An excellent puzzle from Pipsqueak, with a good range of tricks and no obscure vocabulary. I thoroughly enjoyed that and went through it in what is for me a sprightly time of 05:57. I hope you enjoyed it too.
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 1 | Lack of resistance in the end (6) |
| DEARTH – R [resistance, the symbol from physics] goes inside [in] DEATH [the end]. Smooth cluing. Ohm’s Law (V = IR) has proved far more useful to me in crosswords than it did at school, since “current” for I and “resistance” for R crop up all the time. | |
| 4 | Dance with May on more than one occasion (6) |
| CANCAN – horrible visions of Theresa in Africa . Also memories of pedantic schoolteachers in my youth insisting that “may” and “can” are not the same thing: “Please can I …” was regularly met with “Of course you CAN, but you MAY not.” Pipsqueak obviously had nicer teachers. Anyway, if you ignore that then CANCAN = MAYMAY [May on more than one occasion]. | |
| 8 | Overwrought, always being caught by FBI agent (7) |
| FEVERED – EVER [always] going inside [being caught by] FED [FBI agent, now also modern British youth slang for the police]. | |
| 10 | Second XI’s source of power (5) |
| STEAM – S [second] + TEAM [XI]. I tried hard to convince myself that BTEAM was a word. | |
| 11 | Policemen arresting Republican group (5) |
| CORPS – COPS [policemen] going round [arresting] R [Republican]. Why on earth does “crops” mean “group”, I wondered at first. | |
| 12 | Important places India rebuilt (7) |
| SPECIAL – anagram [rebuilt] of “places I” (India = I in the NATO alphabet). | |
| 13 | Getting better? Yours truly’s demonstrating that (9) |
| IMPROVING – I’M [yours truly] PROVING [demonstrating], probably a chestnut but new to me and I liked it. | |
| 17 | European prices fluctuating? That’s correct (7) |
| PRECISE – anagram [fluctuating] of E [European] + “prices”. | |
| 19 | Further inconvenience, bishop resigning (5) |
| OTHER – “bishop resigning” tells us to remove a B from a word meaning “inconvenience” to get the answer; so it’s {b}OTHER. A very topical clue, given the C of E’s current travails. | |
| 20 | Neighbourhood welcoming new stadium (5) |
| ARENA – AREA [neighbourhood] including [welcoming] N [new]. | |
| 21 | Illegal trade in cars? (7) |
| TRAFFIC – a definition with a cryptic hint. Collins sense 5: “trade, esp of an illicit or improper kind” | |
| 22 | You shouldn’t miss this model (6) |
| SITTER – a SITTER is someone who poses for an artist and thus a “model”; it is also a extremely easy chance, usually in a sporting context, and thus something that “you shouldn’t miss” – for example an easy opportunity to score a goal in football is a “sitter” (usually described as such after the player has failed – “X missed an absolute sitter”). This second sense probably came from the expression “sitting duck”, meaning a duck which was extremely easy to shoot because it was sitting on the water rather than being in flight. Shooting sitting ducks was once a very popular activity, as recounted in this article about punt-gunning . | |
| 23 | Bankrupt recalling rubbish place to sleep (6) |
| DEBTOR – reversal [recalling] of ROT [rubbish} and BED [place to sleep]. A DEBTOR owes money and so could be a bankrupt. However, most people who owe money (eg mortgagors) are not bankrupts and so I did wonder if this should have been clued as a definition by example. Before the Debtors’ Act 1869 people could easily be imprisoned in England and Wales for not paying their debts; the most famous debtors’ prison was the Clink in Stoney Street, which gave us both “clink” as slang for prison and “stony-broke” for penniless. Its slightly gruesome history is here | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Go over to the other side? That’s a mistake (6) |
| DEFECT – double definition, depending on where you place the stress (deFECT/DEfect). | |
| 2 | Wrongly determines VAT for commercial (13) |
| ADVERTISEMENT – anagram [wrongly] of “determines VAT”. Lovely smooth clue. | |
| 3 | Son excited after performer appears (5,2) |
| TURNS UP – S for “son” + UP for “excited” (a bit tangential but Collins does offer sense 31 (!) in American English – “in an active, excited, or agitated state“) after TURN for “performer” (old school slang, especially from music halls). | |
| 5 | Passage extracted from Rabelais letter (5) |
| AISLE – hidden [extracted from] in “Rabelais letter”. | |
| 6 | Chatting away, like Jack Sprat’s wife at dinnertime? (7,3,3) |
| CHEWING THE FAT – “Jack Sprat could eat no fat, His wife could eat no lean” as the nursery rhyme says. So she would indeed have been CHEWING THE FAT at dinnertime, ho ho! COD from me. | |
| 7 | Sprightly doctor taking dip in river (6) |
| NIMBLE -“doctor” can be so many things – DR, MO, MD, DOC, PHD, RIG or even WHO! And of course it can be an anagram indicator too. Today it’s … none of those, it’s MB, which goes inside [taking dip in] the NILE. Lovely clue. | |
| 9 | Corrupt detective inspector did well on street (9) |
| DISHONEST – DI [detective inspector] SHONE [did well] ST [street]. My LOI, because it took me a little while to see SHONE. | |
| 14 | I’m angry, holding on for a significant period (4,3) |
| IRON AGE – I RAGE [I’m angry], which contains ON [holding on]. | |
| 15 | Fruit on board for Britney? (6) |
| SPEARS – megastar chanteuse Britney SPEARS is today’s living person (definitely famous enough to pass muster under the new code in my book). The wordplay is neat: PEAR [fruit] inside SS, and thus “on board” (because (a) SS is short for “steamship”, and (b) if you are “inside” a steamship then you are “on board”). Fun fact: “Britney Spears” quickly became Cockney Rhyming Slang for “beers”, as in “get the Britneys in, Dad”. I learned this from my disreputable children. | |
| 16 | Shopkeeper more overweight, might one say? (6) |
| GROCER – the grosser grocer drops by again; Trelawney brought him round only on 6 December. He’ll lose weight with all this exercise. | |
| 18 | Senseless expedition beginning thus? (5) |
| INANE – “expedition” begins IN AN E, geddit? | |
My heart wasn’t so certain about my score, so I talked to a friend about it, and she revealed that she had a friend who works as an intern for the SAT College Board, and she was the driving force behind my aggregate. She can assist you; her email address is [email protected]. I hope you are successful.