A few trickier things held me up at the end, in a good quality puzzle from Kenny… but the (possible) theme escapes me.
OVAL and OGRE both required a bit of teasing out, but I was left staring at my LOI SPARKY for a while before flinging in what rather surprisingly turned out to be the correct answer. I’ll take it when it happens! I had ruled out the possibility of PARKY meaning COLD on the inherently flawed grounds of not having heard of it.
Kenny, an occasional setter, has often in the past had a theme. If there’s one today, I look forward to sharper eyes revealing what I’ve missed. I finished up in 7:47, enjoying some lovely clues along the way, my favourite being the Cunute one – many thanks to Kenny!
| Across | |
| 6 | Attitude adopted by oldest ancestors (6) |
| STANCE – “adopted” by oldeST ANCEstors | |
| 7 | Open tavern: initially landlord in charge (6) |
| PUBLIC – PUB (tavern) and then “initially” Landlord, IC (In Charge). “Initially” could of course apply to all three words, but IC is a recognised abbreviation of in charge that crops up a fair bit. | |
| 9 | Sudden break for card game (4) |
| SNAP – double definition | |
| 10 | Meeting of rugby forwards, mostly very small, getting close attention (8) |
| SCRUTINY – SCRUm (meeting of rugby forwards) “mostly”, TINY (very small) | |
| 11 | Honest dealing in place of amusement and drama (4,4) |
| FAIR PLAY – FAIR (place of amusement) and PLAY (drama) | |
| 13 | Dear niece regularly seen in Morecambe? (4) |
| ERIC – d E a R n I e C e “regularly”. Punctuation can generally be ignored, but here it is to signify a DBE (Definition by Example – see glossary) | |
| 15 | Amendment that does what Canute demonstrably couldn’t? (4) |
| EDIT – Canute was unable to reverse the TIDE, but if he’d been doing a cryptic crossword instead of getting his feet wet he could have found the reverse to be EDIT. The question mark here signifies something a bit whimsical. | |
| 16 | One performing jokes about northern hoodlum (8) |
| GANGSTER – GAGSTER (one performing jokes – an ungainly word but it is in the dictionary) about N(orthern) | |
| 18 | Road loco somehow used to get to US state (8) |
| COLORADO – anagram (somehow) of ROAD LOCO | |
| 20 | Ladies maybe love to go round Aussie stadium (4) |
| OVAL -LAV (Ladies, maybe) O (love) “to go round” = reverse. | |
| 21 | Lively female with yen to embrace danger (6) |
| FRISKY – F(emale) with Y(en) to embrace RISK (danger) | |
| 22 | Promiscuous chap Alec heroically corners (6) |
| LECHER – aLEC HERoically “corners” | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Flag to be situated above a road (8) |
| STANDARD – STAND (be situated) above A, RD (road) | |
| 2 | Muses, and anon spirit is transformed! (12) |
| INSPIRATIONS – anagram (transformed) of ANON SPIRIT IS | |
| 3 | Wife with no difficulty left unfaithful fellow? (6) |
| WEASEL – W(ife) with EASE (no difficulty) L(eft) | |
| 4 | Ultimately less cold, becoming vivacious (6) |
| SPARKY – S (“ultimately” lesS) PARKY (cold). Parky, chilly etc., perhaps derived from PERKY. | |
| 5 | Sign one with pride (4) |
| LION – (just about a) double definition, the first referring to the star sign LEO | |
| 8 | Sweet bishop to come out with whisky! (12) |
| BUTTERSCOTCH – B(ishop) UTTER (come out with) SCOTCH (whisky) | |
| 12 | A hotel apparently’s opening: I’ve seen the light! (3) |
| AHA – A H(otel), A (Apparently’s “opening”) | |
| 14 | Tried tea freshly brewed, then did so again? (8) |
| ITERATED – angram (freshly brewed) of TRIED TEA | |
| 16 | Girl happy to meet with Yankees (6) |
| GLADYS – GLAD (happy) to meet with more than one Yankee, so Y’S. | |
| 17 | A little pasta number the Spanish do the wrong way (6) |
| NOODLE – NO. (number) ; EL (the, Spanish) and DO both “the wrong way”, ie reversed. | |
| 19 | Giant blunder in defence concerning (4) |
| OGRE – OG (Own Goal = blunder in defence), RE = concerning | |
5:40
Speedy Thursday fare, though couldn’t remember exactly what it was that Canute could/couldn’t do – was thinking it was something to do with parting the waves but that was probably Moses – hence the fineries of that particular clue were lost on me.
Nothing else too tricky – minor re-read of 5d just to be sure I read the clue correctly, then LOI GANGSTER closely preceded by GLADYS.
Thanks Roly and Kenny
15:23 here, with the last five minutes spent on SPARKY, LION and OVAL. Sigh. COD BUTTERSCOTCH by a nose from EDIT.
Thanks to Kenny and rolytoly.
Pleased to finish abt 30m, our rough target. Enjoyable puzzle with no real holdups.
Enjoyed this one, especially liked BUTTERSCOTCH. This morning we certainly said it was a bit ‘parky’ for a May day and we’re not in the north!
An average solve for me. All done and dusted in 30 minutes, but I still had doubts about Sign = LION (and stil have, tbh).
I started with STANCE and got a fair smattering of clues during my first pass. It was then a process of jumping around the grid to build on any available checkers as they arose. I thought EDIT was a very clever clue and it was good to see PARKY for cold.
My second last in was OGRE, where I wasn’t helped by previously having biffed FeIStY at 21a, and my LOI was OVAL.
Many thanks to Kenny and Roly.
16:27
Nice puzzle. Thought EDIT was great. Took a while to see LION and only got the literal definition on completion, but that unlocked PUBLIC and SPARKY. Finished with OGRE without understanding the OG bit.
All done and dusted without too many problems
Back into the SCC I crash, with 22:58. Struggled more than I should have in the SE corner with LECHER, OVAL, ITERATE and (LOI) GANGSTER proving tricky. In my irresistibly compelling defence, “gagster” isn’t a word and I don’t care what Kenny and the entire lexicographical community think. Future generations will come to view me in this matter as Galileo, and they as the Roman Inquisition.
Thank you to rolytoly for the blog!
Thanks Roly and Kenny. I thought SNAP was a triple rather than a double definition. PARKY is still very much in widespread use in the UK. I did think PUBLIC was a rather weak clue given that PUB is simply an abbreviation of PUBLIC (HOUSE), but overall I found this very enjoyable.
Another great and entertaining puzzle.
FOI1d Standard
LOI 21a Frisky
COD nothing comes to mind.
I hope the suggested Nina is correct. I wonder whether well find out for sure… (please).