With 9a, not crosswords! My time was 41:52, with 11 minutes spent on the aforementioned clue. I am pleased to report I put the answer together entirely from wordplay, which was true for most of this puzzle. It’s the kind of puzzle I prefer!
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Refuse vessel entry to port after coast beset by snow? (4) |
| SKIP – P{ort} after SKI (coast beset by snow?)
I didn’t know this term, and kept thinking of ‘garbage scow’. |
|
| 4 | Tennis games played without eastern delegation (10) |
| ASSIGNMENT – anagram of TENNIS GAMES minus E | |
| 9 | Perhaps attempt to pick up unopened post by large tree houses (10) |
| FLIRTATION – {s}TATION next to L in FIR
This is the clue that took me 11 minutes. And I had the parsing right all along: I knew it had something to do with hitting on someone, but I was parsing it as “[unopened post by large] tree houses”, and I was looking for synonyms of ‘post’ like MAIL or SEND, as well as trees that end in -ION. Finally the word STATION came to mind and I was able to put the answer together. |
|
| 10 | Skate around east end of London[’s] Strand (4) |
| YARN – RAY reversed + {londo}N
I had the ingredients here immediately but put them together incorrectly, à la RA(N)Y. |
|
| 11 | Take in AC/DC, appearing in one minute, live (6) |
| IMBIBE – BI (AC/DC [!]) in I M BE
Oh my. This is a term I didn’t know, but now will never forget. |
|
| 12 | Exaggerated ruggedness of individual waterproof Jiffy bags (8) |
| MACHISMO – MAC (waterproof) MO (jiffy) around (bags) HIS (of individual)
I guess ‘waterproof’ is a noun? |
|
| 14 | Standing opposite to Siberian tiger cages (4) |
| ANTI – hidden in SIBERIAN TIGER | |
| 15 | Internally survey dozens in preparation [for] meeting (10) |
| RENDEZVOUS – {s}URVE{y} DOZENS anagrammed | |
| 17 | A tenor’s behind short hum in charming hymn (10) |
| MAGNIFICAT – A T after NIF{f} in MAGIC
Can never remember the synonyms for a stink. Y’all seem to have too many of them. |
|
| 20 | Fetching earth to go on crop (4) |
| CUTE – E on CUT | |
| 21 | Ice age left trace of chilly fronts (8) |
| COLDNESS – C{hilly} (left trace) before OLDNESS (age) | |
| 23 | Craft is able to make controlled descent (6) |
| ABSEIL – anagram of IS ABLE
I know this one from crosswords past. |
|
| 24 | Get rid of powerless press (4) |
| URGE – {p}URGE (powerless) | |
| 25 | Piano parts refined by small cast? (10) |
| SCULPTURED – P in CULTURED next to S
This is a very good clue, I think. |
|
| 26 | First person in family handles drug from South America (10) |
| SURINAMESE – I in SURNAMES + E
Also quite good. |
|
| 27 | Motorway staff going round place where many crash (4) |
| DORM – M ROD reversed | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 2 | Family going round capital disagree over high point (11) |
| KILIMANJARO – KIN around LIMA + JAR (disagree) + O | |
| 3 | Endless hell — a way of talking about deserts (9) |
| PERDITION – PER (a) DICTION (way of talking) deserted by C (about) | |
| 4 | Lay gilded china before king (7) |
| AMATEUR – MATE in AU (gilded china) + R | |
| 5 | Thong-like outfit perhaps represented in sumo, etc? (8,7) |
| SWIMMING COSTUME – anagram (SWIMMING) of IN SUMO ETC = COSTUME
A reverse anagram, is this called? |
|
| 6 | Worry about pound cake filling (7) |
| GANACHE – NAG reversed + ACHE (pound) | |
| 7 | Case of eggs outside by morning papers (5) |
| EXAMS – E{gg}S around X (by) AM | |
| 8 | Fly round and round [in] ballroom dance (5) |
| TANGO – GNAT reversed + O | |
| 13 | One might go to 2 or higher [in] complex enumeration (11) |
| MOUNTAINEER – anagram of ENUMERATION | |
| 16 | Police department clamps off-road vehicle (4,5) |
| VICE SQUAD – VICES QUAD | |
| 18 | Asian’s inside borders at large plant (7) |
| FREESIA – {a}SIA{n} next to FREE (at large) | |
| 19 | Public transport staff save old stamp (7) |
| TRAMPLE – TRAM + POLE – O (save old) | |
| 21 | Suit jackets left in pack (5) |
| CLUBS – L in CUBS (pack) | |
| 22 | Hang around, dropping in for a beer (5) |
| LAGER – LINGER, replacing A with IN | |
I missed two in the NW corner, KILIMANJARO and FLIRTATION, managed to see sTATION for unopened post’ but didn’t get the definition and was stuck on a homophone of ‘try’. Also missed MAGNIFICAT. Everything else was either helpful wordplay or anagrams, and liked RENDEZVOUS and ASSIGNMENT. Thought IMBIBE very good. Thought the anagrammed MOUNTAINEER clever and assumed that ‘2’ was referring to K2. Lots to like today. COD to SURINAMESE, which I managed to spell suranamese!
Thanks PJ and setter.
DNF due to a sloppy RENDESVOUS. Can’t really complain about the spelling challenge when the letters are literally handed to you. Sigh.
17:41 would have stacked up pretty well otherwise. Very enjoyable challenge, COD to SURINAMESE.
Thanks Jeremy and setter.
A very interesting puzzle. I had been expecting a typical Friday beast but after a few moments of speed-reading the clues looking for an easy start I spotted EXAMS at 7dn and built from there one by one. As I did so I spent longer on each clue than might be my custom if the answer didn’t jump out at me and gradually the whole of the RH side including SWIMMING COSTUME but excluding 26ac, had fallen into place. As with Jeremy I was constructing answers largely from wordplay.
Unfortunately problems began when I came to tackle the LH side and apart from a few ‘gifts’ such as ANTI, IMBIBE, LAGER and URGE I became really bogged down with very little progress and the clock started running away from me.
My confidence took a blow when I eventually spotted PERDITION at 3dn and I realised my answer at 9ac was wrong. I hadn’t been completely sure of it, but PLANTATION had seemed a reasonable fit. A couldn’t think of an alternative, so eventually I gave in and used aids to find FLIRTATION and kicked myself.
That broke my hopes of an unassisted finish and I was tired by then so as the clock reached 70 minutes I also used aids for SCULPTURED and SURINAMESE to complete the grid. I had been so close to both at one time, but I didn’t know the country as South American so I was probably never going to get to it.
I certainly enjoyed this puzzle as something a bit different though.
28ac?
26ac I expect
Yes, thanks.
About 90 minutes with errors. I put PLANTATION for FLIRTATION. I didn’t get PERDITION as I was looking for a hell word to make endless. To me “coast beset by snow” was gibberish and even now it is difficult to see coast as a verb.
Needed the blog for a lot of the parsing. Thanks Jeremy.
I spent some time toying with HADE_ and DI_ before I thought of PERDITIION.
I didn’t find this too hard unti the end when I had SURINAMESE and SCULPTURED left to work out. Luckily the husband of a friend of mine is SURINAMESE so that one fell pretty quickly, and even with all the checkers I couldn’t see a word I could fit, never mind one that meant “cast” (throw? a theatre troupe? moulding something? there are several different meanings). So all correct in the end.
In the blog at 22D (last clue), I think you mean “replacing IN with A”, not “A with IN”.
Off to a slow start –FOI DORM–and continued slowly; took me over an hour, not counting short bouts of unconsciousness. In several cases, I suddenly saw a word, e.g. MAGNIFICAT, SCULPTURE, from the checkers without reference to the clue, and worked back to find the wordplay. (Never did parse MAGNIFICAT; didn’t see tenor=T.) The setter is fond of (a)round/about to indicate reversal or inclusion: 10ac, 27ac, 2d, 6d, 8d. I particularly liked IMBIBE & PERDITION.
Liked this one, not too hard, for a Friday anyway.
I thought of purgatory to start with and perdition took a while to arrive. Never quite parsed 12ac but no undue problems otherwise.
Just over the hour for this beauty. Loved ‘coasts beset by snow,’ with its Bondian images of bloke with rifle slung over his back whooshing effortlessly between snow-laden crags and trees.
That was indeed… amazing.
I can’t see what ‘jackets’ is doing in 21D unless it’s part of the def?
Suit jackets = CLUBS?
I.e. the club symbols are the motifs/’jackets’ of that suit of cards? Or am I barking up the wrong tree here?
I read ‘jackets’ as a verb=put in a jacket=enclose; CLUBS (suit) envelops L in CUBS (pack [of Cub Scouts]).
I see what you mean. The clue would work OK without ‘jackets’, ie ‘Suit left in pack’:
‘Suit’ as the def with L (‘left’) contained in (‘in’) CUBS (‘pack’). The alternative parsing with ‘jackets’ indicating containment, as suggested by Kevin, would make ‘in’ as a link word. Having ‘jackets’ probably helps the surface as well.
63 minutes. Hard enough but not too hard. FLIRTATION took me out to over an hour; I went through the same options as Jeremy, as well as checking if a possible pangram would help but alas all the letters were used by then. Having a mental blank for the required sense for ‘Lay’ at 4d didn’t help and I also found PERDITION difficult. I wondered about ACHE for ‘pound’ at 6d but I guess they’re somewhat similar, if not exactly the same.
I imagine the JOG IN across the centre of the grid is coincidental.
A whisker over an hour, with aids used for a number of holdouts in the bottom half (SURINAMESE, SCULPTURED). Several notches above my pay grade but the wit and intricacy of the cluing made it very enjoyable in a rather masochistic way.
Thanks Jeremy and setter.