28:28. Shortly before attempting the puzzle, I was informed by a fellow blogger: “main very easy – you got a sitter for your blog”. My experience differed, to put it mildly.
Many, many unknowns for me here. In particular I needed to check the spelling of 1 Down, so did not submit.
| Across | |
| 1 | Meaning to embrace unique selling point, leaves one hanging (8) |
| SUSPENSE – SENSE around USP | |
| 5 | Repeatedly appeal to consume second pastry (6) |
| SAMOSA – SA + SA (sex appeal) around MO | |
| 8 | One racing on the carriageway is cuckoo (10) |
| ROADRUNNER – RUNNER next to ROAD | |
| 9 | One with a tale to tell is back in this bar (4) |
| RAIL – LIAR reversed | |
| 10 | Delighted as result of well-crafted scenes, applaud hard (7,2,5) |
| PLEASED AS PUNCH – anagram of SCENES APPLAUD H | |
| 11 | Inherited title I removed from S American country (7) |
| SURNAME – SUR{i}NAME | |
| 13 | Refuses to accept one is among hills (7) |
| DISOWNS – I’S in DOWNS | |
| 15 | Possible appearance of lantern in new jail out of place (7) |
| JAWLINE – anagram of NEW JAIL
A reference to ‘lantern-jawed’. |
|
| 18 | Giant operations on transport cut short (7) |
| CYCLOPS – OPS next to CYCL{e} | |
| 21 | A case for clothing artist’s body part succeeded (5,2,7) |
| CHEST OF DRAWERS – CHEST OF DRAWER (artist’s body part) + S
But of course this clue needs a question mark. |
|
| 22 | A pound off, pack with egg and pastry (4) |
| FILO – FIL{l} + O | |
| 23 | With great intelligence I pass back the local spirit (6,4) |
| GENIUS LOCI – GENIUS + I COL (mountain pass) reversed
“Literally, the spirit of the place” (Chambers) |
|
| 24 | Commit to paper refusal of French flag (6) |
| PENNON – PEN + NON (no, in French) | |
| 25 | Quizzical look you twice aimed at a little jewel (5,3) |
| BEADY EYE – YE YE next to BEAD | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Small drinks bottles are raised, showing Egyptian deity (7) |
| SERAPIS – SIPS (small drinks) around ARE, reversed
I now see that ‘small’ was not one of those ‘S’s, and hence SUPS is not possible. |
|
| 2 | Scruffy type’s anxiety meeting councillor in broadcast (9) |
| SCARECROW – CARE + CR (councillor) in SOW (broadcast)
Ended up getting this from the crossing letters. I never once suspected the correct wordplay. |
|
| 3 | Mimosa ultimately is a shrub raised in a large part of the world (7) |
| EURASIA – {mimos}A IS A RUE reversed
Didn’t know about the rue plant. |
|
| 4 | No good having formally given agreement that is undated (4,3) |
| SINE DIE – SIGNED (having formally given agreement) – G + I.E. (that is)
Also did not get this wordplay while solving. |
|
| 5 | So carelessly written, to revise play script, wasting time (9) |
| SCRAPPILY – anagram of PLAY SCRIP{t} | |
| 6 | Warhorse, no stallion, with new energy (7) |
| MARENGO – MARE (no stallion) + N + GO
Napoleon’s horse, apparently. |
|
| 7 | Supposed weather forecaster at first skulking indoors (7) |
| SWITHIN – S{kulking} + WITHIN
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swithun Known in the US as “a groundhog”. |
|
| 12 | Arm supporting baby that regularly signals distress (6,3) |
| MINUTE GUN – GUN (arm) under MINUTE (baby, as in small)
Never heard of this, but it’s a gun fired every minute. |
|
| 14 | Spaces in the ladies, no end healthy (9) |
| WHOLESOME – HOLES in WOME{n} | |
| 16 | A Catholic place of business, a large one in the Vatican (7) |
| ARCHIVE – A + R.C. + HIVE (place of busy-ness) | |
| 17 | One wild criminal made to be submissive (3,4) |
| LIE DOWN – anagram of ONE WILD | |
| 18 | Secret formula in tablet, this one? (7) |
| CODEINE – CODE + IN + E | |
| 19 | Graded Charlie very behind in speaking (7) |
| CLASSED – C + homophone of LAST | |
| 20 | Sigh as father gets round this family piano (7) |
| SUSPIRE – SIRE around US + P | |
30:06. Another one who found this tricky. I nearly gave up but persevered to limp over the finish line unscathed.
COD: CODEINE
DNF, defeated by the unknown MINUTE GUN – I never considered baby=minute, and I thought the parsing was mini (‘baby’) + ta (‘that’ regularly) + gun (‘arm’), so I invented the ‘Minita Gun’.
For some reason I took a very long time to get RAIL, and only then did I get SWITHIN. I’ve never heard of lantern-jawed, so I just figured out the anagram to get JAWLINE, shrugged and moved on. Didn’t know SERAPIS or GENIUS LOCI either, but managed to figure them out from wordplay, and like the blogger I didn’t know the rue plant needed for EURASIA.
COD Sine die
I was ok with this one finishing within target time at 35.10. The same unknowns as quite a few others in GENIUS LOCI and the Egyptian deity, but all fairly clued. Particularly liked SWITHIN which was my COD.
54:43. Felt like I crossworded very hard to get there so a little disappointed to see the SNITCH at “only” 117!
MARENGO, SUSPIRE, GENIUS LOCI, SINE DIE, SERAPIS all beyond my vocab so took scratching out from the word play – which in the case of SINE DIE I think is a bit of stretch. Good fun though, I do enjoy the tension of hitting submit with about 5 NHOs and hoping I’ve parsed it all right…
Thanks setter & jeremy
Just testing to see if I still have access.
14 mins so a sight easier than yesterday and sets me up nicely for the weekend. Reinforcement in the shape of a wine bottle will come later.
Biggest struggle was with minute gun cos I was committed to minute man. Fortunately, genius loci gave me inspiration.
Didn’t know a roadrunner was a cuckoo but I do now. Thx setter and blogger.
58:29. It felt hard. Like McBeak above, I was surprised the Snitch wasn’t higher. Just me being slow. But it still felt good to finish. I knew the Battle of Marengo and the chicken dish named after it; now I know Napoleon’s horse was named after it too. COD WHOLESOME
23:59 late afternoon. After yesterday’s DNF, a complete solve today, albeit with clunky progress, with a hold-up in the SW corner at the finish, until I worked out 21 ac ” chest of drawers”. At 23 ac, got “loci” before “genius” – strange.
25 ac “beady eye” – didn’t understand what purpose “aimed” was serving.
Otherwise, enjoyed this puzzle and Jeremy ‘s blog too.
Having just done this puzzle, I wondered about that too, so came here hoping to find an explanation. I guess ‘aimed at’ could mean ‘following’, as a shooter might with a moving target, but it seems a rather obtuse instruction if that was the intention.
DNF. Beaten by the SE corner. NHO SUSPIRE, and my Latin O Level from 1976 was not well enough remembered for GENIUS LOCI.
Thanks for the blog.
This was lots of fun, since all the many unknowns eventually worked themselves out. At the end of an hour I had one clue left to do, SWITHIN, and no clue about it, but as usual, after leaving it for a bit at least the correct wordplay suggested itself and then led to the correct answer. Lots of candidates for a COD: MARENGO, WHOLESOME, even RAIL. I, too, have not yet finished yesterday’s, but with the excuse of just having returned from a trip to Antwerp and being somewhat tired.
I nearly gave up after the pitiful few that I entered (mainly down clues on the right side), but decided to slog on and “follow the wordplay”, which I did, and now am rewarding myself with a pat on the back for NHOs like SERAPIS and SINE DIE (which I should have remembered from O-level Latin), MARENGO, ( in our early wedded days my husband and I used to serve up Chicken Marengo at the obligatory dinner parties of the day….never knew it’s provenance! So all up quite happy to only be short on ROADRUNNER ( didn’t know it was of the cuckoo family) GENIUS LOCI and SWITHIN – despite being well aware of his weather connection. A good, fair puzzle.