Solving time: 7:05
Medium-paced perhaps, though took a little bit of jumping around the grid to get into today’s puzzle. Getting 10a, 12a and 14a helped with filling out the lower half. The longer anagrams at 6d and 9d didn’t come too easily to me and I needed most of the checkers to understand what was going on with 9a – may be a write-in for gardeners and botanists.
Major eyebrow raise for 1d (see my comments below) though I don’t think it should hold anyone up for too long.
What did you make of it?
Definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [directions in square ones].
| Across | |
| 1 | Baker’s mistake? (7) |
| BLOOMER – A cryptic clue – a BLOOMER is a crusty loaf of bread with rounded ends and typically with several parallel diagonal slashes across the top.
A BLOOMER is also another word for a large or embarrassing mistake, perhaps synonymous with the American BLOOPER. |
|
| 5 | Swindle sees rascal ultimately wanting (4) |
| SCAM – SCAM My LOI. |
|
| 7 | River runs in every colour of the rainbow (6) |
| SEVERN – R (runs – cricket notation) in SEVEN (every colour of the rainbow) | |
| 8 | Firmly hold linen initially caught by breeze (6) |
| CLINCH – L{inen} [initially i.e. first letter of] caught by CINCH | |
| 9 | Flower produced in passionate game (3-3,5) |
| RED-HOT POKER – RED-HOT (passionate) POKER (game)
One for the gardeners and botanists amongst us – RED-HOT POKER is the informal name for the Kniphofia. |
|
| 10 | Top sovereign put on good plane (6) |
| GLIDER – LID (Top) ER ((former) sovereign – Elizabeth Regina) put on G (good) | |
| 12 | Big deal has two moves (2,4) |
| SO WHAT – Anagram [moves] of HAS TWO | |
| 14 | Fat stomach, and firm (11) |
| CORPORATION – Double definition | |
| 17 | Unconventional door, say? (3-3) |
| WAY-OUT – Well, a door could be a WAY OUT…… hence the ‘say?’
WAY-OUT is 1940s jazz slang meaning “original, bold”, suggesting something far off from what is conventional or expected. |
|
| 18 | Hearing about brother originally in the family (6) |
| TRIBAL – TRIAL (Hearing) about B{rother} [originally i.e. first letter of] | |
| 20 | Don’t go in small river (4) |
| STAY – S (Small) TAY (river)
At 120 miles in length, the TAY is the longest river in Scotland (and seventh longest in Great Britain). |
|
| 21 | A golden, unusual county (7) |
| DONEGAL – Anagram [unusual] of A GOLDEN | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Wide, say and so long (3) |
| BYE – Hmmm. So long means ‘goodbye’ or just BYE – fair enough.
However, I wonder if the setter has written ‘Wide, say’ when meaning ‘Extra, say’. In cricket, a ‘wide’ is not the same thing as a ‘bye’, though both are recorded as an ‘extra’ run i.e. not credited to the batsman. A ‘bye’ is a run scored from a ball which passes the batsman without being hit. A ‘wide’ is a ball that is judged to be too wide of the stumps for the batsman to play. Is there a completely different meaning to the wordplay here that has had me barking up the wrong tree? |
|
| 2 | Exaggerated discussion initially supporting old composer (7) |
| OVERDID – D{iscussion} [initially i.e. first letter of] supporting O (old) VERDI (composer)
‘supporting’ is apposite here as this is a down clue and all of the other letters are piled on top of the second D. |
|
| 3 | Fruit consumed by Roman gods (5) |
| MANGO – Hidden in [consumed by] Roman gods | |
| 4 | Sets of instructions, precise for cooking? (7) |
| RECIPES – Anagram [for cooking] of PRECISE | |
| 5 | Fasten piece of wood (5) |
| STICK – Double definition | |
| 6 | Identify a strange canister (9) |
| ASCERTAIN – A then an anagram [strange] of CANISTER
MER as to whether ‘identify’ and ‘ASCERTAIN’ are synonymous… – What do you think? |
|
| 9 | Cattle run off, slow to act (9) |
| RELUCTANT – Anagram [off] of CATTLE RUN | |
| 11 | Duck in Dorset surprisingly sat on a perch (7) |
| ROOSTED – O (Duck i.e. a nil score for a batsman in cricket) in an anagram [surprisingly] of DORSET
Why is a nil score called a duck? The shape of the number “0” is similar to that of a duck’s egg, a term that was in use long before Test cricket began. The tennis term “love”, according to one theory, is derived from the French l’oeuf (“the egg”). |
|
| 13 | Fish in box stuffing part of bird (7) |
| WHITING – HIT (box) insert into [stuffing] WING (part of bird) | |
| 15 | Native Australian, this crossword writer’s generous (5) |
| ROOMY – ROO (Native Australian i.e. kangaROO) + MY (this crossword writer’s i.e. possessive pronoun) | |
| 16 | A rock cut in part of Birmingham (5) |
| ASTON – A STON My grandmother’s birthplace but probably better known as the home of the football club ASTON VILLA. |
|
| 19 | Everyone with long legs perhaps striking head (3) |
| ALL – Perhaps ‘perhaps’ has been added here as other creatures e.g. spiders, daddy-long-legs etc… have long legs but are not tall. |
|
No time today, as I forgot to turn the timer off between starting before breakfast and finishing at lunch. I wasn’t paying enough attention to spot the cricketing mistake. COD RECIPES.
Thanks to Mara and Mike