Time: 20.26
I don’t whether this is the same setter who composed the puzzle I blogged two Wednesdays ago, but there is a similar conciseness and smoothness to the clues. One obscurity and a couple of clues which might fall into the “solve and then re-engineer” category, but plenty of gentle ones and overall I would say this was another excellent example of the setter’s art. For those who keep an eye on such things we are close to a pangram but without a Q.
Twenty minutes for me suggests it is broadly middle-of-the-road in terms of difficulty, though we’ll see how near or far from the wavelength I was when some other times come in.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Dessert wine’s disturbing repercussion (10) |
| AFTERSHOCK – Plenty of synonyms for dessert and wine to choose from in Crosswordland. Here we need AFTERS and HOCK. | |
| 6 | Characters regularly appearing in Shanghai Story (4) |
| SAGA – Gentle one to get things going in Tyneside. | |
| 9 | Report of a barbarous gathering (7) |
| ACCRUAL – There is always a homophone alert once “report” appears in a clue, and here we have another way of saying “a cruel”. | |
| 10 | Get to mislead with Republican replacing Democrat (7) |
| RECEIVE – And “replacing” alerts us to a substitution clue. R is one type of American politician which stands in for another (D) in a word for mislead (“deceive”). | |
| 12 | Doctor left a grand residence (6,4) |
| GARDEN FLAT – In one’s solving journey, once you have clocked that “doctor” can be an anagram indicator it seems to turn up a fair bit (as well all the other abbreviations and synonyms for a medical person). The anagram letters are (LEFT A GRAND) giving us a very smooth surface. | |
| 13 | Some kimono binder? (3) |
| OBI – A hidden and “All in one” clue where the clue is both wordplay and definition . | |
| 15 | Helicopter swiftly circling hospital (6) |
| APACHE – My LOI. Swiftly is APACE which goes around H for hospital. | |
| 16 | Article put out on home brewing (2,3,3) |
| IN THE AIR – I loved this one. Believable surface; no word wasted; and a nice misleading reference to brewing in the clue. The word play is THE for article and AIR for “put out” following (on) IN for “home”. | |
| 18 | Granite mixed with sulphur: it won’t react (5,3) |
| INERT GAS – “Mixed” is our anagram indicator, with GRANITE and S for sulphur comprising the anagrist. | |
| 20 | Surrounded by 500 in a film (6) |
| AMIDST – Film here isn’t our favourite ET but A MIST which goes around D as the Roman numeral for 500. | |
| 23 | Pickpocket departs with as little money as possible (3) |
| DIP – D is an accepted abbreviation for “departs” from transportation timetables to which we add 1P (one pence) as the smallest denomination of currency in the UK. Setters must have been rejoicing when the old half pence was discontinued in 1984. | |
| 24 | Magnificent: the writer’s gift-wrapped volume? (10) |
| IMPRESSIVE – “The writer’s” could be both IM and IVE. Here it is the former and is followed by the rather clever “PRESSIVE” for “gift-wrapped volume”. Well done if you saw this part of the wordplay before the definition – it is PRESSIE for “gift” which “wraps” V for volume. | |
| 26 | One cracking old joke cheers prickly sort (7) |
| OPUNTIA – My obscurity. I don’t like to make assumptions about all you wonderful folks out there but I suspect it might be an obscurity for others as well. To be fair the wordplay is very generous (I inside (cracking) O + PUN + TA) but my knowledge was so lacking I thought I was looking for some sort of beast, and not the prickly pear cactus for which OPUNTIA is the “proper” name. | |
| 27 | One from Plotinus might be unspoilt (7) |
| ANAGRAM – I’m not 100% certain which part of the clue to underline as the literal but as “Plotinus” is an ANAGRAM of “unspoilt”, the answer is clear. Reading up about Plotinus it appears that “The One” was a key part of his neoplatonic philosophy being an “utterly simple, ineffable…unknowable subsistence” (thank you Wiki) so I’ll make this another “All in one” clue. Slightly chastening that I did Greek A-Level with plenty of Plato but had never heard of this chap. | |
| 28 | What will increase circulation, rather like a senior journalist? (4) |
| EDDY – If you are like an editor, you are EDDY (geddit?). That sort of circulation. | |
| 29 | Support prior to defeat somewhat inferior (6-4) |
| SECOND-BEST – SECOND can be a synonym for “support” and likewise BEST for “defeat”. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Juliet in sober group with kiss for hero (4) |
| AJAX – “Juliet” gives us J from the NATO alphabet which goes inside AA being our “sober group”. X as our kiss rounds off the wordplay. | |
| 2 | Rapid work from man in worn coat (7) |
| TOCCATA – I was slightly puzzled by this as such types of composition probably are always pretty fast-fingered in my experience but I didn’t realise that generally that is necessary for them to be a TOCCATA. As for the wordplay, I could see we needed an anagram (worn) of “coat” around a word for “man” but CAT for the latter is most certainly crossword speak (though naturally supported by the dictionaries as a slang synonym). I like a smooth surface, so I am not complaining. | |
| 3 | Crazed dance after drinks (5,3,5) |
| ROUND THE TWIST – THE TWIST is our dance and we’ve all bought a ROUND of drinks. We’ve probably all experienced the literal as well … | |
| 4 | Disheartened Greek woman (6) |
| HELENE – Greek A-Level helping here to identify HELLENE as a Greek which you then “dishearten” by taking the middle letter (L) out. Helena was tempting but couldn’t be parsed. | |
| 5 | Horse-drawn transport and saddle for romantic writer (8) |
| CARTLAND – CART + LAND. The latter is a synonym for “saddle” in the sense of “impose”. | |
| 7 | Song about endless division in state (7) |
| ARIZONA – An endless division is ZON(E) around which goes an ARIA. | |
| 8 | Improve American energy after raising oil price (10) |
| AMELIORATE – This is AM + E + a reversal of OIL + RATE. On that basis, “after” must require you to draw breath after “American energy” and then put RATE after raising OIL. | |
| 11 | Copper on wagon tried drinking new wine to meet expectations (3,3,7) |
| CUT THE MUSTARD – This is one of a couple you will probably biff and parse post solve. MUST is “new wine” which goes inside HEARD for “tried” and follows CU + TT (teetotal = “on the wagon”). | |
| 14 | No X in Mr RM Nixon? There’s one! (10) |
| PALINDROME – I was rather slow to see this, but it’s obvious when you do that the first part of the clue is indeed a PALINDROME. | |
| 17 | Deviate from course over Channel in Eurofighter? (8) |
| WARPLANE – WARP is to “deviate from course” and LANE is a type of channel. Eurofighter is a type of fighter jet. | |
| 19 | Pass comment where animals were once held? (7) |
| EXPOUND – I guess that if you can have an EX parrot you can have an EX POUND? (With thanks to Monty Python). | |
| 21 | Seabird for example about to take different direction (7) |
| DIVERGE – DIVER + a reversal (about) of EG (for example). | |
| 22 | For something sweet, come together at Oval? (6) |
| GELATO – GEL (come together) + AT + O. We regularly have O for “round” but I am not sure I have seen “oval” providing the same letter. Arguably an O is closer to an oval than a circle. | |
| 25 | Salacious material has stomachs turning (4) |
| SMUT – A reversal of TUMS. | |
Brilliant blog
Thank you
You can delete this message (click on ‘edit’).
Indeed though I had Express rather than expound which put me off for a few minutes.
Brilliant blog
I liked the palindrome
Thank you
25:26 but
once again I failed to notice a typo until it was lit up in pink, as I continue my progress down the leaderboard. DNK ROUND THE TWIST, so looked it up s.v. TWIST. Or TWIWT. I knew, or thought I knew OPUNTA [sic], found out how to spell it once I realized I needed a letter. I liked IN THE AIR.
15:59 – agree with blogger about the conciseness. All Wednesday crosswords should be on a par with this – it just oozed class and wasn’t over-taxing while being very satisfying. COD to ACCRUAL!
16:22
Mostly very quick, until the last few, where it was only when looking more closely at the impenetrable 14d that I saw Nixon backwards – PALINDROME fortuitously giving the first letters of each of the remaining answers needed – APACHE, the horrible OPUNTIA (who names these things?!) and the tentative EDDY.
Thanks D and setter
I’m usually OK with plants but LOI OPUNTIA was a painful construction. POI was PALINDROME. Tricky Dicky indeed. We now live in the garden flat of an apartment block, not that that was any help. Nor was knowing that Plotinus was a philosopher who followed Plato.I went up a few blind alleys today, but that’s what makes a puzzle enjoyable, provided you get there in the end. I did. Thank you D and setter.
Very enjoyable but I used aids for 17dn thinking that I was expected to know a Eurofighter other than the Typhoon. I was missing the third checker at the time so that didn’t help. At least the A provided by the look-up enabled me to work out the unknown cactus from wordplay.
Terrific puzzle, great blog, thanks both. I was held up by OPUNTIA and APACHE and puzzled by CUT THE MUSTARD, but got there in 30 flat.
From Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You:
Is it really any wonder
The love that a stranger might RECEIVE?
You cast your spell and I went under
I find it so difficult to leave
13:08 but with a sloppy HELENA (which sounds like a pizza).
I was looking at Greek destinations only yesterday. Bah.
If you can’t make any sense at all of a clue in a conventional manner the answer is probably anagram. Or palindrome, it now seems.
Thanks S&B.
Put me down for a HELENA too. I was hoping HELLENA was another name for a Greek woman. I’d never heard of HELENE as a name except in French e.g. La Belle Helene, and I’m sure its got some accents somewhere in it.
8:03. Yes that was very neat and tidy, and enjoyable.
OPUNTIA rang a vague bell and sure enough it has come up before, albeit not for a few years.
I’ve seen this ANAGRAM trick a few times now. It used to catch me out every time but I seem to have got wiser to it. The similar PALINDROME trick ought to be easier to spot but it took me a while.
I’ve been unable to post comments here using my laptop for some time now. I get the message ‘Not acceptable!’. Rather annoying.
I’ve no problems on two laptops, a phone and the desktop, so the odds are it is a problem with your machine, K. Look up the page info, clear cache, try giving the page a few more permissions eg for popups, keyboard shortcuts, cookies etc, see what happens..
31 minutes. Very good and just the way to wind down from yesterday’s toughie. Loved the PALINDROME and ANAGRAM clues plus the OBI &lit. The word OPUNTIA at least rang a bell but I couldn’t remember any details and it would count as an obscurity for me too.
Thanks to Dvynys and setter
16.00, with a self-inflicted hold-up created by SECOND RATE, and time taken to spot the two crossword item clues PALINDROME and UNSPOILT, both brilliant and creative. My enjoyment (and, after yesterday, relief) of the crossword was enhanced by Dvynys’ entertaining and informative blog, so a quality day all round, demonstrating that a puzzle doesn’t have to be impenetrable to display the setter’s high art.
“A man, a plan, a canal -Suez!”
This is one of my favourite conversation starters, although the conversations seem to be very short.
I liked the crossword. I thought OPUNTIA was well-known, I like visiting hothouses. WARPLANE was LOI, I pray that it never comes to that.
16’36”, thanks dvynys and setter.
28 mins. Another slow off the mark day but all down to me because this was a corker.
Loved the PALINDROME and ANAGRAM clues, HELENE and many more. I hope this setter has not used all their best tricks in one go, like a band’s first album where they have years of material built up, the second is never as good. Exceptions welcome.
Thanks Dvynys and setter.
26:55 A lovely puzzle. I liked the combination of ANAGRAM and PALINDROME; I always think of these as sort of meta-clues and enjoy being confounded by them. Didn’t know OPUNTIA but it was well- clued.
I needed Dvynys to fully explain CUT THE MUSTARD
I’ve never read any of her books but my favourite CARTLAND titles “Stand and deliver your love”, “The earl rings a belle”, “Temptation of a teacher”.
Thanks to Dvynys and the setter
I enjoyed very much. It could have been so quick, too, but for PALINDROME, OPUNTIA and WARPLANE, which slowed me down for several minutes at the end.
I’m not sure I would have got PALINDROME if it’s cousin-clue ANAGRAM hadn’t been in the puzzle. Those were my two CODs, particularly as they came as a pair.
I couldn’t finish this and thought it was much more difficult than yesterday’s ‘toughie’, which I sailed through.
Thanks, D.
I had the exact opposite experience.
My thanks to Dvynys and setter.
Well, a big improvement on yesterday’s Terrible Tuesday which was too hard for me.
15a POI Apache, had forgotten this machine.
24a Impressive biffed. Clever!
26a Opuntia. I used to keep prickly pears etc, so not obscure to me. I was surprised to see it though.
2d Toccata, I know nothing about music, but had a vague idea a toccata might be fast. I have heard of someone’s toccata and fugue, which foxes me a bit as a fugue sounds slow. I see it isn’t necessarily.
8d Ameliorate biffed. I could see bits and pieces of the clue in the answer and that was good enough for me.
11d Cut The Mustard. To be picky must isn’t new wine, it is what you ferment to make wine, so it is incipient rather than new. Not that it matters.
Middling for me today compared to easy and hard earlier in the week. I really enjoyed this one; thanks setter and blogger; great blog.
Nice puzzle and great blog. Was going well but final two beat me, even with all those checkers. I thought WARPLANE was going to be E-something (for Eurofighter). And tried to thing of Greeks who needed to be disheartened, but didn’t get to Hellene.
COD ACCRUAL
Was unaware that a toccata was rapid. The most (?) famous one, Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D, isn’t particularly rapid I think. And warp = deviate from course in 17dn seemed odd: if something is warped, it isn’t on a course or journey. But these are minor criticisms. The chorus of approval for this one suggests that people don’t particularly care whether a crossword is easy or hard: they’re mainly concerned with the quality of the clueing. Which seems to be what the editor has realised — we don’t now have an apparently uninterrupted sequence of stinkers.
From AJAX to WARPLANE in 30:05. Held up in the SW with PALINDROME and OPUNTIA taking ages to see. ANAGRAM took a while too. Nice puzzle. Thanks setter and Dvynys.
21:49 – a bit slow in the SW, although OPUNTIA was a write-in. WARPLANE was last one in and I am still not sure what is distinctly European about it. I assume it is meant to buttress up the Channel part of the clue, which seems a bit unfocused.
Didn’t know TOCCATA and despite seeing the word play Sam was not the man we were after. Doesn’t matter anyway as I fell into the HELENA trap.
ANAGRAM and PALINDROME I failed to spot both until the checking letters pretty much forced it.
ACCRUAL doesn’t work in my accent
COD DIP
Thanks blogger and setter
Very nice puzzle
I was a bit unlucky a I put ‘accrued’ which works almost as well as the actual answer ACCRUAL (also not a good homophone in my accent). I also BIFD ‘Antarctica’ for 1A as I foolishly mistook ‘dessert’ for ‘desert’ and it fitted the crossers I had which made 4D doubly impossible. I also failed to get WARPLANE too. Overall a thoroughly enjoyable middle difficulty puzzle though, I’d say.
An excellent puzzle, and a fine blog to accompany it.
I have an OPUNTIA (plus 2 other cacti and two succulents) on my windowsill. They need very little attention, so are ideal for unenergetic me.
Didn’t know the helicopter, but it seemed obvious enough once the checkers were in.
My pangram alarm went off when I reached ARIZONA, but the setter was teasing us with that one.
FOI AFTERSHOCK
LOI WARPLANE
COD ACCRUAL
TIME 9:17
DNF, with HELENA rather than HELENE. I acknowledge sloppiness on my part, but I’m still slightly annoyed about it – if we’re going to have ‘woman’ or ‘man’ cluing any name, that name should surely at least be an English one (though someone may well now come along and point me in the direction of a well-known woman from an Anglophone country called Helene).
No other problems, though OPUNTIA was constructed from wordplay alone.
Thanks Dvynys and setter.
COD Cut the mustard
Very enjoyable puzzle with about three quarters completed in the end.
Never heard of “opuntia” nor “toccata” and like “palindrome” (now that it has been kindly explained!).
With thanks to both our setter and blogger.
No time. I got through some of it fairly quickly but became unstuck in the SW corner. Then had some errands to do. All became clear when I returned, doesn’t it always? I suspect somewhat quicker than previous two days.
Happy to see toccata as I have no musical background other than listening. Needed APACHE to see POI PALINDROME from which I could construct the LOI/NHO plant. Thankfully stuck with HELENE after parsing, though Helena is a much more obvious name.
Thanks Dvynys and setter
Sneaky reveal of ACCRUAL (very nice) and HELENE (doh) otherwise all completed fairly quickly for me. Needed the blog to understand the parsing of IMPRESSIVE. NHO must wine (I have now), nor OPUNTIA. Many thanks for the blog. Enjoyable.
Yes, liked this (and the nice blog).
Wikipedia has oodles of Helenes, but virtually none of them British.
Knew the word opuntia, but couldn’t possibly identify it unless Mrs W was there to help.
Another happy camper – excellent crossword, and a splendid blog, too.
Very much on wavelength today, with WARPLANE flung in to (just) make a very rare sub-10, which would have been great except for TOCCADA: very much not a typo, just me getting my CADS and my CATS mixed up with my TOSTADAS and my TOCCATAS (with possibly a bit more influence from my CICADAS than my STACCATOS). Other than that, lovely all round – thanks setter and D.
Very nice. LOI OPUNTIA… of course!
Well I had to come here again just to record 9:34!!!! My first sub 10 minutes ever!!!
I know that was a really easy puzzle but still…
I started to see I was in with a chance, and was getting really nervous as the end approached, got PALINDROME then ANAGRAM, then WARPLANE, then finally with a trembling finger (I do these on my phone) I needed an alphabet trawl for GELATO and luckily it was G and not Z!!!
Thanks setter!!
Well done
Another brilliant crossword and I agree it looks like the same setter as last Wednesday. Beautiful, concise, satisfying clues.
Unfortunately, unlike last week, I really struggled today – blaming a sleepy post golf afternoon.
Thx D and setter
I usually start the week reasonably well and then struggle, for obvious reasons. This week I started really badly so was relieved to complete this today. Not surprisingly I thought it was fun, particularly PALINDROME for which I needed all the crossers before the penny dropped. Was most worried about HELENE having toyed with HELENA for a while.
FOI SAGA
LOI WARPLANE
Nice puzzle. Failed on GELATO clue. Thinking it was a hidden, I bunged in HERATO, and didn’t check before submission.
Needed a bit of dictionary inspiration to get AFTERSHOCK and ACCRUAL.
My crossword rehab is coming along. The standard seems tougher than 18 months ago, but it could be my brain is 18 months older!
Another fine puzzle. 23 mins, no real hold-ups, no strangers in the grid, though I had to dredge my memory for OPUNTIA (my late mother was a keen cactus collector). First one in was AJAX, last WARPLANE, which took a couple of mins to crack. I liked the idea of ANAGRAM and PALINDROME + examples appearing in the same grid. I think a TOCCATA can justifiedly be called a ‘rapid work’ as it shows off the performer’s virtuosity, i.e. mainly how fast they can play. My favourite clues: to AFTERSHOCK (brilliant wordplay), ROUND THE TWIST (actress Susan Hampshire’s mother taught me that dance 65 years ago) and PALINDROME (clever and funny). Thank you to Setter and Blogger.
I would echo all the positive comments, more of this quality please! Hilariously I failed to see ANAGRAM. Thanks for the blog.