I found this to be a tricky one, I’ll be interested to see what the SNITCH rating turns out to be. I was way over my 15 minute target time on this one: 24:16, which put me in last place on the leaderboard when I submitted. It is a good job I’m not trying to win any prizes. I thoroughly enjoyed the struggle: Breadman is one of my favourite setters.
A good couple of those minutes were spent near the end trying to figure out whether I had my second pangram in a row to blog, to see if that helped me solve my last two, (1ac and 5dn) but I couldn’t envisage fitting all of B, F, V and Y into the remaining spaces, so I abandoned that idea. But I did spot something that confirmed the feeling I’d had from near the start that there was something strange about this puzzle. And that did indeed help me to finish the puzzle.
For the second time in a row, then, I’m going to use the hidden text widget to avoid giving away the trick to people who don’t want to learn this from the blog:
Definitions underlined, synonyms in round brackets, wordplay in square brackets and deletions in strikethrough.
| Across | |
| 1 | After death, leave that French article in the possession of Elizabeth (8) |
| BEQUEATH – QUE (that, in French) + A (article, from grammar) inside [in the possession of] BETH (Elizabeth).
My LOI and the clue where I was helped by having spotted the gimmick. I spent ages thinking this was going to be some technical term for “after death”. That darn comma fooled me totally. |
|
| 6 | Some fox enraged bovine animals (4) |
| OXEN – Hidden in [some] “fOX ENraged” | |
| 8 | Depart from capital of Ecuador, stopping early (4) |
| QUIT – QUIT Turns out that the capital of Equador isn’t La Paz. |
|
| 9 | Remarkably nice place, former picture house (8) |
| CINEPLEX – Anagram [remarkably] of NICE + PL (place) + EX (former). | |
| 10 | Unusual ladders around square stand with legs far apart (8) |
| STRADDLE – Anagram [unusual] of LADDERS around T (square, as in carpentry). | |
| 12 | Papa consumed finely minced spread (4) |
| PATE – P (Papa in the NATO alphabet) + ATE (consumed). | |
| 13 | Merchant recalled scarlet painting? (6) |
| TRADER – RED ART (scarlet painting) backwards [recalled].
I’m not proud of how long a time there was between my thinking “no, DERART isn’t a word” and getting the answer. |
|
| 15 | Martial art Ken attempted initially with speed (6) |
| KARATE – The first letters of Ken Attempted [initially] + RATE (speed).
“Initially” usually only applies to a single word, except when it doesn’t. And when it doesn’t, there isn’t always an indicator that you need to take more than one first letter, as here. |
|
| 17 | Tour ocean, regularly seeing killer whale (4) |
| ORCA – Alternate letters [regularly] of “tOuR oCeAn”. | |
| 19 | Furious with a girl playing song unaccompanied (8) |
| MADRIGAL – MAD (furious) + an anagram [playing] of A GIRL.
I didn’t know a madrigal was usually unaccompanied. So now I have learned something today. |
|
| 21 | Jack splashing dosh obtains half-cropped purple equestrian attire (8) |
| JODHPURS – PUR |
|
| 23 | Susan goes to unknown location in Egypt (4) |
| SUEZ – SUE (Susan) + Z (unknown). | |
| 24 | Indian prince open when reflecting (4) |
| RAJA – AJAR (open) reversed [when reflecting]. | |
| 25 | Question European in Ritz waving gun (8) |
| HOWITZER – HOW (a question word) + E for European in an anagram [waving] of RITZ. | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Continuous line on map‘s almost identical on rocky peak (7) |
| EQUATOR – EQUA |
|
| 3 | Extremist leaderless sect attracting artist (5) |
| ULTRA – We had this sense of ULTRA in yesterday’s puzzle too. Odd. |
|
| 4 | Central characters in farce bow (3) |
| ARC – That’s “bow” as in rainbow. |
|
| 5 | Nagged male newsman to capture liaison’s latest kiss (9) |
| HENPECKED – HE (male) and ED (editor – newsman) containing [to capture] |
|
| 6 | Guardian maybe supporting cricket side in theory (2,5) |
| ON PAPER – PAPER (Guardian maybe) below [supporting] ON (cricket side).
The ON side is also known as the LEG side. I don’t believe that the other side has two names: I think it is always OFF. |
|
| 7 | Make a physical effort to pick up Hazel, say, around ten (5) |
| EXERT – TREE (hazel, say), reversed [pick up] containing [around] X (ten, in Roman numerals).
Never trust the capitalization of a name. |
|
| 11 | Fly with speaker somewhere in Devon (9) |
| DARTMOUTH – DART (fly) + MOUTH (speaker).
I can see that since you speak with your mouth it could be said to be your “speaker”, but I can’t think of any sentence in which you would use “speaker” if you meant “mouth”. |
|
| 14 | Foreign money church needed during tragedy perhaps (7) |
| DRACHMA – CH (church) inside [during] DRAMA (tragedy perhaps). | |
| 16 | Repeat manoeuvres involving variable circus equipment (7) |
| TRAPEZE – Anagram [manoeuvres] of REPEAT plus Z (variable). | |
| 18 | Wine and port getting approval from German (5) |
| RIOJA – RIO (Crosswordland’s favorite port) + JA (approval from German). | |
| 20 | Home television advertisement placed within magazine? (5) |
| INSET – IN (home) + SET (television).
To be honest, I always thought those things inside magazines were “inserts”, but Collins has “something inserted” as the first definition of inset as a noun, so I guess this is fair. |
|
| 22 | Recognised cutting tool (3) |
| SAW – Our only double definition of the day. | |
Zoomed through most of this, but slowed right down near the end and then took an age (so it seemed) to get BEQUEATH. Stopped the watch on 20:37, which I’m quite pleased with having read of other people’s struggles. Thanks Breadman and Doofers.