Solving time: 7:01
Reasonably middle-of-the-road fare from the Joker, I felt. I liked the surface of 12a – how many of us were thinking of various Tower inmates, I wonder? And 19a was one of those that can tie you in knots until the answer becomes clear.
All of the answers should be in the very-gettable zone though.
How did you all find it?
Definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [directions in square ones].
| Across | |
| 1 | Go over role of female at wedding holding key (6) |
| BRIDGE – BRIDE (role of female at wedding) holding a musical key, in this case G | |
| 4 | Crook — bit like I might clue it? (6) |
| BANDIT – B AND IT – the word ‘bit’ as the setter might clue it.
BANDIT meaning “lawless robber, brigand” comes from 16th century Italian bandito (plural banditi) and is related to both “ban” and “banish”. |
|
| 8 | One put in homeless person’s file (7) |
| DOSSIER -Take a DOSSER (homeless person) and insert I (one [put in]) | |
| 10 | Get angry about loud firearm (5) |
| RIFLE – RILE (Get angry) about F (loud i.e. f is short for the musical direction ‘forte‘ meaning “Strong (i.e. to be played or sung loudly)”)
‘Get angry’ doesn’t quite sit right with me – can you say ‘I rile easily’? Or is the verb to rile always applied to another person e.g. ‘I riled Jimmy’ or ‘Jimmy riled me’. Ever wondered why a RIFLE is named so? It’s specifically a “portable firearm having a barrel or barrels with a spirally grooved bore”. The spirals impart rotation to the projectile, making its flight more accurate. Back in the 1750s, the word was particular to the grooves themselves. The verb RIFLE meant “to cut spiral grooves in” (a gun barrel). |
|
| 11 | Table liqueur is allowed no reuse (5) |
| CHART – CHART |
|
| 12 | Tower inmate confused about origin of ravens (7) |
| MINARET – Anagram [confused] of INMATE about the first letter [origin] of R{avens}
Took me a second look to lift and separate ‘Tower’ and ‘inmate’. |
|
| 13 | Unpunctuality of feasts eaten by sailors (9) |
| TARDINESS – DINES (feasts) inside [eaten by] TARS (sailors) | |
| 17 | Division of an English county is a square (7) |
| HUNDRED – Double definition – the second being 102 = 100
The origin of the division of counties into hundreds is described by the OED as “exceedingly obscure”. It may have once referred to an area of 100 ‘hides’ – in early Anglo-Saxon England, a hide was the amount of land farmed by and required to support a peasant family, though by the 11th century, in many areas, it supported four families. Alternatively, the hundred may have been an area originally settled by one hundred men at arms, or the area liable to provide one hundred men under arms. |
|
| 19 | Separate? See this could be that (5) |
| APART – The first part is a straight definition i.e. Separate = APART. For the second part of the clue, if you replace ‘this’ with the answer APART and ‘that’ with the word SEPARATE, and ‘could be’ is an anagram indicator, then the wordplay reads “SEE APART (this) is an anagram [could be] of SEPARATE (that)”. | |
| 20 | Faint any minute now when wife comes in (5) |
| SWOON – SOON (any minute now) with W (wife) inserted [comes in]
From a thirteenth century word, suowne meaning “a fainting, temporary state of unconsciousness”. This in turn is probably from Old English geswogen “in a faint”, the past participle of a lost verb swogan |
|
| 21 | Duplicate parcel I replaced (7) |
| REPLICA – Anagram [replaced] of PARCEL I | |
| 22 | Attempt to hear the middle of Bliss number (6) |
| LISTEN – The middle letters of {b}LIS{s} then TEN (number) | |
| 23 | After exercise, an enthusiast’s common snack item (6) |
| PEANUT – After PE (exercise) A NUT (an enthusiast)
‘common’ seems superfluous. |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Person cool in tight corset (6) |
| BODICE – BOD (Person) ICE (cool) | |
| 2 | What’s immediate sensation mixed with tuna (13) |
| INSTANTANEOUS – Anagram [mixed] of SENSATION and TUNA | |
| 3 | Note rubbish sparkle (7) |
| GLITTER – G (Note) LITTER (rubbish) | |
| 5 | Thirty days on aircraft parking area (5) |
| APRON – APR (APR being short for April which has ‘Thirty days’) ON
I wondered why an aircraft parking area is called an APRON specifically, but can’t find any explanation online. |
|
| 6 | Find trees too rampant about area? This may be the answer (13) |
| DEFORESTATION – Anagram [rampant] of FIND TREES TOO about A (area) | |
| 7 | Agreement judge has to take food in (6) |
| TREATY – TRY (judge) has EAT (take food) within [in] | |
| 9 | Those left a note to do something around the first of April (9) |
| REMAINDER – REMINDER (a note to do something) around A (the first letter of April) | |
| 14 | Without enough punishment serving as a warning? (7) |
| EXAMPLE – EX (Without) AMPLE (enough) | |
| 15 | Tool caught the man’s heel? Not half (6) |
| CHISEL – C (caught – cricket shorthand) HIS (the man’s) {he}EL [Not half i.e. remove half of the letters of HEEL] | |
| 16 | Channel’s forthright in broadcast (6) |
| STRAIT – Homophone [in broadcast] of STRAIGHT (forthright) | |
| 18 | Anger about new cooker (5) |
| RANGE – RAGE (Anger) about N (new) | |
Struggled mostly as referenced variously above, finished in the SCC, and happy with that. The long anagrams helped a lot. Liked BANDIT once I saw what was going on. Very helpful blog esp on APART parsing which would have evaded me.
20 mins but DNF Bandit and Treaty. Once I read blog for Bandit, annoyingly got Treaty strait (sic) away. Found some clues impenetrable at first but got there with the checkers. Thanks Joker and Mike
Quite tough at the start but getting the two long ones gave me a boost and found it a nice balance.
12:08 which is zooming for me.
Glad to be back in my chair in the SCC. Hard work but generally getable clues, though like many I biffed APART and BANDIT.
CHART(reuse) made me smile, probably my favourite clue.
DNF, beaten by CHART. I’m a bit surprised that it’s such a popular clue given that a table isn’t a chart, it’s a table.
Decades ago my dad worked with a colleague called Jean Colleau, in a relationship of mutual polite dislike. When visiting Jean’s office, dad took him a home-made cake (which by his own admission was unintentionally vile), and poor Jean had to pretend to enjoy it. When Jean visited dad’s office, he brought a bottle of chartreuse as a present which dad had to sample without gagging. Dad privately conceded that Jean had decisively won the battle.
Thank you for the blog!
Came to this late in the day after an outing to Glyndebourne: their Merry Widow was packed full of 3d and I got it straight away: likewise the 1d worn by all six grisettes! But I slowed down and well into the SCC before LOI STRAIT. 19a had to be APART but I couldn’t parse it. Toyed with PICNIC at 23a but it had to start with PE and the nut soon followed. The anagrams were friendly today! Thanks to Joker and to Mike
Playing catch up. I felt that some of these clues didn’t belong in a QC. I got fed up with it and didn’t finish. The blog was very interesting but left me even more fed up as I’d never have worked some of these out. I’m not new, happy being at QC level indefinitely but this is not QC level in my humble opinion.