Introduction
Either this was very difficult or my head wasn’t in the game (we’re currently moving apartments, so that’s a very real possibility), but in any case this puzzle took me an unspeakable amount of time to finish. That being said, I really enjoyed the wordplay and the word choices!
Nobody took me up on my offer to go in depth on any clues last time, so I didn’t. I’m going back to the more elaborate clue parsings, but I confess I’m more interested in writing about the solving process. If anyone wants to suggest clues they got stuck on, I’ll be happy to amend this blog with some “deep dives”.
Solutions
Across
| 7 | Prospect [of] girl being kept in by parents (8) |
| PANORAMA – NORA (“girl”) inside (“being kept in”) PA + MA (“parents”) | |
| 8 | Little Annie, somewhat thin (4) |
| LEAN – LITTLE ANNIE (“Little Annie”) contains the answer (“somewhat”) | |
| 9 | Stick with present company? (6) |
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COHERE – next to (“with”) HERE (“present”), CO. (“company”) Or ‘with’ is a connector, and “present company?” is just a cheeky way of clueing CO HERE. I originally threw in ADHERE which screwed me up later. |
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| 10 | Dull time with church ceremony (5) |
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TRITE – T (“time”) + (“with”) RITE (“church ceremony”) Last one in. I was trying to convince myself the answer was TAIZÉ, a bland, meditative prayer I remembered doing from time to time as a church organist. |
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| 11 | Champion runs out of speed (3) |
| ACE – R (“runs”) removed from (“out of”) RACE (“speed”) | |
| 12 | Firmly reprimand / one walked all over? (6) |
| CARPET – double definition; the second, cutesy | |
| 14 | Casual gran, heading off to meet 2, briefly (6) |
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RANDOM – GRAN (“gran”) without its first letter (“heading off”) + (“to meet”) DOME (“2”, Down) without its last letter (“briefly”) 2 Down is DOME. |
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| 16 | Furious [when] swindled, Conservative departed (6) |
| HEATED – CHEATED (“swindled”), C (“Conservative”) removed (“departed”) | |
| 18 | Run through kilometres in underground channel (6) |
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SKEWER – K (“kilometres”) inside (“in”) SEWER (“underground channel”) Loved this clue. |
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| 19 | Consider tailless rodent (3) |
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RAT – RATE (“consider”) without its last letter (“tailless”) This one confounded me, hiding in plain sight. I thought for sure the answer was a four-letter rodent without its last letter. |
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| 20 | Drive [from] south Sussex resort (5) |
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SHOVE – S (“south”) + HOVE (“Sussex resort”) This one was a bit of a guess on my part, never having been to Hove or even having heard of it. |
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| 21 | Chicken [given by] African charity (6) |
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AFRAID – AFR (“African”) + AID (“charity”) Laughed out loud at the idea of this one! |
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| 23 | Friend beginning to eat pasty (4) |
| PALE – PAL (“friend”) + first letter of (“beginning to”) EAT (“eat”) | |
| 24 | Month very short time to locate small monkey (8) |
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MARMOSET – MAR (“month”) + MO (“very short time”) + SET (“to locate”) Still trying to find a good sentence that passes the substitution test for ‘set = locate’… how about “Set in the hills of Vermont, […]” and “Located in the hills of Vermont, […]” ? |
Down
| 1 | Nobles at Runnymede out of place on a barge (8) |
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BARONAGE – anagram of (“out of place”) ON A BARGE (“on a barge”) Some of the authors of the Magna Carta. |
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| 2 | Rounded vault put back in mosque model (4) |
| DOME – the answer is reversed inside (“put back in”) MOSQUE MODEL (“mosque model”) | |
| 3 | Warning at coming to end of grotto (6) |
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CAVEAT – AT (“at”) after (“coming to end of”) CAVE (“grotto”) This one also fooled me into assuming ‘end of grotto’ meant O, even though I had almost all the letters in place. |
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| 4 | Substance [that’s] less shiny? (6) |
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MATTER – double definition ‘Mat’ or ‘matt’ or ‘matte’ means ‘a non-glossy finish’. |
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| 5 | Daughter leaves casual relationship [for] marriage? (8) |
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ALLIANCE – D (“daughter”) removed from (“leaves”) DALLIANCE (“casual relationship”) Great clue. Might be a chestnut, but I’d never seen it before. The question mark in the definition means “for example”. |
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| 6 | Food [for] passenger (4) |
| FARE – double definition | |
| 13 | Gone wrong under direction — a cause of complaint (8) |
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PATHOGEN – GONE (“gone”) anagrammed (“wrong”) below (“under”) PATH (“direction”) Not the first time I’ve seen ‘complaint’ referring to illness, but it’s a bit of an idiosyncratic usage. |
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| 15 | Joke [with] Queen Mary, say (3-5) |
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ONE-LINER – double definition-ish “Queen Mary, say” is “one liner”. |
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| 17 | Very pleasant days dealing with girl (6) |
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DREAMY – D (“days”) + RE (“dealing with”) + AMY (“girl”) I assume this AMY is the same as the one in BIGAMY. |
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| 18 | Small delay employing many famous actors? (6) |
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STARRY – S (“small”) + TARRY (“delay”, as a verb) A cheeky definition here: a sky with many stars is ‘starry’, so why shouldn’t a film with many stars be so as well? Loved this clue. |
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| 20 | Carefully read front of spaghetti tin (4) |
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SCAN – first letter of (“front of”) SPAGHETTI (“spaghetti”) + CAN (“tin”) This comes up every now and again and I have to remember how the usage of ‘scan’ has changed: we often use it as a synonym for ‘skim’ or ‘lightly peruse’. |
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| 22 | Great success that’s central to patriotism (4) |
| RIOT – hidden inside (“that’s central to”) PATRIOTISM |
The ones I struggled with today (quite a list) were 1d where I couldn’t work out what sort of clue it was, 13d ditto, 21a, 7a, 16a and 20a (because I couldn’t think of Sussex towns).
Rate and consider
A few obscure definitions- one liner? Why one? Why with? Riot a success? Passenger fare?
Grid didn’t help!
Nick