Middle of the road from Joker today, I’d say, in terms of both difficulty and quality. The average standard is very high, though, so all good! I started off slowly enough, eventually getting about half the acrosses on my first read through, but it all slotted together nicely and I came in two minutes under my target. Not much in the way of obscurity beyond 8ac. I was vaguely aware of the bird at 22ac, but would never have come up with it, if asked cold to list as many birds as I could. Not so now, now that I can put a face to the creature. So something learnt, and an enjoyable puzzle – many thanks to Joker!
| Across | |
| 1 | US maker of beams to tie down in air journey (10) |
| FLASHLIGHT – LASH (tie down) in FLIGHT (air journey). A “torch”, in American English, is something you might expect to see wielded alongside a pointy white hood. (Other alt-right gatherings are available.) | |
| 8 | Comprehensive Roman law is Byzantine (7) |
| COMPLEX – COMP. (comprehensive) LEX (Roman law). Nice clue – pieceable together from the down checkers if you (understandably) didn’t know “lex” for Roman Law – a site search shows its last appearance was December last year in the 15x crossword, but I had a feeling it had cropped up more recently than that. I did briefly study Byzantium in a History module once, and didn’t get to grips with it, but how much that was attributable to its now proverbial bureaucratic complexity is difficult to say. | |
| 9 | Facility left for support of painting (5) |
| EASEL – EASE (facility) L(eft) | |
| 10 | Short letter, never English (4) |
| NOTE – NOT (never) E(nglish) | |
| 11 | Queen entering worries members of the family (8) |
| BROTHERS – R (Regina/Queen) entering BOTHERS (worries). I was originally thinking ER for the queen, and nearly managed to convince myself that a “broth” could be a “worry”… it’s sort of almost there: if a stew is a troubled state of mind, a broth must simply be a lighter one. Which I suppose would make a consommé a clearly defined worry. | |
| 13 | Certainly popular act (6) |
| INDEED – IN (popular) DEED (act) | |
| 14 | Land in European country (6) |
| ESTATE – E(uropean) STATE (country) | |
| 17 | Mandatory objective about violence (8) |
| ENFORCED – END (objective) about FORCE (violence) | |
| 19 | VAT, perhaps, with one hire car (4) |
| TAXI – TAX (VAT, say), with I (one) | |
| 21 | Times with article finally to obliterate (5) |
| ERASE – ERAS (times) with E (articlE, finally) | |
| 22 | I caught bird around frozen mass of water (7) |
| ICEBERG – I C(aught) GREBE (bird), around = reverse. A freshwater diving bird, distantly related to the flamingo. Wikipedia says that, while they can run a short distance, “they are prone to falling over, since they have their feet placed far back on the body”. An amusing enough image, certainly, but in their defence they can dance on water rather well. | |
| 23 | True retail arrangement for books and magazines (10) |
| LITERATURE – anagram (arrangement) of TRUE RETAIL. | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Small child in cap of restricted size (7) |
| LIMITED – MITE (small child) in LID (cap) | |
| 3 | Fabric being put back in stock list (4) |
| SILK – “put back, in” the letters of stocK LISt | |
| 4 | Five-star fury after flux loses force repeatedly (6) |
| LUXURY – URY after LUX, when fury and flux “repeatedly”/both lose F for force. | |
| 5 | Biggest gear breaking up when on trial (8) |
| GREATEST – anagram (breaking up) of GEAR on TEST (trial) | |
| 6 | Refinement of sculptor’s head in gallery (5) |
| TASTE – S (Sculptor’s head) in TATE (gallery) | |
| 7 | Single gin & T, stirred and sparkling (10) |
| GLISTENING – anagram (stirred) of SINGLE GIN and T | |
| 8 | Thought Conservative team communist? (10) |
| CONSIDERED – CON(servative) SIDE (team) RED (communist) | |
| 12 | Most light-hearted? I’m terser, unfortunately (8) |
| MERRIEST – anagram (unfortunately) of IM TERSER | |
| 15 | Inept friend involved in gold rush initially (7) |
| AMATEUR – MATE (friend) involved in AU (gold) R (Rush, initially) | |
| 16 | Older Spanish gentleman embraces one (6) |
| SENIOR – SENOR (Spanish gentleman) embraces I (one) | |
| 18 | Fail outside right that’s easily injured (5) |
| FRAIL – FAIL outside R(ight) | |
| 20 | Most appropriate wager about son (4) |
| BEST – BET (wager) about S(on) | |
Yes, the clue to COMPLEX stood out as being a bit, well, complex. The first four letters of the clue being the same as the first four letters of the answer was more of a hindrance than a help, as one tends to think, surely it can’t mean that as it’d be too easy?
COD goes to LUXURY from me, very ingenious. LOI was AMATEUR – I was expecting “gold rush initially” to signal GR.
Thanks for the entertaining blog, Roly.
Templar
Had to return to 3 clues to check parsing before submitting:
Complex due to not knowing/forgetting lex/law.
The broth conundrum and what flashlight had to do with the US.
COD Luxury.
Thanks for the blog
I shall no doubt regret this post tomorrow.
PlayUpPompey
Today’s seemed much easier and back on paper which I prefer.
FOI was 18d starting at the bottom and LOI was Brothers which I could only parse using the Broth approach.
Anyway all done in about 20 minutes. I always enjoy Joker’s puzzles.
David