Hello again. This crossword I thought was about average difficulty, not too hard but not a gimme either. Not a single cruciword, thankfully, and some excellent surface readings and all-round good clues. Thank you, 23dn setter.
As per usual there are a couple of clues I can’t currently parse, 8 and 27ac .. maybe they will come to me, if only via helpful comments!
What did you think?
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 | Assist beside outside broadcast spot (7) |
| OBSERVE – OB (outside broadcast) + SERVE (assist). A nice neat write-in to get us going .. | |
| 5 | Scattered boxes with energy (6) |
| SPARSE – SPARS (boxes) + E(nergy) .. ditto! | |
| 8 | Foreigner carrying large variety of fig? (9) |
| STRANGLER – L(arge) in STRANGER, foreigner. I struggled with this, through lack of a crucial piece of GK: the strangler fig. You don’t see them much here in Kent. | |
| 9 | Town centre in Rome with a good hospital (5) |
| OMAGH – (r)OM(e) + A G(ood) H(ospital). County town of County Tyrone, associated by most with the bombings that took place there | |
| 11 | Record attempt by bridge players (5) |
| ENTRY – EN + TRY (attempt). “Bridge players” can be used to denote any combination of E,N,W and S. | |
| 12 | Run after I angered drunken soldier (9) |
| GRENADIER – *(I ANGERED) + R(un) | |
| 13 | Perhaps German person arriving outside chambers (8) |
| COMPOSER – POS (chamber pots!) in COMER, a person arriving. Not for the first time, the (English) composer Sir Edward German is used to mislead. | |
| 15 | Right car to go around one Italian city (6) |
| RIMINI – I, one, in R(ight) + MINI, a car. My Aunt Dora used to go to Rimini every summer, must have been a nice change for her from Sheffield. | |
| 17 | Identified gadget to be thrown out (6) |
| TAGGED – *(GADGET) | |
| 19 | Company reportedly pursuing £1000 wine (5,3) |
| GRAND CRU – GRAND (£1,000) + CRU, sounds like “crew,” a company. | |
| 22 | Where one’s warm and rather abandoned in embrace (9) |
| HEARTHRUG – *(RATHER), in HUG, an embrace. | |
| 23 | Lively right after beer (5) |
| ALERT – ALE (beer) + RT, right. | |
| 24 | Legal clause added by one in the saddle? (5) |
| RIDER – a DD. | |
| 25 | One who’ll go far as a jewellery worker? (3-6) |
| JET-SETTER – Another DD of sorts, as jet-setters travel far and jet is also a gemstone which can thus be set, though it isn’t stone, it is a form of coal, lignite. | |
| 26 | Wine after cheddar? This port’s essential for that (6) |
| DARWIN – cunningly hidden, in (ched)DAR WIN(e). You have to put the wine after the cheddar, and bingo. Hiding the answer in words that have first to be rearranged is a device I haven’t seen before, so naturally I really liked this clue. | |
| 27 | With nothing odd — in fact, surreally so? (7) |
| NATURAL – One of Collins’ definitions is “not supernatural or strange.” So far so good, but the opposite of surreal, so I am still a bit bemused about that bit of the clue. I’m thinking it could be a reference to So, the musical note, (a needle pulling thread), which I assume is a natural.. my musical knowledge is very limited. More or less confined to that Julie Andrews song in fact. | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Greyish-white feline caught this female bird (13) |
| OYSTERCATCHER – OYSTER (greyish white, called “oyster white” in Collins) + CAT (feline) + C(aught) + HER (female). A charade or Ikea clue. | |
| 2 | Problem about rising pastry layer (7) |
| STRATUM – TART (pastry) reversed in SUM, a problem. | |
| 3 | Called the last in assembly spare (5) |
| RANGY – RANG (called) + (assembl)Y | |
| 4 | Record that is introduced to make legal claim over bouquets (8) |
| EULOGIES – LOG (record) + IE (that is), both in SUE (legal claim) reversed. | |
| 5 | The brothers overturned, missing hard ice (6) |
| SORBET – T(h)E BROS, the brothers without H(ard) | |
| 6 | Fuss over helping worship (9) |
| ADORATION – ADO (fuss) + RATION (helping) | |
| 7 | Tongue was hurt on hot pepper, not cold (7) |
| SWAHILI – *(WAS) + (c)HILI. Slightly held up here by a lifetime of spelling it chilli. | |
| 10 | Dealing with those that live on earth I call “our truth”, in a way (13) |
| HORTICULTURAL – *(I CALL OUR TRUTH). Devious definition! | |
| 14 | Best open hotel chain (9) |
| OVERTHROW – OVERT (open) + H(otel) + ROW (chain). Always amuses me that “best” and “worst” can mean exactly the same thing. | |
| 16 | Get scared of sound in swamp (8) |
| FRIGHTEN – RIGHT (sound, as in eg sound mind) in FEN, a swamp, although mostly they are not, nowadays. | |
| 18 | Relative with really good degree (7) |
| GRANDMA – GRAND (really good) + MA, a master of arts degree. | |
| 20 | One who does raise spirits around party regularly (7) |
| CHEATER – (p)A(r)T(y) in CHEER, raise spirits. | |
| 21 | One hard-working old judge in strange rant (6) |
| TROJAN – O(ld) J(udge) in *(RANT). Trojans were hard-working, according to the Iliad. Did them no good in the end, though.. | |
| 23 | Expert answer with a lot of complexity (5) |
| ADEPT – A(nswer) + DEPT(h), complexity mostly. | |
The correct parsing of 27 to is to remove the odd letters of IN FACT, SURREALLY, giving a sort of semi &lit.
Time: 28:29
Found this one quite hard as an American, especially in the northwest corner. NHO Omagh but got it from the wordplay. OB for outside broadcast was a new one, that’s not a term we use in America, and Chamber -> Chamberpot -> Po is brutal, especially because Sir Edward German is not very famous over here.
19;43 for me, so I found it pretty easy. I deduced from the obvious answer that there must be a composer called German that I NHO and that there must be a STRANGLER fig I also NHO. My LOI was ADEPT (it toom me too long to see that Depth could be “with a lot of complexity”.
DNF because, like ‘ib’ above, I came to grief in the NW corner. The rest of the puzzle had been fine. With a checker still missing at the time I became fixated on ‘bouquets / ÉPERGNES’ at 4dn, and ‘bouquets / EULOGIES’ (more of a figurative interpretation) would never have occurred to me. That made STRANGLER impossible and I was also finding it hard to think past REEDY at 3dn although I realised it didn’t fit the wordplay. In the end I was very tired and lost the will to continue trying so I used aids to clear my mind of it.
Sir Edward German (born German Edward Jones; 1862 – 1936) is perhaps best remembered for his comic opera Merrie England. It’s great fun and has some good tunes.
Liked this a lot. Slowest af the end with NHO OYSTERCATCHER and COMPOSER.
We’ve seen a clue like DARWIN’s here at least once…
3 short
I guessed COMPOSER, but wasnt happy because although i know many German composers, I didn’t know that German was a composer. And I don’t see how POS = chambers, how does “chamberpots” fit?
Also guessed CHEATER, but wasnt happy stuck on “one who does raise” since the noun spirits=cheer (be of good cheer). And if someone “does” you, they have tricked you which isn’t really the same as cheating.
DARWIN was a step too far, Times style doesn’t allow indirect anagrams, so this is now OK?
Had RIDER in QC yesterday. Liked NATURAL and COD JET SETTER
27.34, mostly a terrific puzzle but I’m not convinced by POS for chambers nor by the device that gave us DARWIN. Thanks Jerry.
From Isis:
She said Where you been? I said No place special
She said You look different, I said Well, I guess
She said You been gone, I said It’s only NATURAL
She said You gonna stay? I said If you want me to, YES!