Hello everyone. It’s been a while since I’ve encountered Trelawney on a blogging day and I was happy to see him. Solving was nice and smooth, with a big smile at the unusual first aid item in 13d. Thanks Trelawney!
Definitions are underlined in the clues below. In the explanations, I generally italicise indicators unless it seems clearer not to. Where the removed letter is specified, [deletions] are in square brackets, and I’ve capitalised and emboldened letters which appear in the ANSWER. I sometimes omit link words and juxtaposition indicators if it doesn’t feel necessary to explain them. If you have any questions, please ask in the comments section.
| Across | |
| 1a | Cuban’s heedlessly concealing wailing spirit (7) |
| BANSHEE — CuBAN’S HEedlessly concealing the answer | |
| 5a | Art gallery in North Dakota, say, not South (4) |
| TATE — [s]TATE (North Dakota, say), not S (south) | |
| 7a | Fling with head of navy is paradise (6) |
| HEAVEN — HEAVE (fling) + the first letter of (head of) Navy | |
| 8a | Give naughty child paintings, perhaps (6) |
| IMPART — IMP (naughty child) + ART (paintings, perhaps) | |
| 9a | Old lady and two friends cropped arresting picture showing ancient site (5,6) |
| MACHU PICCHU — MA (old lady) and CHUm CHUm (two friends) both short of the last letter (cropped) taking in (arresting) PIC (picture) | |
| 10a | Team returns, working for inventor (6) |
| EDISON — SIDE (team) goes backwards (returns) + ON (working) | |
| 12a | Sleep next to family’s serviette (6) |
| NAPKIN — NAP (sleep) next to KIN (family) | |
| 14a | Desirable partner reportedly unravels slogan (11) |
| CATCHPHRASE — CATCH (desirable partner) + PHRASE, which sounds like (reportedly) FRAYS (unravels) | |
| 17a | Catch Eminem song about otorhinolaryngology? (6) |
| ENTRAP — An ENT RAP could be an Eminem song about otorhinolaryngology | |
| 18a | Outlaw grabs cash machine for superhero (6) |
| BATMAN — BAN (outlaw) takes in (grabs) ATM (cash machine) | |
| 20a | Singer heading east within Scotland (4) |
| ALTO — The answer is reversed inside (heading east within) ScOTLAnd | |
| 21a | Engineers tried out not working any more (7) |
| RETIRED — RE (engineers) + TRIED anagrammed (out) | |
| Down | |
| 1d | Farewell purchase for the audience (3) |
| BYE — Sounds like (… for the audience) BUY (purchase) | |
| 2d | No gambling and drinking, say, for beginners (7) |
| NOVICES — NO + VICES (gambling and drinking, say) | |
| 3d | Religious adherent back with uniform (5) |
| HINDU — HIND (back) + U (uniform) | |
| 4d | Volume of rabble-rousing cut at first (7) |
| EDITION — With the first letter removed (… cut at first), sEDITION (rabble-rousing) | |
| 5d | Subject to incomplete selection (5) |
| TOPIC — TO + PICk (selection) without its last letter (incomplete …) | |
| 6d | Squire out to change order for precious stone (9) |
| TURQUOISE — SQUIRE OUT anagrammed (to change order) | |
| 9d | Italian family ultimately ban nausea pill having therapeutic properties (9) |
| MEDICINAL — MEDICI (Italian family) + last letters of (ultimately) baN nauseA pilL | |
| 11d | Redesign phone or one has no chance of succeeding? (2-5) |
| NO-HOPER — Make an anagram of (redesign) PHONE OR | |
| 13d | Stapler is unusual first aid item! (7) |
| PLASTER — STAPLER is anagrammed (unusual) | |
| 15d | Where one can find core temperature approximately (5) |
| TORSO — T (temperature) + OR SO (approximately) | |
| 16d | Nun’s garment beginning to harden slightly (5) |
| HABIT — The first letter of (beginning to) Harden + A BIT (slightly) | |
| 19d | Help Matilda regularly (3) |
| AID — Every other letter of (… regularly) mAtIlDa | |
TORSO and EDITION made me smile which is always a good thing on a dark Monday morning.
The rest of the puzzle was very pleasant and today I learned how to spell PICCHU despite seeing it written down dozens of times. Two Cs really? And no T.
Thanks Trelawney and Kitty.
My thanks to Trelawney and Kitty.
A nice Xword and a good blog, all fine apart from a loooong pause at the crossing 17a Entrap and 15d Torso. I felt that they were both a bit tricky as core=torso isn’t blindingly obvious, and no-one uses THAT word when ENT will do fine. As it is a long way from “something to do with a throat” to ENT, I thought that hard. Also I HHO but know nothing about Eminem, didn’t know them as rappers. So I had to biff it from “Catch” with only 2 crossers. Then 15d “T or so” occurred to me and off we went.
Still all’s well and all that.
6.47 Uneventful. LOI EDITION. Kitty, there’s a typo (Tines) in the blog title. Thanks for the blog and thanks Trelawney.
Oops! Fixed now, thank you.
An enjoyable crossword. I was held up by TORSO and – more especially – by Eminem: my brain goes into panic mode when it knows nothing about the subject (similarly when the clue has anything to do with computing). Finally all completed – even the spelling (though not the parsing) of MACHU PICCHU – in 16.52.
10:22
Knew the 19 letter monster, and it makes a change from “hospital department”.
COD NOVICES, although I had NEWBIES at first.
A pretty swift 8:33 here with the major headscratching being our LOI TORSO, a nice clue once the penny dropped and feeling grateful to have taken time over it rather than bunging in turbo out of frustration. Could never have told you that the oto.. word existed but its various bits led reasonably swiftly to ENT and thence to ENTRAP, with more gratitude that all we needed to know of Eminem was that he is a rap artist. A MER at the equivalence of heave and fling, the latter for me implying substantially greater rapidity of action than the former, but the answer was clear. Thanks, Kitty and Trelawney.
A nice start to the week. No problem in finding the hidden ALTO and moved on. 6d looked as if Squire out might lead me back to a self-referencing Trelawney, but not the case! Another QC with answers used in recent puzzles – do some setters reckon they can outdo others with ‘better’ cluing? Solved much earlier in the day than usual – last week it sometimes had to await completion until the televised snooker had finished!
FOI 1a banshee
LOI 17a entrap
COD 14a catchphrase
My only MER was Batman being described as a superhero. He doesn’t have any superpowers, he’s just an ultra fit man with plenty of gadgets.🙂
Worked through nicely, must be Monday. About 25 mins. Needed crossers to spell Machu Picchu correctly.
Thanks Trelawney and Kitty
Thanks Kitty for parsing ENTRAP. Other than that I breezed through from BANSHEE to EDITION in 5:20. Happy Monday!
Got there in 24 minutes today, which is a decent time for me.
I found CATCHPHRASE and ENTRAP quite difficult and had to wait for 4d before deciding on the spelling of MACHU PICCHU. Trouble was that 4d (EDITION) was my LOI and it’s not a synonym of volume in my book. Each edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica came in many different volumes, I think …. or am I being a dimwit, as usual.
Many thanks to Kitty and Trelawney.
7:49 to do this typically smooth puzzle from Trelawney. A significant chunk of time was spent marveling at the word “otorhinolaryngology”. I felt rather stupid and was surprised to be under 8 minutes, so expect there may be some blazing times.
I loved MACHU PICCHU, with its clear wordplay that got me there in spite of my unsureness about the spelling. Always a sucker for an amusing surface, I paused to enjoy HEAVEN. I agree with other commenters about the misdirection (not in a good way) at my LOI 20a ALTO. Trying to find a justification, I can only think of “the heading is at the east end”, not very convincing.
Thanks Trelawney and Kitty.
15 mins…
Oddly, it took me quite a while to get going on this, especially as Trelawney tends to be one of the easier setters. Thankfully, 9ac “Machu Picchu” had enough checkers and clueing so I avoided misspelling it.
FOI – 5dn “Topic”
LOI – 15dn “Torso”
COD – 5ac “Tate”
Thanks as usual!
PS. I know this has been mentioned before, but my avatar no longer appears when I post – even though it is still there as part of my account profile. Was there an easy solution?
Not for the first time I’ve found I can’t spell MACHU PICCHU and was slow on ENTRAP and TORSO at the end. Lots of effort in the SW squandered by using what I thought was the spelling without pausing to parse. Oops.
20 mins. Words went in quicker once I got on the wavelength e.g. or so for approximately.
Also had to look up otor……. What’s wrong with usual def of ENT ‘hospital dept. ‘ * shakes fist at Trelawney*.
Thanks all
A very enjoyable solve today. Like others, I had to look up the long word (although I had that the rhino bit was something to do with noses) as I couldn’t squeeze Stan in either.
11:13. I managed to convince myself that “heading east” worked OK to give ALTO, in the same way as Martinů, much earlier in this blog, and Steel City, despite her reservations. The heading (A) is at the east.
I particularly liked T OR SO and H A BIT.
Thank you Trelawney and Kitty
Fun Monday.
Can you imagine the NHS having to put up signs saying OTORHINOLARYNGOLOGY DEPT in all the hospitals?
🤯
6.56. I presume that ‘core’ in the clue for ‘torso’ has something to do with fitness, but I’m not at all sure.
I was so busy with my blog puzzle and Jason’s contribution that I didn’t get around to doing this one until now. I found it really quite easy, with edition giving me the correct spelling of Machu Picchu. I had the pic in the wrong place until then.
Time: 7:18
Failed on TORSO but I like it, Turbo fitted so I moved on. EDITION correct but disappointed not to see the parsing before coming here. The chatty style of comments nowadays is great, rather an austere place here in the early days.
3:57. Done after returning home from a lovely 10 mile walk from Wells-next-the-Sea in North Norfolk. I’m not sure how I came to be so quick as it didn’t seem that easy. But no marks on my page apart from the filled-in grid and my time. Luckily I recognised the proper name for the ENT hospital department. Like Kitty, I enjoyed the unusual first aid item. Thanks Trelawney and Kitty.
11 minute DNF.
Put BUY for 1dn and SYLVAN for 7ac.
Utter, utter incompetence. How can I be this bad? Failing on a Trelawney a new low, even for this no hoper. Where am I going so wrong? I’m sure everyone else found this a breeze.
I spent almost 90 minutes on 15 x 15 and was still 3 short.
I am at my absolute wits end with this and have not the faintest idea how to achieve anything like a decent performance. Bottom line is that I just haven’t got it and never will. Almost 5 years of trying and I am nowhere! ☹️