15:09. Every once in awhile, a puzzle comes along that is so good that you almost can’t believe somebody created it. Like a great piece of music you can listen to over and over again, or a gripping novel you can’t put down. For me, this was one of those puzzles. I would solve one clue and marvel at the witty wordplay — only to find the setter outdid themselves on the very next clue. All I can say is, bravo.
| Across | |
| 1 | Rush towards Rome? [It’s] warmer! (6) |
| FLEECE – FLEE CE (rush towards Rome)
Here Rome stands for “Roman Catholic Church”, as CE stands for “Church of England”. |
|
| 4 | British don’t have to fight — that need not be understood (5,3) |
| BLACK BOX – B (British) LACK (don’t have) BOX (to fight)
We refer to something as a black box if we only need to understand how to interface with it, rather than needing to understand how it works on the inside. |
|
| 10 | Signal folder [can provide] something enthralling (11) |
| SPELLBINDER – SPELL (signal) BINDER (folder)
As in “SPELL/signal doom”. |
|
| 11 | Pole, say, heading off, [finds] somewhere to go (3) |
| LAV – SLAV (Pole, say) without the first letter (heading off) | |
| 12 | Driver [from] west — heading that way? (7) |
| WAGONER – W (west) A GONER (heading that way?)
To ‘go west’ means to die. Of course the surface is lovely here (and maybe even counts as a semi-&lit) because covered WAGONERs in the United States rode west. I recall seeing a better version of this wordplay somewhere, which was something like “Six feet under, or heading that way? (4,3)”. |
|
| 14 | Description of sister we understand that’s universally unpopular? (7) |
| NUNLIKE – homophone of (we understand that’s) NONE LIKE (universally unpopular?) | |
| 15 | Surprisingly, many falling in with parking issue regulation (6,8) |
| FAMILY PLANNING – anagram of (surprisingly) MANY FALLING IN + (with) P (parking)
Fantastic definition. |
|
| 17 | Versatile accessory, awfully swanky, misfires (5,4,5) |
| SWISS ARMY KNIFE – anagram of (awfully) SWANKY MISFIRES | |
| 21 | Ex-prisoner [given] word of encouragement for keeping in trim (7) |
| PAROLEE – OLÉ (word of encouragement) in (for keeping in) PARE (trim) | |
| 22 | Most lean on one, matchless all round (7) |
| BONIEST – ON + I (one) with BEST (matchless) all around | |
| 23 | Such as refund returned periodically? (3) |
| DUE – every other letter of REFUND, reversed (returned periodically)
This is the noun form of DUE, as in “pay one’s dues”. |
|
| 24 | Drinking too much, perhaps, [and] sharing a bit? (11) |
| OVERLAPPING – OVER-LAPPING (drinking too much, perhaps) | |
| 26 | Wrongly declare one’s piece of data in note (8) |
| MISSTATE – I’S (one’s) STAT (piece of data) in ME (note) | |
| 27 | Handle number in retreat with minimum staff? (3-3) |
| ONE-MAN – NAME (handle) NO (number) reversed (in retreat) | |
| Down | |
| 1 | His few faults one loudly broaches? (8) |
| FISHWIFE – HIS FEW anagrammed (faults) with I (one) F (loudly = forte, in music) inside (broaches)
FISHWIFE is the referent of ‘one’ in this descriptive phrase. It’s a bit unfortunate that the clue also contains the pronoun ‘his’, because the clue could equally be referring to whoever ‘he’ is. |
|
| 2 | One who’s succeeded in broadcast once before (3) |
| ERE – homophone of (in broadcast) HEIR (one who’s succeeded)
ERE is a word for ‘before’ which is no longer used (hence ‘once’) |
|
| 3 | Officer, one refusing to fight on his own, left (7) |
| COLONEL – CO (one refusing to fight = conscientious objector) LONE (on his own) L (left) | |
| 5 | Boy phoning, ringing no Scottish [or] Italian number (2,5,1,6) |
| LA DONNA È MOBILE – LAD (boy) ON MOBILE (phoning) around (ringing) NAE (no [in] Scottish) | |
| 6 | It’s time unit [of] key personnel stood on two legs! (7) |
| CHRONON – C (key) HR (personnel) on (stood on) ON ON (two legs, in cricket)
This is the amount of time it takes for a photon to travel the diameter of an electron. |
|
| 7 | Maybe oligarch[’s] rage after charge for possessing island (11) |
| BILLIONAIRE – IRE (rage) after BILL (charge for) around (possessing) IONA (island)
I originally had BILL = ‘charge’ and “around” = ‘for possessing’. This nicer parsing was suggested by a mysterious text, possibly sent by the current Times Crossword champion. Edit: The walrus was Paul. |
|
| 8 | Seen in Roman square, a once leading British female missionary (6) |
| XAVIER – A in (seen in) XVI (Roman square = 16) + ER (once leading British female) | |
| 9 | Medical procedure welcome before finding work (3-11) |
| HIP-REPLACEMENT – HI (welcome) PRE (before) PLACEMENT (finding work) | |
| 13 | Officers in reserve prepared retreats after fighting (4,7) |
| GAME WARDENS – GAME (prepared) + DENS (retreats) after WAR (fighting)
Fantastic definition. I didn’t quite know ‘reserve’ = ‘preserve’, but then I thought of ‘reservation’. I don’t think of GAME so much as ‘prepared’, but more ‘willing’. |
|
| 16 | Something fashionably labelled might have had this shape (8) |
| HEPTAGON – HEP TAG ON (something fashionably labelled might have had this) | |
| 18 | Hit [and] stab in back (4-3) |
| SELL-OUT – SELL OUT (stab in back)
I was looking for a little more going on here, so this ended up being my last in. |
|
| 19 | What’s most important, [having] family doctor at home (7) |
| KINGPIN – KIN (family) GP (doctor) IN (at home) | |
| 20 | Working practice of French secretary upset primates (6) |
| APEDOM – MO (working practice = modus operandi) + DE (of [in] French) + PA (secretary), all reversed (upset) | |
| 25 | Doctrine generally somewhat clumsily recalled (3) |
| ISM – hidden in (somewhat) CLUMSILY reversed (recalled) | |
Great puzzle which I did Sunday night in 43’19”. Glad to finish. LOI XAVIER. Couldn’t help thinking of XAVIER as a first name, or part of the first name FRANCOIS-XAVIER. I see now it was indeed the second part of the missionary’s name, though referring to him as XAVIER still feels a bit odd. It was the town of his birth in Navarra.
Extraordinarily late entry due to hoarding 4 highest SNITCH puzzles from actual printed newspapers of the last month to take abroad.
FLEECE is defined both by RUSH (to fleece) and WARMER ( fleece as a noun) with
TOWARDS ROME ? as a cryptic suggestion of FLEE + CE
CHRONON just saw this word for the first time two days before picking up the puzzle
(Please don’t ask about my parsing, completely wild but it worked)
Most enjoyable puzzle and fast solve for me of about 90 or so mins (not including the time I spent once I put in ERE and stared blankly for quite some while)
Many thanks to the regular bloggers and commenters who make this so enjoyable and educative.
As most, really enjoyed this, mainly for the reason that I initially thought I wouldn’t crack a single clue – but FISHWIFE put paid to that, and I reverse-engineered that to understand that it didn’t refer to “his”. Instead it ended up being a surprisingly fast solve (for me!) in less than an hour, but with a couple of look-ups: PAROLEE, NUNLIKE and the NHO CHRONON – which all helped of course to solve others. I must have been “on the wavelength”, as clues like WAGONER and GAME WARDEN and even XAVIER came easily. Most enjoyed the Italian number ( for being so easy to deduce from the wordplay), FAMILY PLANNING(for the clever definition ), and ERE, which helped me get FLEECED. More like this please.