DNF. It took me about 40 minutes to get halfway through this puzzle, painstakingly. I didn’t have the heart to finish it, and something tells me I wouldn’t have been able to if I’d tried.
I shall now attempt to parse these genius clues.
| Across | |
| 1 | It’d be out of place in crab menu (5,3) |
| CREAM BUN – anagram of CRAB MENU
And indeed it would. Got this one. |
|
| 5 | Ingredient in plaster put over spot in face (6) |
| GYPSUM – reversed, SPY in MUG
Didn’t. |
|
| 9 | Settle amount in empty beer glass? (3) |
| OPT – O PT = zero pints
Did. |
|
| 10 | Bebop’s insiders interrupting one of Stones, who are troublemakers (4,3,4) |
| ROCK THE BOAT – {b}EBO{p} in ROCK (one of stones) + THAT (who)
I could see what was going on with EBO, but I couldn’t imagine what the definition was! |
|
| 12 | For an audience, musical collection bore a small organ (10) |
| SWEETBREAD – homophone of SUITE BRED | |
| 13 | Oh, endless joy to behold with desire (4) |
| OGLE – O + GLE{e} | |
| 15 | Mutilate man’s title from edition being recalled (6) |
| DEFORM – MR (man’s title) + OF (from) + ED (edition) reversed | |
| 16 | Incisor’s coating of enamel seen on outside of head (7) |
| SCALPEL – E{name}L after SCALP | |
| 18 | Innumerable other ranks including private following uniform (7) |
| UMPTEEN – U + PTE (private) in MEN (other ranks) | |
| 20 | Time lost to abacus at last in turning beads (6) |
| ROSARY – T becomes {abacu}S in ROTARY (turning) | |
| 23 | Reflection of petrifying monster would show no such spirit (4) |
| GROG – GORGON reversed is NO GROG
I could only think of MEDUSA and BASILISK. Must remember GORGON. |
|
| 24 | Oil rig labourer to supplant sailor in rabble (10) |
| ROUSTABOUT – OUST (supplant) + AB (sailor) in ROUT (rabble) | |
| 26 | Light support of container in case carried by Richard (11) |
| CANDLESTICK – CAN (container) + LEST (in case) in DICK (Richard) | |
| 27 | A child — count / some 23? (3) |
| TOT – triple definition | |
| 28 | No tension in parishioners clutching cross (6) |
| LAXITY – LAITY around X | |
| 29 | Maybe use too few items plucked from cushion or bolster (8) |
| UNDERPIN – UNDER-PIN | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Particular church rings Stepney’s boundaries (6) |
| CHOOSY – CH + OO + S{tepne}Y | |
| 2 | Seen in context, remedy is immoderate (7) |
| EXTREME – hidden in CONTEXT REMEDY | |
| 3 | Mum more properly binds leg for one in the long run (10) |
| MARATHONER – MA + RATHER around ON (leg) | |
| 4 | Low-key coronation may be so / rude (13) |
| UNCEREMONIOUS – double definition, one tongue-in-cheek | |
| 6 | Perhaps Klein bottle volume with positive sign? (4) |
| YVES – put V in YES (positive sign?)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yves_Klein |
|
| 7 | Temporary odds, absorbing for golfers? (7) |
| STOPGAP – SP (odds) around TO PGA
Not sure I get this one. |
|
| 8 | Protective one’s maintaining alternative line (8) |
| MOTHERLY – MY (one’s) around OTHER + L | |
| 11 | Strange sins or original one (13) |
| TRANSGRESSION – anagram of STRANGE SINS OR | |
| 14 | More than one older lamb chop lasagne’s crust’s not kept well (10) |
| RAMSHACKLE – RAMS (more than one older lamp) + HACK (chop) + L{asagn}E | |
| 17 | Of operations, precise as military ones (8) |
| SURGICAL – double definition, the second referring to “surgical precision” | |
| 19 | Fire survivor’s tool ultimately seen in photos (7) |
| PHOENIX – HOE + {see}N in PIX | |
| 21 | Maximally delay start of demonstration to shout from here? (7) |
| ROOFTOP – PROOF TO with first letter moved to the end | |
| 22 | Not quite saying what’ll reduce cholesterol (6) |
| STATIN – STATIN{g} | |
| 25 | Digs / away from hills? (4) |
| FLAT – double definition | |
Well I was relieved to see your opening comment having given up on this one. Yes = positive sign? Rock = one of stones? I smiled at UNCEREMONIOUS but not much else. Yes it was hard, but not in a good way. Thanks as ever for the blog.
Sunday night. Great challenge. After ten minutes I thought it was one of those super-super-hard ones. But then a few clues began to give, and I saw it was just ordinary super-hard. Top-right kept me busy at the end of my 42 or so minutes. Many thanks. Some very clever clueing.
I heard it was tough, so I saved it for the weekend. About an hour and a half of the weekend, and I liked it – a lot of work clue by clue, but each kind of satisfying when it unravelled. Unlike most beasts where we all have problems with the same couple words, reading all the comments above it seems that the trouble people had was evenly distributed among the quadrants (mine was the SW), or between the left and right, top or bottom. I’m thinking that’s a sign of an evenly-set puzzle. Thanks setter
‘ Nuff said’
Sweetbread a “small organ “? My Collins defines it as “a large compound gland…..”
Which is how I would picture the pancreas.
Always interesting to see who has similar blind spots. I did finish but only after opting for opt as the least unlikely answer after an alphabet trawl gave me only 6 possibilities. Kicking myself when coming here and seeing that it was the obvious choice.