Hi everyone. As this will be my last Times blog to be published this year, I’d like to wish you all a lovely festive season, however you celebrate or don’t. See you on the other side!
It’s a while since I’ve had the pleasure of blogging a Teazel puzzle. My highlight today is probably the household in 15d, but I also liked the city with a lack of curry (19a) and more. Thanks Teazel.
Definitions are underlined in the clues below. In the explanations, most quoted indicators are in italics, specified [deletions] are in square brackets, and I’ve capitalised and emboldened letters which appear in the ANSWER. For clarity, I omit most link words and some juxtaposition indicators.
| Across | |
| 1a | Clothe oneself in grass? Corrected (9) |
| REDRESSED — DRESS (clothe oneself) in REED (grass) | |
| 6a | Very quiet concession (3) |
| SOP — SO (very) + P (quiet) | |
| 8a | Help is about after a car breaks down in idyllic location (7) |
| ARCADIA — AID (help) is reversed (is about) after A CAR is anagrammed (breaks down) | |
| 9a | Discover taking drug is punished (5) |
| FINED — FIND (discover) taking E (drug) | |
| 10a | Earn lots of money as sniper? (4,1,7) |
| MAKE A KILLING — A sniper also literally “makes a killing” | |
| 12a | Fairy king seen in October once (6) |
| OBERON — The answer is seen in OctOBER ONce | |
| 13a | Shantytown in much-loved Californian city (6) |
| FAVELA — FAVE (much-loved) + LA (Californian city) | |
| 16a | I could add opinion about torture ignoring right (3,2,7) |
| NOT TO MENTION — NOTION (opinion) around (about) TO[r]MENT (torture) ignoring R (right) | |
| 19a | Maryland city has no more curry (5) |
| BALTI — BALTI[more] (Maryland city) lacks (has no) MORE | |
| 20a | Walking unhurriedly with jewellery on in the morning (7) |
| AMBLING — BLING (jewellery) on AM (in the morning) | |
| 22a | Timid cast (3) |
| SHY — A double definition: cast as in throw | |
| 23a | Coming out slowly in crisis, Yankee loses place to European (9) |
| EMERGENCE — In EMERGENC[y] (crisis, Y (Yankee) is replaced by (loses place to) E (European) | |
| Down | |
| 1d | Eating nothing, sheep wander about (4) |
| ROAM — Taking in (eating) O (nothing), RAM (sheep) | |
| 2d | State cleared criminal (7) |
| DECLARE — An anagram of (… criminal) CLEARED | |
| 3d | Aim to finish (3) |
| END — Two definitions | |
| 4d | South Park’s flashes of wit (6) |
| SPARKS — S (south) + PARK’S | |
| 5d | Stripper floated in, dancing (9) |
| DEFOLIANT — FLOATED IN, anagrammed (dancing) | |
| 6d | Mount first of solutions in artificial intelligence (5) |
| SINAI — The first of Solutions + IN + AI (artificial intelligence) | |
| 7d | Run into pagoda, somehow getting pain in foot (7) |
| PODAGRA — R (run) goes into an anagram of (somehow) PAGODA | |
| 11d | Save money — some I once wasted (9) |
| ECONOMISE — SOME I ONCE anagrammed (wasted) | |
| 12d | Raise contribution in brief moment for transport (7) |
| OMNIBUS — Reverse (raise, in a down entry) SUB (contribution), IN and MO (brief moment) | |
| 14d | Reduction in rank dismissing leader’s strong feeling (7) |
| EMOTION — Removing the first letter (… dismissing leader), dEMOTION (reduction in rank) | |
| 15d | Long period supporting males in household (6) |
| MÉNAGE — AGE (long period) underneath (supporting) MEN (males) | |
| 17d | Correspond in time with colleague (5) |
| TALLY — T (time) with ALLY (colleague) | |
| 18d | Those first in office give long, embarrassing stare (4) |
| OGLE — Initial letters of (those first in) Office Give Long, Embarrassing | |
| 21d | Large island captured by Great Britain returned (3) |
| BIG — I (island) in (captured by) GB (Great Britain) reversed (returned) | |
14:14 here. Add me to the list of people for whom PODAGRA was new. Can’t wait until the next time it appears, when it will no doubt be new all over again! COD to BALTI, once I’d stopped mucking around with MD and UR.
Thanks to Kitty and Teazel.
Not that far off 2 hours on 15 x 15 and still 4 short. Just 78 on Snitch but almost every clue was very hard for me. When I look at clues I missed, all were gettable with the right type of brain (which I lack).
Very disappointing.
10:53 and it seems Teazel decided to be gentle with me today (for once!), which I’m grateful for after a somewhat trying weekend. I had to biff OMNIBUS as I haven’t managed to learn SUB, and I biffed-then-parsed NOT TO MENTION. NHO PODAGRA and neither has my spell-checker, but it wasn’t hard to guess. SPARKS gave me pause by being too easy, double double cross. DEFOLIANT my favorite.
Thanks to Teazel and Kitty.
6:11
Pretty easy apart from the NHO PODAGRA but managed to fatfinger BUG instead of BIG.
Merry Xmas Kitty and Teazel