallelujah once, Handel or other? (7,5) |
| LEONARD COHEN – His song came to greater notice when it featured in the original Shrek. Here it’s an anagram (other) of ONCE HANDEL OR, courteously reminding us of the version in Handel’s Messiah. | |
| 13 | Walk to church, perhaps large building full of ghastly silver (10) |
| PILGRIMAGE – The large building is a PILE. Insert GRIM AG for ghastly silver. | |
| 15 | Contrive to lose snap? (3,4,2) |
| GET SHOT OF – I’ll call this a double definition. | |
| 17 | Recipe that expressly includes particular intolerance (3,4) |
| PET HATE – It’s taken me until now to realise this is extremely well hidden, in reciPE THAT Expressly. I couldn’t understand how to find PEE… | |
| 19 | Easy compact net’s middle and sides given alternating pattern (7) |
| ENTENTE – The middle of net is E, the sides NT. Alternate the two objects. Clever – don’t think I’ve seen this conceit before. | |
| 21 | One wears medal about to be sold at auction (5) |
| GOING – I (one) has GONG for medal enrobing it. The auctioneer’s familiar “going, going, gone”. | |
| 23 | Attack retreating force showing little fight (4) |
| TIFF – An attack is a FIT. Reverse it and add F[orce] | |
Thanks to Zabadak and setter.
I’ve put my paper down somewhere, probably at the tyre centre. Bother. Managed to finish without cheating (except for looking up NHO Dr Dre on Google to confirm rap in Rapid) but it was a bit tricksy in parts I thought, tricky Thursday I suppose. I’m pretty sure I’ve claimed NHO Dr Dre before….
25a Noh, biffed. I was looking for a 4 letter word and drop the last, but failed so I biffed it.
6d Miles, tricky use of second with its two meanings.
7d Bandage, I looked at this for ages, shrugged, moved on. Big biff.
10a Leonard C; Had forgot he had a hallelujah so big PDM. Did watch Shrek so don’t know why I don’t remember it being there.
15d Get Shot Of. Correctly parsed at the time; when I read the blog I thought “how is that = snap?” Doh! Short term memory AGAIN.
19d Entente, Cor blimey. Biff.
35 mins. I really enjoyed this one, especially GUEST BEER and GREEN, which was a lovely straightforward surface only once you’d got it! My favourite kind.
That was hard but I got there in the end with LOI MILES (which I was being too clever about thinking that the last number on the odometer is tenths-of-a-mile meaninng the second last was miles). Too far too long trying to get GREAT BEAR out of my head for GUEST BEER. Also went for DETENTE for.a time but then no word would fit for BEER. Some of these clues took a lot of working out how they worked but then things were obvious suddenly.
The left half went in in about 10 minutes. The right half took considerably longer. Thank you for Home By, Z. With Dr Dre lurking around all I could see was Home Boy, which made no sense at all.
Kudos to Entente.
33.52
Doing it so late, I wondered whether I was just very tired but no, it was a toughie. Got there in the end, mainly parsed. LEONARD COHEN was great; as was GUEST BEER (I love a Spoonerism).
Fine blog; fine puzzle.
Superb puzzle imho. Tough but all fairly clued. Deceiving so many – including me – with a hidden is quite a feat. I even like the CD GREEN when the penny dropped. About an hour, half completed last night and finished this morning with a strong coffee
Several days later …. I saw this had a high Snitch so was ready for a challenge. Got through in 22’34”. A splendid puzzle — I agree with all the plaudits higher up. GREEN was exceptional, and BANDAGE was unparseable — until I read the blog! Many thanks.
Thanks setter and Zabadak
Only got to this months after UK publication and was pleased to be able to complete a high-rated puzzle in just over the hour, albeit with one error with the unparsed GET SHUT OF (so obvious in hindsight with the photo / shot definition) – it is still not a phrase that I am overly familiar with. Also fluffed the second part of the wordplay of CABARET – but everything else was all accounted for. Thought that the clue for LEONARD COHEN was top notch and also enjoyed GUEST BEER (another unfamiliar term until looking it up). Started with EARN and finished with the ill-fated GET SHOT OF, GREEN (neat cd) and MAXIMALIST the last one in.