Hello again. This crossword I thought was noticeably harder than average. Our Crossword Editor seems to have been bang on the mark lately, if the Snitch is anything to go by, grading the crosswords impressively carefully to get harder as the week goes on, so it will be interesting to see how tomorrow and Friday compare!
This one has some quite crunchy vocab, starting straight in with 1ac and 2dn, and then at least another half-dozen or so others, dotted about the grid. What did you think?
On edit: it’s also a pangram, as pointed out below. I will catch one, one day!
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 | Large plant contained in small harbour (8) |
| SHADDOCK – HAD (contained) in S(mall) DOCK, harbour. I was handicapped here by having nho the word, Also had = contained, I found a little bit of a stretch, though it does work in eg “The book had/contained forty chapters.” I had heard of pomelos, but not this alternative name. The fruit is large apparently, the largest of all citrus fruit in fact, but I have no idea whether the plant itself is. | |
| 5 | A king intervening in quarrel? That’s a duty (6) |
| TARIFF – A R (rex, king) in TIFF, a quarrel. Duty, as in excise duty. | |
| 10 | Object lesson no longer enough (7) |
| EXAMPLE – EX AMPLE, enough, no longer | |
| 11 | Expose a French maiden, maybe outside front of castle (7) |
| UNCOVER – C(astle), in UN (a, in French) + OVER, possibly a wicket maiden.. Loving the surface reading! | |
| 12 | Nothing wrong with you no longer guarding energy plant (5) |
| OXEYE – E(nergy) in O (nothing) + X (wrong, as opposed to a tick) + YE, you no longer. A sort of daisy. | |
| 13 | Celebrate, embracing what’s best, yelling (9) |
| SCREAMING – CREAM (what’s best) in SING, celebrate | |
| 14 | “Skill needed in firm” — good criticism by the female who makes plans? (12) |
| CARTOGRAPHER – ART (skill) in CO (firm), + G(ood) + RAP (criticism) + HER, a female. | |
| 19 | Gratitude for what successful investment brings financially? (12) |
| APPRECIATION – A sort of DD I suppose, since successful investments appreciate in value. | |
| 22 | Choose to hold end of this when tucking into duck? (9) |
| CHOPSTICK – tricky! It is (thi)S in OPT (choose), then that into CHICK, which could be a duck I suppose although I would call that a duckling. The question mark makes it OK, just about. | |
| 25 | Behind, having secured goalless draw abroad (5) |
| AFOOT – OO, a goalless draw, in AFT, behind, nautically speaking. Though again, I would say AFT means at the stern, and ABAFT means behind. Yo ho ho, me hearties. | |
| 26 | Extreme characters and I articulate loveless feature of star’s position (7) |
| AZIMUTH – A and Z, the extreme characters, + I + M(o)UTH, to articulate with no O. You can define a star’s position with two angles, one from North (azimuth) and one from the horizontal (altitude). | |
| 27 | Feature of winter holidays only providing shelter for sleep (3,4) |
| SKI POLE – KIP (sleep) in SOLE, only. A feature of some winter holidays, definitely not mine. | |
| 28 | Smooth group of stars welcoming most of the spectators (6) |
| LEGATO – GAT(e) (spectators, mostly) in LEO, a constellation in the shape of a lion, allegedly. Legato, a musical term I had heard of but no idea what it meant. Smooth, presumably! | |
| 29 | Returning sailor joining group with chaps hiding in lowly accommodation? (8) |
| BASEMENT – AB (an able-bodied seaman) rev., + MEN in SET, a group. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Leading pair from Cumbria said goodbye (3,3) |
| SEE YOU – sounds like C U from Cumbria. | |
| 2 | A short notice this writer placed around wreath (6) |
| ANADEM – AN AD (short notice) + ME, our setter, rev. My second nho. | |
| 3 | Rob and Peter dead drunk (9) |
| DEPREDATE – *(PETER DEAD). Depredate, marked as “rare” by Collins, though depredation is rather more common perhaps. | |
| 4 | What involves four bishops in church with English saints (5) |
| CHESS – CH(urch) + E(nglish) SS, saints. A sneaky definition which I blush to admit took me a moment or two to twig despite a lifetime of playing the game. | |
| 6 | African city cricket club captured by a famous artist? (5) |
| ACCRA – CC, as in MCC, in A RA, Royal Academician, presumably a famous one. | |
| 7 | Complains, given this wasting time is out of order (8) |
| INVEIGHS – *(GIVEN THIS), less the T(ime) | |
| 8 | Hunters over a long period north and south of river (8) |
| FORAGERS – R(iver) in FOR AGES (over a long time). I have been known to forage, on occasion. Grab your wild garlic now folks, season is nearing its end. | |
| 9 | Absolutely unfashionable? Correct! (8) |
| OUTRIGHT – OUT (unfashionable) + RIGHT (correct!) | |
| 15 | Drunk, keeping out of control mostly in declining years (8) |
| TWILIGHT – WIL(d), out of control mostly, in TIGHT, drunk. | |
| 16 | Bring fragrance to some tiara with new configuration (9) |
| AROMATISE – *(SOME TIARA). I expect we’ve all aromatised at one time or another, haven’t we? | |
| 17 | Shrill sound outside hospital able to deal with every situation (5-3) |
| CATCH-ALL – H(ospital) in CATCALL, a shrill sound. | |
| 18 | Against work, projecting a false image? (8) |
| OPPOSING – OP, work, + POSING, a false image. | |
| 20 | Merry function welcomed by American bloke (6) |
| JOCOSE – COS(ine), a function, in JOE, a typical American bloke. GI Joe, for example. | |
| 21 | An ordeal restricting driver, ultimately not moving (2,4) |
| AT REST – (drive)R, in A TEST (an ordeal) | |
| 23 | Building illegally occupied most of courtyard in street (5) |
| SQUAT – QUA(d), courtyard, mostly, in ST(reet). | |
| 24 | Central feature of breakfast when hot — answer? (5) |
| KASHA – (brea)K(fast) + AS (when) + H(ot) + A(nswer). A sort of buckwheat porridge apparently, nho by me. Doesn’t sound yummy. | |
Yes, some obscure vocabulary, but this didn’t seem to faze the early solvers. Anadem was the only word I didn’t know, but if there’s a diadem there’s likely to be an anadem, and maybe a katadem as well! I did know shaddock is a word – what it is I couldn’t tell you, but the cryptic does point to it.
Time: 31:15
Yes I found this hard too and wasn’t able to finish despite managing to solve a couple of NHOs before resorting to aids for others.
The answers that did for me were ANADEM (NHO), OXEYE (knew it, but the WP was too complicated to suggest the word to me) and AZIMUTH. The ones I navigated successfully were KASHA, DEPRADATED and SHADDOCK which was more of a biff as I knew the word but was unable to account for HAD.
My favourite clue was CATCH-ALL.
17:51 – I was surprised to see the SNITCH down at 85. KASHA was a complete NHO and went in on wordplay alone. ANADEM I was more confident of due to knowing ‘diadem’, though I wouldn’t venture to guess the exact relation between the prefixes. SHADDOCK was another NHO but I thought dock leaves and ‘harbour’ = ‘dock’ had to be enough evidence. CHOPSTICK and OUTRIGHT were the big holdups for me — I need to get over the cognitive bias of assuming half-filled answers like ‘-U-RIGHT’ are likely to start with consonants.
Same NHOs as others, though did remember SHADDOCK as a word from its last appearance as a small fish, I think? Not overly held up anywhere, so reasonably fast even with the tricky vocab. Liked Chopstick, Legato and Cartographer mostly.
I’m familiar with kasha, mainly from the Jewish dish kasha varnishkes, and I figured out the wordplay pretty quickly, but it struck me as such an unlikely answer that I left it pencilled in until I confirmed the checked letters. Got quite held up by Oxeye and Chopstick, but really liked the chopstick clue once I worked it out.
Do you find pangrams such as this sometimes delve into the nether regions of the dictionary to make it work?
All bar the wreath in 40 minutes. Had the -em, but couldn’t piece the rest together.
“Extreme characters and I articulate loveless feature of star’s position” must be a contender for Meaningless surface of the year?
Perhaps you can work it into your next novel, Sawbill!?
‘Mike’ Kingdom loves a challenge but that might defeat even her. Maybe I could ask Jan the Dutchman?
21:20 which puts this in the average difficulty category for me. Although AZIMUTH went in with a shrug.
A few other obscurities but I felt comfortable with the wordplay.
The NW was mostly blank and was a bit of a grind getting it over the line. One plant is one too many for me, but once I spotted what the ‘contained’ was doing SHADDOCK fell and that unlocked the rest of that corner.
Enjoyed a lot of the clues in this. It also felt more challlenging than my time reflects. A bit of a meh at the CD of CHOPSTICK until the blog corrected me. Two thumbs up for this one. Although agree with previous commenter about the surface for AZIMUTH but it must be a stinker of a word to clue. It looks like from the checking letters they were gridlocked into using it.
Thanks blogger and setter.
DNF, failed on LEGATO at about 45 having already been exhausted by all the other weird words mentioned above. Thanks Jerry, this was mostly enjoyable but some of the obscurities pushed the outside of the envelope.
From Subterranean Homesick Blues:
Johnny’s in the BASEMENT, mixing up the medicine
I’m on the pavement, thinking ’bout the government
The man in the trench coat, badge out, laid off
Says he’s got a bad cough wants to get it paid off
Look out kid…
Very tough but got it done. LOI JOCOSE aided by a missing J for a pangram.
NW corner very hard. I was stuck on CUE for 1 d, with the NHO SHADDOCK and ANADEM.
CARTOGRAPHER needed all the checkers. I had OUT at the wrong end of the OUTRIGHT clue (something like STANDOUT) which led to a -FATHER or MOTHER ending.
COD SEE YOU
35 minutes. I managed to retrieve SHADDOCK and my LOI ANADEM from somewhere but KASHA was an NHO which went in only semi-confidently from wordplay. Once I’d worked out the parsing, CHOPSTICK was my favourite and (I’m easily pleased) it was good to have the pangram.