Our odyssey through the pleasant terrain of Crosswordland continues with Teazel. Some of us spin through these adventures stately as a galleon while some – the sub 5 minuters – seem to be aboard a 25ac. For everyone it’s all about enjoying the journey. On the subject, I’ll be visiting (very new) family in USA for the next 4 weeks and plan to save all my time and energy for new Grandad duties – so thanks to whoever takes a step backwards later than the rest and so gets landed with the next 4 Tuesday QC blogs.
I found today’s puzzle to be an excellent QC. It was all gettable for me but I had to force several of the answers over the parsing line (which pushed me just over my 10 minutes) as I wasn’t sure enough of the definition to biff. 1ac, as LOI, was a case in point as I took a while to justify local store having that definition but ‘it just had to be’ given the parsing (although ‘cereal’ took a while too).
Good luck to all who choose to boldly go into this QC but take care – splitting ones infinitives (especially in infinity) can be fraught with danger.
Definitions are underlined.
| Across | |
| 1 | Check on cereal in local store (6) |
| BRANCH – check (CH) on cereal (BRAN). Well, it took me some time as mentioned above. | |
| 4 | Ruler gives extremely tacky and intemperate speech (6) |
| TYRANT – (T)rick(Y), intemperate speech (RANT). | |
| 8 | Wine is nastier when drunk (7) |
| RETSINA – anagram (when drunk) of nastier. In my early 20s on one of my first trips properly abroad (i.e by plane), I could only afford the cheap stuff – which couldn’t really have been any nastier – it tasted of what I imagine creosote would taste like. | |
| 10 | Really excellent police officer (5) |
| SUPER – double definition, | |
| 11 | Come across heartless devil (4) |
| FIND – heartless devil (FI)e(ND). | |
| 12 | I’m pink, burning with love (8) |
| FLAMINGO – burning (FLAMING) with love (O). It’s a flamingos own fault – they do insist on eating algae and brine shrimps which contain carotonoids (to you and me that’s the stuff which make carrots orange and tomatoes go red). | |
| 14 | Carpet a church, around cross (9) |
| AXMINSTER – a church (A MINSTER) around cross (X). Not ‘to tear a strip off’, then but an actual carpet. | |
| 18 | No heroes worked in such a small town (3-5) |
| ONE-HORSE – anagram (worked) of NO HEROES. | |
| 20 | Be aware of hearing refusal (4) |
| KNOW – honmophone (hearing) of refusal – NO. | |
| 22 | Arab in USA I’d relocated (5) |
| SAUDI – anagram (relocated) of USA ID – very appropriate as I’m going to relocate there temporarily. | |
| 23 | Barrier at site entrance: parking, indeed with everyone (7) |
| PAYWALL – parking (P), indeed (AY) with (W) everyone (ALL). I had AYE for indeed but it looked awful so I looked closer and saw WITH. When I’d got the answer I was imaginging something like a barrier at a car park but, whilst blogging, I saw it was a web site subscription page. | |
| 24 | What a setter, or anyone antisocial, may drop (6) |
| LITTER – Cryptic or double definition? Whatever it is, I liked it. A female setter dog having a litter and the inconsiderate who seem to think that their rubbish is not their problem. | |
| 25 | Spaceship alien lands on Gibraltar? (6) |
| ROCKET – alien (ET) lands on Gibraltar (ROCK). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Deprived female wearing cap (6) |
| BEREFT – female (F) in cap (BERET). | |
| 2 | A new banknote’s to be announced, one feels (7) |
| ANTENNA – a (A), new (N) homophone (to be announced) of bank note – TENNER. Having never had one, I can’t personally vouch for the feeling properties of an antenna but I’m sure they fulfil this useful purpose. | |
| 3 | Short piece of film has Conservative on edge (4) |
| CLIP – Conservative (C) on edge (LIP). | |
| 5 | US park is which some yeti is roaming (8) |
|
YOSEMITE – anagram (is roaming) of SOME YETI. Should the clue say IN which or IS which? |
|
| 6 | In a compound, small tree (5) |
| ASPEN – inside a (A) and compound (PEN) is small (S). | |
| 7 | Getting up to dry fish (6) |
| TURBOT – all upwards – to (TO), dry (BRUT – as in sparkling wine). | |
| 9 | Everything finishes convincingly (3,4,2) |
| ALL ENDS UP – evrything (ALL), finishes (ENDS UP). Beaten all ends up (which I hope you weren’t today). | |
| 13 | I’m on the phone still (8) |
| IMMOBILE – I’m (IM) on top of phone (MOBILE). Some companies do seem to make it hard work to get through to a human being – I’m recently bruised by being caught in 40 minutes or so of automated options where sometimes you had to answer by voice (and didn’t get understood). | |
| 15 | Was in charge of big bag for plunder (7) |
| RANSACK – was in charge of big bag (RAN SACK). | |
| 16 | Inspector left a dainty piece of food (6) |
| MORSEL – inspector (MORSE), left (L). WOD dainty. | |
| 17 | Silly person crosses one line in the half-dark (6) |
| TWILIT – silly person (TWIT) crosses one (I) and line (L). | |
| 19 | First of teeth, perfect, coming up, do this? (5) |
| ERUPT – all coming upwards – (T)eeth, perfect (PURE). I suppose teeth do this when they first appear out of the gum. | |
| 21 | One maintaining uprightness in wild orgy (4) |
| GYRO – anagram (wild) of ORGY. Marvellous surface to finish off – I suppose gyros do maintain uprightness but only whilst spinning. | |
I didn’t know ALL ENDS UP so that slowed me down quite a bit, and BRANCH took a while too. I liked ONE-HORSE and YOSEMITE.
I’m in the anti-Retsina camp, and think ouzo is equally horrible! I do remember drinking Demestica in the Kolossi grill near Sadler’s Wells back in the day — cheap and cheerful but went well with the afelia. Probably would have been better on a Greek island in the sun though!
FOI Tyrant
LOI Branch
COD Retsina
Thanks Teazel and Chris — have a wonderful time with your family
3 times longer than yesterday. Teazel always but always has me over a barrel, metaphorically speaking of course.
North West was the main problem, but one of those puzzles where I’m always chasing my tail.
Approx 10:20, but I’ve forgotten the exact time.
A fine teaser by Teazel with a gentle relaxing solve over 2h 17 min (!), which framed a very happy family Birthday dinner today.