I enjoyed this one for its mix of relatively straightforward clues with a few headscratchers to complete the grid.
A good variety of clues including five anagrams, seven letter deletion (or variations on the theme) clues and three double definitions but – no complaints from me – no cryptic defs.
All done in 8:36. Thanks to Hurley
Definitions underlined in bold, deletions and letters in the wordplay not appearing in the answer indicated by strikethrough.
| Across | |
| 7 | Perfect extract from guide altered (5) |
| IDEAL – Hidden (‘extract from’) guIDE ALtered | |
| 8 | Mug drank merrily after cheers (7) |
| TANKARD – Anagram (‘merrily’) of DRANK following TA (‘cheers’)
An appropriately boozy surface. My COD |
|
| 10 | Drug substitute, hollowed-out pill, expert brought over initially (7) |
| PLACEBO – P |
|
| 11 | Suppress odd bits of castellan’s book (5) |
| ATLAS – Only the even numbered letters of ‘castellan’s’. I don’t know if the surface means anything, ie if a famous cartographer was a ‘castellan’. FWIW I looked up Mercator (finding out that his 1595 Atlas was the first time the word had been used to describe a book of maps) and it wasn’t on his CV. |
|
| 12 | Far-seeing gift entertaining 101? (9) |
| PRESCIENT – PRESENT (‘gift’) containing (‘entertaining’) CI (‘101’ in Roman numerals) | |
| 14 | Argument against fraud (3) |
| CON – Double definition
After umming and aahing about whether this was a triple definition, I eventually opted for a double, mainly because I couldn’t see ‘argument’ by itself as a definition for CON. |
|
| 15 | Add small measure of spirits (3) |
| TOT – Double definition | |
| 16 | Home needs rice to be cooked (9) |
| RESIDENCE – Anagram (‘to be cooked’) of NEEDS RICE | |
| 18 | City where I’m rebuffed repeatedly about article (5) |
| MIAMI – MI and MI (‘I’m rebuffed repeatedly’) containing (‘about’) A (‘article’)
‘Rebuffed’ indicating reversal of IM |
|
| 20 | Pay proper attention to particular point (7) |
| RESPECT – Double definition
The second definition as in “the cases were similar in almost every respect”. |
|
| 22 | Special deal ultimately leads to impulse for spending spree (7) |
| SPLURGE – SP (‘Special’) |
|
| 23 | Offence of a right child (5) |
| ARSON – A (‘a’) R (‘right’) SON (‘child’) | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Animal mishap, pup too silly (12) |
| HIPPOPOTAMUS – Anagram (‘silly’) of MISHAP PUP TOO | |
| 2 | Dissolute ten years, not without love (8) |
| DECADENT – DECADE (‘ten years’) N |
|
| 3 | Run away from pest, we hear (4) |
| FLEE – Aural wordplay (‘we hear’) of FLEA (‘pest’)
No ambiguity about the def with the aural wordplay indicator at one end of the clue; one of my bugbears is when the indicator is in the middle of the clue and working out the def depends on having some checked letters in. |
|
| 4 | Made great effort in street roam (6) |
| STROVE – ST (‘street’) ROVE (‘roam’) | |
| 5 | At sea, dawn tune desired? No! (8) |
| UNWANTED – Anagram (‘At sea’) of DAWN TUNE | |
| 6 | Irritation in Georgia — lie low at the outset (4) |
| GALL – GA (‘Georgia’) L The US state, not the country, which would have given GE as the International vehicle registration code for the country of Georgia. ‘Irritation’ as in annoyance or exasperation, not a sense of GALL I’m familiar with, but it’s in Collins and the other dictionaries. |
|
| 9 | Engineer can’t find site for debugging aid? (12) |
| DISINFECTANT – Anagram (‘Engineer’) of CAN’T FIND SITE
No, not a software anti-virus program. |
|
| 13 | Bearers and cross-country runners using different leader (8) |
| CARRIERS – HARRIERS (‘cross-country runners’) with the first letter changed to C (‘using different leader’)
HARRIERS as cross-country (human) runners named after a kind of hound used for hare-hunting. |
|
| 14 | Container one emptied first for water fan? (8) |
| CANOEIST – CAN (‘Container’) O The question mark as a CANOEIST is an example of someone who might be a ‘water fan’, though maybe not the first to come to mind. My LOI. |
|
| 17 | Kind about skin on bizarre dessert (6) |
| SORBET – SORT (‘Kind’) containing (‘about’) B |
|
| 19 | Supporter the whole year (4) |
| ALLY – ALL (‘the whole’) Y (‘year’) | |
| 21 | Fall in price around November leads to difficulty (4) |
| SNAG – SAG (‘Fall in price’) containing (‘around’) N (‘November’)
I wondered what the ‘in price’ was doing, but Collins specifically has ‘to fall in value’ as sense 2 for SAG. |
|
7.44.
11:02. I needed the blog to see the second definition of RESPECT. For fall in price I thought of cut first too like others. However SNAG fit the definition much better than old King Cnut.
The first one to say we found this tricky and DNF.
Skin on bizarre new to us.
Didn’t see splurge, decadent or ally.
9:55 for me – not often I get below ten minutes, so this must have been on the easy side.
Thank you for the blog!
Sub 10m for me and very approachable and satisfying – thank you Hurley!
I wondered if a Flanders and Swann theme was going to emerge when 1d fell. Having recently sung the Hippopotamus song to an audience of enthusiastic Germans (!) I came to 6d and it fell immediately- All Gall being another song out of the Hat! Can’t see any more though, unless the Flea is in the Bestiary. Fun moments.
I was looking for ‘un/de-scrambler’ for 9d until the PDM. Nice a quick QC today – a welcome change!
A disappointing 14 mins when I look at what the competition is achieving (I can’t stop viewing this as a competition, given that most solvers post their times to the nearest second). Could and should have been better. I’m nowhere near breaking 10 mins. The week was, in any event, spoiled by yesterday’s DNF.
Failed by 2 on 15 x 15 after an hour plus. One appalling spelling error and one that was easy if I had read the wordplay correctly. Another poor showing. I had the ability to finish this one, so that’s an opportunity blown. 😡
Felt like a gentle stroll after recent fare. All done in about 35mins with SORBET and RESPECT taking up 10 of those at the end!!!!!!!
At last – a proper QC, and very enjoyable. Like others, a bit of head-scratching at the end, but it didn’t detract from the overall enjoyment. We also put STRODE for 4D although realised it didn’t parse, and we didn’t quite get RESPECT. But other than those, there was no particular holdup.
LOsI RESPECT & CANOEIST;
COD CANOEIST for there really being OE in the answer!
Thanks very much Hurley and Bletchers.