Hi everybody. Trelawney has taken us on a bit of an international tour, so I sought inspiration for the blog title by typing “international” into a search engine and looking at the autocomplete suggestions. This was when I discovered that October 13th is International Day for Failure. I failed to fail today, although there’s still time to find I made a typo or silly error in the blog. If you didn’t finish or made a mistake, this one’s for you.
My favourite clue is the rotten water business in 17d. A certain water company springs to mind, with others not far behind. Thanks Trelawney!
Definitions are underlined in the clues below. In the explanations, most quoted indicators are in italics and I’ve capitalised and emboldened letters which appear in the ANSWER. For clarity, I omit most link words and some juxtaposition indicators.
| Across | |
| 7a | I give out cards? Perfect! (5) |
| IDEAL — I + DEAL (give out cards) | |
| 8a | Essential part of diet not ripe unfortunately (7) |
| PROTEIN — An anagram of (… unfortunately) NOT RIPE | |
| 10a | Musician beginning to drink with stranger (7) |
| DRUMMER — The first letter of (beginning to) Drink with RUMMER (stranger) | |
| 11a | Farm fodder’s blemishes sent back (5) |
| STRAW — WARTS (blemishes) reversed (sent back) | |
| 12a | Somehow a jerk with bail can escape? (9) |
| JAILBREAK — An anagram of (somehow) A JERK with BAIL | |
| 14a | Odd bits of crude signal (3) |
| CUE — Odd letters of (odd bits of) CrUdE | |
| 15a | Sister’s noise upset nan initially (3) |
| NUN — Noise Upset Nan, first letters (initially) | |
| 16a | Flyer that a cutlery shopper may receive? (9) |
| SPOONBILL — A bit of whimsy: just as a grocery shopper would get a food bill, someone buying cutlery might receive a SPOON BILL | |
| 18a | Force the Spanish to follow mischievous creature (5) |
| IMPEL — EL (the, Spanish) going after (to follow) IMP (mischievous creature) | |
| 20a | Emergency responder’s broken arm fine (7) |
| FIREMAN — An anagram of (broken) ARM FINE | |
| 22a | Natural instrument extremely idiosyncratic (7) |
| ORGANIC — ORGAN (instrument) + outer letters of (extremely) IdiosyncratiC | |
| 23a | Charlie enters Scandinavian ball (5) |
| DANCE — C (Charlie) goes inside (enters) DANE (Scandinavian) | |
| Down | |
| 1d | I adore joiner’s new place in Brazil (3,2,7) |
| RIO DE JANEIRO — I ADORE JOINER is anagrammed (new) | |
| 2d | South American travelling up ravine (8) |
| PERUVIAN — An anagram of (travelling) UP RAVINE | |
| 3d | Criticise bridge contract (4) |
| SLAM — A double definition | |
| 4d | Meagre boxes on floor of vehicle (6) |
| SPARSE — SPARS (boxes) on the last letter of (floor of) vehiclE | |
| 5d | Some aperitif or sake now abandoned (8) |
| FORSAKEN — Some aperitiF OR SAKE Now | |
| 6d | Majority of long 12 months (4) |
| YEAR — All but the last letter of (majority of) YEARn (long) | |
| 9d | Antipodean from north east to stroll around fire (3,9) |
| NEW ZEALANDER — NE (north east) + WANDER (to stroll) around ZEAL (fire) | |
| 13d | Heard some low notes in part of tennis court (8) |
| BASELINE — Sounds like (heard) BASSLINE (some low notes) | |
| 14d | Fried potato brother picked up for animal (8) |
| CHIPMUNK — CHIP (fried potato) + MUNK, which sounds like (… picked up) MONK (brother) | |
| 17d | Rotten form of water business (6) |
| OFFICE — OFF (rotten) + ICE (form of water) | |
| 19d | Summon knight’s assistant (4) |
| PAGE — Two definitions | |
| 21d | Free European roller-coaster, for example (4) |
| RIDE — RID (free) + E (European) | |
Wish I’d timed it properly might have been able to claim a PB. But def below 10 mins. Spoonbill the only hold up until I realised the non pamphlet definition of flyer
Thanks Kitty and Trelawney
7:10, very quick for me. Hard to believe, but it would have been even quicker if I hadn’t spent well over a minute trying to find an anagram of OR SAKE NOW that meant “abandoned”, before spotting the hidden. And now I type this, I notice that I didn’t count the letters correctly. Gaaah. But that explains why no-one else has reported falling into that trap.
A very pleasant solve, thanks Trelawney.
Grateful for correct parsing, didn’t quite see where SPARSE came from, or YEAR I suppose quite unusual, and some Hmm’s but all correct regardless.
Surprised myself with a v fast time- Costa still unfinished ! Waiting for fish&chip shop to open. Will be an early supper…. All straight in a L to R solve. Wish I’d timed this one. A great puzzle but I was fairly on the wavelength for a change. Some witty clues to enjoy.
I thoroughly enjoyed this – so many good surfaces and lovely connections that it was really hard to pick a COD. I liked BASELINE because MrB plays bass; I liked RIO DE JANEIRO because our son lives in Brazil; we were lucky enough to see a SPOONBILL last time we were in Norfolk; and PROTEIN, JAILBREAK, PERUVIAN, and FORSAKEN were just good fun.
And of course the old joke sprang to mind: What do you call someone who hangs around with musicians? A drummer!
7:54 FOI Ideal LOI Baseline COD Office
Many thanks Trelawney and Kitty – I’d say that’s a win all round today!
International Day of Failure indeed – flying from one country to another. Definitely international. Multiple interruptions. No chance to properly measure our doubtless PB time – so definite failure. The finer details can merrily hover in our imagination, perhaps losing a few seconds in the process. 😉 That said – much fun. Chuckled at OFFICE. Himself could spell the J word in Rio de… and the last was STRAW – in its rightful place.
Thank you all.
The last STRAW – nice!
nice to succeed at something on this auspicious day : )
5:12, nearly a PB
An appalling 15 minutes, capped off with 5 mins on NEW ZEALANDER, which I read as (9,3) rather than (3,9). Yes, I am that bad. This should have easily been a sub-10 solve for me.
How nice of them to name a day for people like me.
Too fed up with this to even look at 15 x 15. Spent 2 hours on ST puzzle yesterday. Got about 2/3, but what’s the point when it takes that long?
Glanced at the championship puzzle in the paper. Couldn’t see anything. Says it all.
I did finish the Championship puzzle, but it took nearly two hours. So even good solvers can look really bad.
Finished! 40 min but I’ll still take that as a win. I got SLAM from criticise – but how does that relate to a bridge contract?
11.34, a record for me, usually takes me half an hour.