Ah, Orpheus again but without such a sting. 8 minutes for an interesting solve. Started slowly but then the biffometer started ratcheting up – a word to the wise here for other potential biffers – make sure you correct the final letter of 21ac before you type the penultimate letter of 15dn – I held myself back just in time.
A little bit of geography, a bird and a mammal made this interesting and fun.
Definitions are underlined.
Across |
|
1 | Old man’s expression of thanks for Italian food (5) |
PASTA – old man’s (PA’S), expression of thanks (TA). | |
4 | Drive shown by politician in refurbished suite (7) |
IMPETUS – politician (MP) inside an anagram (refurbished) of SUITE. | |
8 | Action of Liberal with wife in a formal outfit (7) |
LAWSUIT – Liberal (L), with wife (W) inside a (A) and formal outfit (SUIT). | |
9 | As a mountain track may be, blustery and indirect (5) |
WINDY – COD to a rather good triple definition. | |
10 | Crusty old American on container ship? (12) |
CANTANKEROUS – old (O) and American (US) after container (CAN) and ship (TANKER). | |
12 | Bird — and cat beginning to track it (6) |
TOMTIT – cat (TOM), (T)rack, it (IT). | |
13 | Talkative, and spiteful about hotel (6) |
CHATTY – spiteful (CATTY) about hotel (H). | |
16 | Investigate loud noise of birds — Swedish, possibly (12) |
SCANDINAVIAN – investigate (SCAN), loud noise (DIN), of birds (AVIAN). | |
18 | French river, one embodied in folk tradition (5) |
LOIRE – one (I) embodied in folk tradition (LORE). | |
20 | What we learn by accepting established award (7) |
ROSETTE – what we (can) learn by (ROTE) accepting established (SET). | |
21 | Explosive device briefly associated with a Caribbean state (7) |
GRENADA – explosive device briefly (GRENAD)e, with a (A). | |
22 | Monkey found in Israel or Islamabad (5) |
LORIS – found in Israe(L OR IS)lamabad. Loris – a nocturnal, slow moving prosimian primate with sad eyes. |
Down | |
1 | European jazz fan, one raising quite a stink! (7) |
POLECAT – Eurpopean (POLE), jazz fan (CAT). The polecat has some aroma issues apparently. | |
2 | Device that provides a shuttle service for a seamstress? (6,7) |
SEWING MACHINE – cryptic definition. | |
3 | Excessive praise of grown-up touring area, one on cricket side (9) |
ADULATION – grown up (ADULT) touring area (A), one (I), cricket side (ON – the side that a batsman/woman would naturally hit towards – to the left for a right-hander) | |
4 | Recent arrivals sadly eat in kitchen at first (6) |
INTAKE – anagram (sadly) of EAT IN and (K)itchen. | |
5 | Leaders of priests equipped with seat in church (3) |
PEW – (P)riests (E)quipped (W)ith. | |
6 | Would it damage part of a shoe? It’s hard to say (6-7) |
TONGUE-TWISTER – something which would twist (damage) the tongue of a shoe. | |
7 | Island involved in risky enterprise (4) |
SKYE – involved inside ri(SKY E)nterprise. A beautiful place btw. | |
11 | Tries to get into Madrid team’s practice session (9) |
REHEARSAL – tries (HEARS – as in a hearing) inside one of Madrid’s soccer teams (REAL). | |
14 | US city built by characters from Orkneys (7) |
YONKERS – anagram (built by characters from) ORKNEYS. | |
15 | Travelling is rare in a mountain range (6) |
SIERRA – anagram (travelling) of IS RARE. | |
17 | Arduous job, initially, sawing wood (4) |
SLOG – (S)awing, wood (LOG). | |
19 | Woman Caesar’s salutation upset (3) |
EVA – Caesar’s salutation – ave – upset (EVA). |
Quiz question: New York City has a city income tax. What is the only other city in New York State that also has a city income tax?
–
Nila Palin
Like you, I knew of YONKERS from the Simon play, and I had also thought it was a borough.
Quick note re 1d:
Polecat = skunk here in US. Hence allusion to ‘stink’ made sense to me.
‘Cat’ for a jazz fan may be a bit dated, but it’s still a timeless, retro-cool sobriquet for a jazz musician, esp when one musician speaks of another.
It was a bit distracting at 3dn having ‘on’ in the clue meaning ‘on top of’ followed by ‘cricket side’ cluing ON.
Edited at 2021-06-01 06:52 am (UTC)
Now back to reality having to sort out damage and a dreadful mess left by a tenant doing a runner at the weekend.
Finished in 7.00 with WOD to CANTANKEROUS.
Thanks to Chris
FOI: 9a. WINDY
LOI: 20a. ROSETTE
Time to Complete: 68 minutes (Av. 71, PB 32)
Clues Answered Correctly without aids: 21
Clues Answered with Aids (3 lives): 10a, 18a, 15d
Clues Unanswered: Nil
Wrong Answers: Nil
Total Correctly Answered (incl. aids): 24/24
Aids Used: Chambers, Bradford’s, Google
2d. SEWING MACHINE – I answered this one quickly, but if I am honest, it was not due to working out the parts of the clue. It was the first thing that came into my head when I considered seamstress. Actually, it was the second thing I thought of; the first being a scene in Demolition Man when Stallone’s character was horrified to learn that he was a seamstress. I could not work out how sewing machine was obtained from the clue until I came here.
14d. YONKERS – I have not heard of this city. However, it was the only plausible answer I could come up with using the anagram. So, in it went.
15d. SIERRA – I could not get this answer to this one. It was not contained in Chamber’s Crossword Dictionary, nor in Bradford’s. A Google search of mountain ranges gave me the answer.
A fairly tricky puzzle which took me a long time, but I am just pleased to have actually solved an Orpheus puzzle.
Could not believe YONKERS, as ‘New York’ looked tempting, as did ‘Yankees’, which fitted all the checkers. In our family we use ‘Yonkers’ to mean a long period of time, an Americanised version of the very British ‘Yonks’.
LOI LOIRE as SLOG was penultimate, leaving Rhine And Seine as distinct possibilities.
I liked the triple def, WINDY, but thought 2d was barely cryptic at all.
NHO LORIS. ‘Lemur’ was mightily tempting after the initial L dropped a n. Isn’t there a goalkeeper called Loris?
COD PASTA, a classic cryptic to start us off.
FOI PASTA, LOI SIERRA, COD REHEARSAL, time 08:55 for 1.9K and a Good Day.
Many thanks Orpheus and Chris.
Templar
Like Merlin my last 2 in were 17D Slog and 18A Loire; there are a number of French rivers that go –I-E. But otherwise few hold-ups. I surprised myself by dredging Yonkers up out of goodness knows what memory bank — I have certainly never been there, nor could I tell you where it is, but somehow, somewhere I had heard of it. The things one remembers …
I was worried at first that I had mis-parsed 3D Adulation. The ADULAT bit was clear and then I thought the cluing “one on” gave the -ION, leaving me wondering whether the cricket side was superfluous. Perhaps if Orpheus had written “… one with cricket side” I might have been less confused.
Many thanks Chris for your blog. But after alerting us in your intro to the fact that we need to watch the last letter of 21A Grenada very carefully, you have unfortunately got a typo in the parsing of the clue itself — (GRANAD)e.
Cedric
explosive device briefly (GRANAD)e, with a (A).
I’m showing that grenade without the final letter (briefly) gives us GRENAD and then add on A.
Biffed lots of the long answers. SEWING MACHINE seemed too easy. CANTANKEROUS, TONGUE TWISTER, SCANDINAVIAN made me smile.
FOI PASTA, IMPETUS
Thanks VM, Chris.
PASTA and IMPETUS went in more-or-less straight away, which helped, and I found the whole of the top half of the grid relatively straightforward (although I needed INTAKE before confirming the spelling of CANTANKEROUS – Great word!). The lower half of the grid posed more problems – I had never heard of YONKERS or a LORIS – and I finished in the SW corner with GRENADA, SLOG and LOIRE.
I’m afraid I can’t report on Mrs Random’s effort yet, as she is entertaining a close friend, whom we haven’t seen since last Summer.
Many thanks to Orpheus and to chrisw91.
I was amused by COD 1 down “Polecat” – as a long time jazz fan (particularly European jazz) I won’t take it personally!
Thanks to Chris and Orpheus
With many thanks to blogger and setter
There were some great surfaces today – I thought 9a, 18a and 11d were especially pleasing, and it was hard to choose a COD.
Like Random, PW and others, I used to find Orpheus very tricky, but recently I’ve been getting on a lot better with his puzzles – I don’t know if that’s because he’s making them a bit easier or if I’ve finally got onto his wavelength. A bit of both perhaps? But suffice to say – there’s always hope 😊
FOI Pasta
LOI Cantankerous
COD Impetus – lovely surface that makes wonder me if it was written before or after the No10 wallpaper row!
Many thanks Orpheus and Chris
Was delayed for a short time putting GRENADE instead of GRENADA, and took much too long to get my LOI ROSETTE. FOI was WINDY.
Loads of successful biffing today.
Over the Bank Holiday Weekend I started doing the 15x15s on a number of Times issues on my iPad and was pleased to have achieved around 80% success on average. Have also learned that doing the “proper” crossword is very good exercise for the QC as it really does force one to think laterally and not be too swayed by what appears on the surface.
No completion time today because interrupted on numerous occasions, but probably around the 18 minute mark. Would have been about 12 had it not been for the stubborn ROSETTE.
Didn’t have a problem with Yonkers as once worked for a while in Connecticut and often passed the signs for it on my way out of New York City. However, dnk “cat”= jazz fan nor “Loris” was a monkey.
FOI — 1ac “Pasta”
LOI — 12ac “Tomtit”
COD — 11dn “Rehearsal”
Thanks as usual!
Loads of successful biffing today.
Over the Bank Holiday Weekend I started doing the 15x15s on a number of Times issues on my iPad and was pleased to have achieved around 80% success on average. Have also learned that doing the “proper” crossword is very good exercise for the QC as it really does force one to think laterally and not be too swayed by what appears on the surface.
No completion time today because interrupted on numerous occasions, but probably around the 18 minute mark. Would have been about 12 had it not been for the stubborn ROSETTE.
Absolutely on Orpheus’ wavelength this morning, missing only 1 across clue on the first pass.
Should probably have made it in under 10 minutes, except I simply could not parse or biff 20ac, trying all manner of gongs, medals, wreaths, and ribbons before finally resorting to an alphabet trawl. Very frustrating.
I have been disparaging towards Orpheus in the recent past but this was a good QC with emphasis on the Q!
Yonkers seemed to easy that I hesitated
Thanks all
John George
Edited at 2021-06-01 03:11 pm (UTC)
FOI PASTA
LOI LOIRE
COD TONGUE-TWISTER
TIME 2:35
FOI – 1ac PASTA
LOI – 20ac ROSETTE
COD – toss-up between 4ac IMPETUS and 11dn REHEARSAL, but lots of other lovely clues
Thanks to Chris and Orpheus
I liked SCANDINAVIAN today.
5:14.
Straightforward enough, though I still managed to nudge into SCC territory by virtue of the NHO Yonkers combining with my effort to squeeze Est into 20ac Rosette. CoD to 16ac Scandinavian. An easier week so far. Invariant
FOI 1ac PASTA
LOI 15dn SIERRA
COD 10ac CANTANKEROUS
WOD 6dn TONGUE-TWISTER
Took me ‘roughly half an hour’ with all but Eva/Ave parsed.
Thank you, to blogger and setter.