Joker certainly gave me a pinch and a punch on the first of the month! I made heavy weather of that, taking a glacial age to see the right ends of 1a and 4d, and needing lots of checkers for the long anagrams at 11a and 3d. All in all I was pushed out to 12:10 for a Bad Day, so I was well beaten by the funny man today. How did it go for you?
Definitions underlined in bold italics.
| Across | |
| 1 | Girl with authoritarian ward (8) |
| DISTRICT – the setters’ favourite girl/woman is DI, to whom we add STRICT (“authoritarian”) to get the answer. “Ward” is defined in Collins as “a district into which a city, town, parish, or other area is divided for administration, election of representatives etc”. I was very slow to get this, being fixated first on “ward” being part of a hospital and then on being a ward of Court, and it was my POI. | |
| 5 | Primarily two roping in one? (4) |
| TRIO – the first letters (“primarily”) of “two roping in one” give us TRIO, and a TRIO could start out with two people who then co-opt a third. Neat. The cool-kid bloggers like John will be able to tell you if this is the Lesser-Spotted Semi &Lit; I can’t. | |
| 8 | Precocious little girl’s angry morning (5) |
| MADAM – MAD is “angry”, as in “some people are going to be mad today when they find another faintly derogatory term for a female in the crossword”, and AM is “morning”. Collins sense 3 – “British informal – a precocious or pompous little girl”. | |
| 9 | Potential flower our beds might produce? (7) |
| ROSEBUD – buds have the potential to turn into flowers, subject to frost, pests and other hazards. An anagram (“might produce”) of “our beds”. What an elegant surface. | |
| 11 | Near ancient? That could be it (11) |
| CENTENARIAN – an anagram (“That could be”) of “near ancient”. Beyond that, I confess that it’s not totally clear to me how this works. A CENTENARIAN could fairly be described as “near ancient”, but then what’s the “it” doing in the clue? Is the idea that CENTENARIAN here is an adjective, not a noun, and that in its adjectival sense it’s a synonym(ish) for “near ancient”? Should I just have underlined “it” as the definition? Instead I have tentatively classified this as an &Lit and underlined the whole thing, but I await enlightenment from the Hive mind. | |
| 13 | Scared of a loud attack (6) |
| AFRAID – Off to IKEA we go. A + F (“loud” – musical notation) + RAID (“attack”). | |
| 14 | Joker’s taunt about solver’s initial time (6) |
| JESTER – “taunt” is JEER, which goes around (“about”) S (“solver’s initial”) and T (“time”). A lovely surface and Joker would have been fully justified in taunting my time today. | |
| 17 | Journey’s end in entering key European terminus perhaps (11) |
| DESTINATION – IN goes inside (“entering”) D (“key” – music) + E (“European”) + STATION (“terminus perhaps”). I never like “key” (or “note” for that matter) as cluing any one of seven letters, it feels imprecise and random, so I grumpily awaited checkers on this one. | |
| 20 | Capone carrying weapons caused consternation (7) |
| ALARMED – good old AL, I wonder if he knew how useful he’d still be some 75+ years after his death. Anyway, he was regularly ARMED (“carrying weapons”) and he caused plenty of consternation, so this is a brilliant surface and my COD, bravo. | |
| 21 | English lad going around northern wood (5) |
| EBONY – E for “English”, BOY for “lad”, containing (“going around”) N for “northern”. Et voila. | |
| 22 | A thousand I will murder (4) |
| KILL – K is the “thousand” here, not “m” for a change, + I’LL (” I will”). | |
| 23 | Biased? Indeed so, unfortunately (3-5) |
| ONE-SIDED – an anagram (“unfortunately”) of “Indeed so”. Another terrific surface. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Hold back beginning of precipitation and moisture (4) |
| DAMP – DAM (“hold back”) + P (“beginning of precipitation”). Hands up if, like me, your first thought was that it was P followed by a short word meaning “moisture”. | |
| 2 | Attachment for motorcycle is raced all over the place (7) |
| SIDECAR – an anagram (“all over the place”) of “is raced”. Smooth cluing from Joker. | |
| 3 | Movement in arts mimics no art that is contrived (11) |
| ROMANTICISM – an anagram (“that is contrived”) of “mimics no art”. The Romantic movement swept Europe in the first half of the nineteenth century; in English literature it was kickstarted by the publication of “Lyrical Ballads” by Wordsworth and Coleridge which was a staple of my life as an undergraduate; I must dig it out again. | |
| 4 | Opera about a king with followers (6) |
| CARMEN – an opera by Bizet, telling a tragic story of seduction, jealousy and murder. I love it and have seen it many times. How on earth, then, did it become LOI and add two+ minutes to your time Templar, you great galoot? Because I became fixated on the idea that there was a four letter opera going round ER or HR for “a king”, that’s how. In fact it is C (“about”, abbreviation of “circa”) + A + R (“king”) + MEN (“followers”). Ouch. | |
| 6 | Jewish scholar’s talk, never-ending (5) |
| RABBI – ah, the good old chatty Jewish scholar, he’s a regular in these parts. Cockney rhyming slang for “talk” is “rabbit and pork”, customarily shortened to “rabbit”, and then shortened again here (“never ending”) to RABBI. | |
| 7 | Gold supported by Kuwaiti currency and yen standard (8) |
| ORDINARY – OR (“gold”) + DINAR (“Kuwaiti currency” – my first thought was “dirham”, which is also Kuwaiti currency and was close enough to jog the right word) + Y (“yen”). | |
| 10 | Say actor’s words with Shakespeare’s capital majesty (11) |
| STATELINESS – if you STATE LINES then you “say actor’s words”, very neat. Add on S for “Shakespeare’s capital” (first letter) and you’re there. | |
| 12 | Book is difficult to endorse (8) |
| HARDBACK – HARD (“difficult”) + BACK (“to endorse”). | |
| 15 | Tons to wrap more than nine times (7) |
| TENFOLD – T (“tons”) + ENFOLD (“to wrap”). | |
| 16 | Young girl needs help surrounded by males (6) |
| MAIDEN – AID (“help”) inside (“surrounded by”) MEN (“males”). | |
| 18 | Second shopping centre is limited in size (5) |
| SMALL – S (“second”) + MALL (“shopping centre”). | |
| 19 | Closely watched every heartless editor (4) |
| EYED – EY is “every heartless” (that is, “every” with its “heart” removed) + ED for “editor”. | |
Hopefully one word popped out for you though, Gary 😅 And 26 mins is a good time!
Oh yes, I had no trouble with it this time!
🤣🤣