I came in just under my target time at 14:40. I liked this a lot: multiple clues got the “oh, that’s clever” moment when solved. Definitely one on the trickier side, as we’ve come to expect from Izetti. I was surprised that I had beaten my target as quite a number of clues needed significant wrestling to subdue. But your mileage may vary.
Definitions underlined, synonyms in round brackets, wordplay in square brackets and deletions in strikethrough.
| Across | |
| 1 | Problems with hat back to front: Miss Woodhouse’s? (8) |
| DILEMMAS – LID (hat) reversed [back to front] gives DIL, then add EMMA’S (Miss Woodhouse’s)
Referring to Emma by Jane Austen, whose title character’s family name was Woodhouse. |
|
| 5 | Trick? Scot’s bowled over (4) |
| SCAM – Another reversal: take MAC as your archetypal Scot, stick an apostrophe-S on for the possessive & then turn it all around [bowled over].
Most Scots are either IANs or MACs in Crosswordland. |
|
| 9 | Some lifelong criminal (5) |
| FELON – Hidden in [some] “liFELONg”.
Nice. |
|
| 10 | Number of social workers who rent accommodation? (7) |
| TENANTS – TEN (number) + ANTS (social workers). | |
| 11 | Woman of the month? (3) |
| MAY – Double definition? Anyway, it had to be either JAN or MAY.
I opted for JAN first, but that gave me a distinctly unlikely __F_J_D for 1d, so I reconsidered. |
|
| 12 | What to expect: simple chap with Yankee’s meanness (9) |
| PARSIMONY – PAR (what to expect) + SIMON (simple chap – he met a pieman) + Y (Yankee in the NATO phonetic alphabet).
I wish I could expect a par. But that’s just a comment on how lousy a golfer I am, not on the definition, which is perfectly fair. |
|
| 13 | Mottled fruit item given to daughter (6) |
| DAPPLE – APPLE (fruit item) after [given to] D (daughter). | |
| 15 | Is troublesome cat about to drink? (4,2) |
| ACTS UP – Anagram [about] of CAT + SUP (to drink). | |
| 17 | Rubbish by an item of furniture that can be turned around (9) |
| ROTATABLE – ROT (rubbish) + A TABLE (an item of furniture). | |
| 19 | Vehicle is endless worry (3) |
| CAR – CAR I’m slightly embarrassed by how long I took to figure this one out. |
|
| 20 | A heartless wife upset me — so formidable! (7) |
| AWESOME – A + W
Edited: Thanks to Jackkt for pointing out that ‘upset’ works just fine as an anagram indicator. I’ve left my original comments above, as otherwise some of the comments below will make no sense. |
|
| 21 | Mischief-maker joining the Spanish force (5) |
| IMPEL –IMP (mischief-maker) + EL (the, in Spanish). | |
| 22 | Small child‘s bit of money (4) |
| MITE – Double definition.
The second meaning only came to me from “the widow’s mite” in the bible: people without O-Level Religious Studies in the 1980s may struggle. 😉 |
|
| 23 | Opportunist, almost the last character to appear in court (8) |
| CHANCERY – CHANCER (opportunist) + Y (almost the last character (in the alphabet)). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Vilified female, a maiden caught in the act (7) |
| DEFAMED – F (female) + A + M (maiden – cricket), all inside [caught in] DEED (the act). | |
| 2 | Sweet dough (5) |
| LOLLY – Double definition.
Both definitions may be tricky for non-UK based solvers, I think. The first refers to an “ice lolly” – a frozen dessert on a stick much loved by the under-10 crowd, and the second conjures images of Vince Jones saying what he wants from the upcoming heist. |
|
| 3 | Careful handling of fellow, one with throbbing, lacking bit of sense (12) |
| MANIPULATION – MAN (fellow) + I (one) + PUL I’ll confess to being extremely unkeen on “bit of sense” being used to clue “S”. And when I try to make sense of the surface reading, my mind fortunately refuses at the first fence. |
|
| 4 | Change part of ’orse’s equipment (5) |
| ALTER – The dropped ‘H’ in the clue means you should do the same in the answer: |
|
| 6 | Swiss areas preserve huge amounts (7) |
| CANTONS – CAN (preserve) + TONS (huge amounts).
As England is made up of counties and the US is made up of states, so is Switzerland made up of cantons. |
|
| 7 | Sentimental Greek character disinclined to speak (5) |
| MUSHY – MU (Greek character) + SHY (disinclined to speak). | |
| 8 | Petty misdeed at home — consider it silly (12) |
| INDISCRETION – IN (at home) + anagram [silly] of CONSIDER IT. | |
| 14 | Obvious to take in one person for surgery? (7) |
| PATIENT – PATENT (obvious) with I (one) included [to take in].
As someone married to a patent agent, I’ll just note that “patent” and “obvious” are very very far from being synonyms. The only usage I can think of that links these words is “patently obvious”, which really makes no sense, since if something is obvious it cannot be patented. I’ll get down from my soapbox now. |
|
| 16 | Herb beginning to speak, interrupting conference (7) |
| PARSLEY – S [beginning to ‘S |
|
| 17 | Kingdom has king, extraordinary male (5) |
| REALM – R (king, as in CR) + anagram [extraordinary] of MALE. | |
| 18 | Tree in coastal stretch, we hear? (5) |
| BEECH – Homonym [we hear] of BEACH (coastal stretch). | |
| 19 | Manage to enclose second area with trees (5) |
| COPSE – COPE (manage) including [to enclose] S (second). | |
I do crossword in print version of Times. 6d reads “Administrative areas with various sanctions one ignored”
Another print solver. Had I seen the online version, I would have got CANTONS immediately. I taught my students about the Swiss system of government only last week.
I managed to solve this in 18 mins, so an SCC escape. Several biffable answers and one guess (MITE).
1 hr, 5 mins for the week thus far, so goal remains achievable.
Just to keep me in my place, Quintagram was a disaster. Only one answer achieved today!
PS I had to read ‘Emma’ for A-Level English Lit. Boring, but nowhere near as bad as ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’!
My English teacher gave me Tess for Christmas as a Year 12 parting gift, she secretly hated me didn’t she
You’re doing very well this week Gary!
What subjects/year levels do you teach?
Thanks Tina.
I teach law (and a bit of government) to under- and postgraduate students. The law is mainly constitutional and civil/criminal litigation. The government stuff is to students on a pre-university foundation course, so at a fairly basic level.
DNF by 5
Not a good day
I’m clearly an outlier here, took about 60 minutes and lots of head scratching Helped by my wife’s encyclopedic knowledge of all the works by Jane Austen, I did eventually finish 😀.
An Izetti completed in 23 minutes. That’s what I call a lovely Christmas present.
👍👍