A bit of a quirky puzzle from Joker today, I think. It felt like there was almost a theme hidden somewhere, but not quite. A lot of Es Ns and Xs. (Hmm. Have I missed something?). Well I guess we can expect to be teased by Joker, and here he is at his tricksy best keeping me puzzling for the second longest time for a QC this year so far, taking over 7 1/2 minutes. I fell for more than a couple of misdirections (was I the only one?), such as expecting a V for five in 12A, the “say” at 19A and expecting an author in 12D… and more! And as for 13D… well what do you think? I enjoyed this a lot. I hope you did too. Plenty of lovely clues and no GRs; I give RETRO the COD award. If you found it hard, like yesterday’s, and missed your target or failed to finish I hope you won’t be discouraged, and if you didn’t, you’re smarter than me! Thanks Joker for a teasingly mind-bending and enjoyable Friday puzzle.
Definitions underlined in italics, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, deletions and “other indicators”.
Across | |
8 | General rule in doorstep receptions (7) |
PRECEPT – We start with a hidden word “in” doorsteP RECEPTions. Quite well hidden. Tip. If you can’t work out what is going on with the wordplay in a clue, try looking for a hidden word. | |
9 | Humble sailor, like slave, ultimately (5) |
ABASE – AB (sailor) AS (like) |
|
10 | A lot of Cologne, perhaps has European landscape (5) |
SCENE – Cologne is a type of SCEN |
|
11 | Support old horse, note, quite young (7) |
TEENAGE – TEE (support for golf ball) NAG (old horse) E (musical note). | |
12 | Unity over five points (7) |
ONENESS – There I was looking for a V in there somewhere, but in vain; its ON (over) E N E S S (five points of the compass). | |
14 | Beast of burden carrying large Tibetan priest (5) |
LLAMA – L (large) LAMA (Tibetan priest). Lovely surface; poor thing carrying a heavy weight at those heights. | |
15 | Apply authority without power (5) |
EXERT – The authority is an EX |
|
17 | Some esteemed a Cambridge backing the scholarly world (7) |
ACADEME – A reverse hidden; “some”, “backing”, in esteEMED A CAmbridge. Sadly, the surface doesn’t quite seem to work – what’s “a Cambridge”? | |
19 | Former news media, say (7) |
EXPRESS – This one had me confused….EX (former) PRESS (news media), the “say” making me think it was a semi-&lit asking for an example. But The Express is still being published so it can’t be “former”. Sneaky definition! Well done Joker. Now, then, blog reader – you didn’t just bung it in from the checkers, I hope. Did you? | |
20 | Old-fashioned beer brought back without pressure (5) |
RETRO – the beer is a |
|
22 | Tedium starts to exhaust now nothing usually interests (5) |
ENNUI – “starts to” Exhaust Now Nothing Usually Interests. Not with this crossword, though. | |
23 | Ridiculously, any line is wrong (7) |
INANELY – (any line)* “is wrong”. Describing a nonsense verse, perhaps? “I never saw a purple cow. I never hope to see one. But I can tell you anyhow, I’d rather see than be one!” |
Down | |
1 | Soup prepared for work (4) |
OPUS – (Soup)* “prepared”. Hmm. Maybe I should try the soup option from the canteen for lunch at work. | |
2 | Respect always joining queen and English (6) |
REVERE – R (regina – queen) EVER (always) “joining” E (English). The verb, not the noun. And nothing to do with with Paul of that ilk. | |
3 | Give up something to plant, reportedly (4) |
CEDE – Sounds like (“reportedly”) SEED (something to plant). | |
4 | Politician’s quality says chap’s fashionable (13) |
STATESMANSHIP – STATES (says) MAN’S (chap’s) HIP (fashionable). A nice charade. | |
5 | Desert creature with trouble lifting evergreen shrub (8) |
CAMELLIA – CAMEL (desert creature) with AIL (trouble) “lifting” i.e. reversed in a Down answer. | |
6 | An area under prohibition for fruit (6) |
BANANA – AN A (area) “under” BAN (prohibition). Reminds me of the song... “Yes, we have no bananas, we have no bananas today”. Hear it here. | |
7 | Need gear to move rat (8) |
RENEGADE – (Need gear)* “to move”. | |
12 | Astonished old writer spotted (4-4) |
OPEN-EYED – Led astray again, I was looking for an old Author as the first word, but it’s O (old) PEN (writer) EYED (spotted). | |
13 | Redesigned tech site is visually pleasing to Americans (8) |
ESTHETIC – “Redesigned” (tech site)*. It looks very odd to me without the A on the front. | |
16 | Former husband quiet with increase (6) |
EXPAND – EX (former husband) P (piano – quiet) AND (with). | |
18 | One or the other solvent absorbs iodine (6) |
EITHER – The solvent is ETHER which “absorbs” I (chemical symbol for Iodine). And here is an experiment you can do with it – larn yersel some stinks today; and hello to my chemistry teacher sister-in-law! | |
20 | A lot of paper’s pale yellow with no carbon (4) |
REAM – Another chemical symbol. This time we remove it…. |
|
21 | Variety of agate needs working unknown times (4) |
ONYX – ON (working) Y (unknown) X (times). we are talking the gemstone here, not the Pokémon with a similar name. |
I suspect the less experienced solvers will find this pretty tough.
On edit: I meant to say that I cordially dislike clues like 12ac, which ask the solver to pick from (NSEW/ABCDEFG/etc.).
Edited at 2019-01-18 02:17 am (UTC)
I also struggled parsing 14ac to fit the answer as the clue appeared to be the wrong way round: LLAMA (beast of burden) containing [carrying] L (large) which would give us L(L)LAMA. If it were a Down clue we could have got to the same (incorrect) answer with ‘carrying’ indicating L (large) on top of the beast of burden – L LLAMA. To get to the right answer one either has to ignore ‘carrying’ completely, treating it as padding which seems to be what our blogger has done, or read it as an enclosure indicator by inserting an imaginary comma in the second part of the clue: carrying large, Tibetan priest – L(L)AMA. Perhaps instead of wrestling with all this which will probably be shot to pieces anyway, perhaps I should have just biffed the obvious answer and moved on!
The one-L lama, he’s a priest;
The two-L llama, he’s a beast;
And I will bet a silk pajama,
There isn’t any three-L lllama.
My last two were OPEN EYED and EXERT. I liked Retro very much and Onyx was my FOI.
16:38 today. Well done Joker for a subtly different test.
David
27 minutes, but I spent four or five on my LOI ‘Either’ due to mis-spelling ‘AcadAme’ (unforgivable in a hidden word).
Still under my current target of 30 minutes, but as I’ve been under for the last week or so (apart from yesterday), I’m officially reducing it to 20 from next week.
Brian
On edit – I looked for a NINA but could only see a DAMN in the second row!
More than making up for today’s disappointment, however, is the fact that on the train home yesterday I finished the Big Boy Puzzle!! (For only the second time!) Absolute scenes. If you could do a fist-pump and knee-slide in a silent commuter train I’d have done it; as it was I had to content myself with looking up hoping someone would make eye contact and note my modestly triumphant expression. No-one did, of course. Almost everyone on modern trains seems to be watching a screen of some sort.
Templar
Edited at 2019-01-18 10:07 am (UTC)
Finished! A rare event, and very reassuring after yesterday’s disaster.
Diana
Edited at 2019-01-18 10:39 am (UTC)
My COD was undoubtedly retro – it made me smile.
Thanks Joker & to John for a really good blog.
Edited at 2019-01-18 11:44 am (UTC)
Many thanks to setter and w.
5’10”
LOI 7d RENEGADE and COD 15a EXERT. Thanks John for the blog.
Last 2 took ages, esthetic and exert.
Dnk camellia
Cod renegade or express.
I made the mistake of doing this on my Smartphone. It wasn’t a Smartmove, and I’d have been sub-four minutes on paper, as the only ones not written straight in were RETRO, and ONENESS.
FOI PRECEPT
LOI ONENESS
COD RETRO
TIME 5:07 on the official timer.
A lovely puzzle completed in 11.04
Thanks for the blog
This was my quickest one this week, statesmanship being the COD.
Thanks
SRT