Hello again. This crossword I thought was about average difficulty, but with a couple of clues I have had significant trouble parsing… perhaps they will come to me as I blog. What did you think?
I use the standard conventions like underlining the definition, CD for cryptic definition, DD for a double one, *(anargam) and so forth. Nho = “not heard of” and in case of need the Glossary is always handy
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Rugged old boy beset by fungal disease (6) |
| ROBUST – OB (old boy) in RUST, a fungal parasitic disease of plants. | |
| 4 | Hateful king denounced guards (8) |
| ACCURSED – R (Rex, king) | |
| 10 | State of lush fine brie typically sampled (9) |
| INEBRIETY – Hidden, as above. A cruciword. | |
| 11 | Sportsperson’s rank — first in England, right? (5) |
| ROWER – ROW (rank, tier) + E(ngland) + R(ight) | |
| 12 | Comedienne getting into costume leaves topper (6,8) |
| FRENCH DRESSING – (Dawn) FRENCH, comedienne, + DRESSING, getting into costume | |
| 14 | Pass on preference to have case of money removed (5) |
| REFER – (p)REFER(ence), ie the money encasing it is removed. | |
| 16 | Scandalmonger is one causing fight, so Spooner says (9) |
| MUCKRAKER – Spooner would allegedly say RUCKMAKER, someone causing fight. | |
| 18 | Old bits and bobs Carol’s gathering in mound (9) |
| SHILLINGS – HILL (mound) in SINGS, carols. Just a 5p piece nowadays, whose only value is nuisance value. “Bob,” a slang term for it. | |
| 20 | Piece of information backing commercial corporation (5) |
| DATUM – AD ( commercial) backing, + TUM, aka one’s corporation. | |
| 21 | Easily offended prey she invites to wrangle (14) |
| HYPERSENSITIVE – *(PREY SHE INVITES) | |
| 25 | Courage of cycling world (5) |
| HEART – EARTH (world) with the last letter “cycled” to the front, as is the fashion these days. | |
| 26 | Winged beast’s mouth biting child; reptilian creature (5,4) |
| MASON WASP – SON (child) in MAW (mouth) + ASP, a snake. Nho the mason wasp, not common in Britain, but have heard of mason bees, so not much of a stretch. | |
| 27 | Heats pan to cook game bird (8) |
| PHEASANT – *(HEATS PAN). There was a time when I belonged to a game shoot, but gave up when I worked out that each pheasant cost me about £50, one way and another. Still and all this is a very neat clue. | |
| 28 | Media story exposed newspaper boss (6) |
| EDITOR – (m)EDI(a) (s)TOR(y) | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Gunners invade protecting other ranks in tropical location (10) |
| RAINFOREST – RA (Royal Artillery, aka the Gunners) + OR, other ranks, in INFEST, invade. It seems churlish to mention that only tropical rainforest is in the tropics. Temperate rainforest is not uncommon, Even England and Wales have some. | |
| 2 | Key part of speech written up for Mark (5) |
| BREVE – E (key of) + VERB (part of speech). It is an accent, or mark, viz: ̆ ..and not something musical, as I imagined. | |
| 3 | Tree surgeon’s third trimmer (7) |
| SPRUCER – SPRUCE (tree) + (su)R(geons). Bit of an inelegant cruciword this, I can’t believe you would see it anywhere other than in a crossword. | |
| 5 | Coldly shifting out of the ark on Delaware River (5) |
| CLYDE – This is COLDLY, with the OLD (out of the ark) removed. So CLY, + DE which I assume is an abbreviation for Delaware. Tricky! | |
| 6 | Rebel force in ancient city (7) |
| UPRISER – PRISE (force, what a peterman might do) in UR, a favourite ancient city. The site is somewhere in Iraq, I believe. Upriser, really? Thought it might be a plumbing term. | |
| 7 | Resource for one running satire involving soap family (6,3) |
| SEWING KIT – EWING, in SKIT, a satire. The Ewings, m’Lud, were a family starring in a popular, long-running US soap opera of long ago… not absolutely sure about the definition here. A resource for someone with a run in their stocking, perhaps? Perhaps I’m missing something here. | |
| 8 | Cut short shady European venture (4) |
| DARE – DAR(k) shady, cut short, + E(uropean). | |
| 9 | Tender wound initially moist hardens (8) |
| HERDSMAN – *(M(oist) +HARDENS), “wound” being the anagrind. | |
| 13 | Funny gripe, remark snubbed last visitor (4,6) |
| GRIM REAPER – *(GRIPE + REMAR(k)). I liked this one! | |
| 15 | Maybe account opening once money finally gets put in — just heard back (5,4) |
| FAIRY TALE – Not hard to work out the answer, but I have really struggled to parse this. I think it is (mone)Y in FAIR (just) + TALE (sounds like TAIL, back). But I’m not that keen on the definition, if I’ve underlined the right words – a normal “account opening” would be “Once upon a time” surely. | |
| 17 | Homely feel of function on ship (8) |
| COSINESS – COSINE (function) + SS (ship). I was going to show off abit, by explaining what a cosine was but sadly, I find I no longer understand it.. | |
| 19 | Raised gang with genuine fabulous sailor (7) |
| LAERTES – SET (gang) + REAL (genuine), both rev. A reference, probably not to the Laertes who killed Hamlet, but the one who was Odysseus’ father, and an Argonaut to boot. | |
| 20 | Stooped and edged in rocks (7) |
| DEIGNED – *(EDGED IN). As in “The setter deigned/stooped to explain his clue to the struggling solvers.” | |
| 22 | Wrong about second name of man (5) |
| SIMON – MO (second) in SIN, a wrong. No indication as to what man, St Simon le Bon perhaps? | |
| 23 | Unsuitable to sleep with stripped covers (5) |
| INAPT – NAP (to sleep) in (w)IT(h), with stripped. | |
| 24 | Fellow from hotel wearing headgear (4) |
| CHAP – H(otel), NATO H, in CAP, headgear. A nice simple one to finish with. | |
Thanks Jerry. I managed to finish this with the exception of the parsing of FAIRY TALE, spent ten minutes looking at it and all I could see was the ‘Y’ for the end of money an just/fair. Agree it’s not an account opening but will be interested to hear other’s comments. Liked CLYDE when I twigged to old/out of the ark.
Your hint was enough for me to see how it works: the definition is maybe account opening “once”, sc. “upon a time”. There were quite a few I couldn’t parse; NHO French, had to biff sewing kit, and couldn’t remember who Laertes was.
My cousin hunts upland game birds with his Gordon Setter, which is less expensive in the US if you don’t count the cost of the dog.
Time: 40:34
Thanks V. Missed that altogether. Very neat too.
I couldn’t see what “out of the ark” was doing, though CLY wasn’t the usual alternate-letter thing. DE is indeed the official two-letter postal abbreviation for the state of Delaware.
Thanks, Jerry – a lovely blog as usual.
For 7D I note that Chambers has definition 17 of run as a transitive verb “To sew lightly and quickly”.