Around average difficulty, with a couple of trickier bits thrown in.
Some of this might be hard if you haven’t seen it (much) before, such as equating IS for LIVES at 5ac, or the heather at 12ac. Even then, I was held up at the end by that vaguely-remembered shoe at 12ac, and the crossing sport at 10d was my LOI for some reason: AGUE = FIT is another staple, while we’re at it.
A fine puzzle, much enjoyed for eight-and-a-half minutes – many thanks to Breadman!
| Across | |
| 1 | Company ordered to keep extremely slow breed of sheep (8) |
| COTSWOLD – CO. (Company) TOLD (ordered) to keep “extremely” S |
|
| 5 | Goddess lives twice (4) |
| ISIS – as in she is, she lives, she exists. Similarly, “live” = be, am, are. Useful! | |
| 8 | Remove dirt from lance frantically (5) |
| CLEAN – anagram (frantically) of LANCE | |
| 9 | White insect hidden in foliage Tim retrieved from the rear (7) |
| TERMITE – “hidden” in foliagE TIM RETrieved “from the rear” | |
| 11 | Aged heads of organisation leave dutifully (3) |
| OLD – “heads” of the next three words | |
| 12 | Heather tracks singular, stern type of footwear (9) |
| SLINGBACK – LING (heather) tracks/follows S. (singular), BACK (stern). Another word for heather that crops up is ERICA. | |
| 13 | Complete set of religious books found in Ireland (6) |
| ENTIRE – NT (set of religious books) found in EIRE (Ireland) | |
| 15 | Line of punctuation initially helps you write about Henry (6) |
| HYPHEN – “initially” Helps You, PEN (write) about H(enry). H for Henry is from the SI unit of inductance, rather than anything regal. | |
| 18 | The grime developed around a secluded abode (9) |
| HERMITAGE – anagram )(developed) of THE GRIME around A | |
| 19 | Quietly welcome Greek character (3) |
| PHI – P (piano = quietly) HI (welcome) | |
| 20 | Mum and Georgia brought in stray horse of renown (7) |
| SHERGAR – SH (mum) and GA (Georgia) brought in ERR (stray). I Was busy trying to make MARENGO work. MUM can be an interjection for silence, same as Sh! | |
| 21 | Pleased with English open space in woodland (5) |
| GLADE – GLAD (pleased) with E(nglish) | |
| 22 | Charlie leaves a preliminary exam in a frenzy (4) |
| AMOK – C (Charlie in phonetic alphabet) leaves A MOCK (prelim exam). Amok, from a Malay/Javan work amuk, meaning to attack furiously, or to go on an unprovoked rampage. | |
| 23 | Tree unknown on northeastern island (8) |
| ALDERNEY -ALDER (tree) and then Y (unknown, in maths) on the end of NE | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Violent storm in progress splitting bike (7) |
| CYCLONE – ON (in progress) splitting CYCLE (bike) | |
| 2 | Duke at the bottom of quaint British river (5) |
| TWEED – D(uke) at the bottom of TWEE (quaint) | |
| 3 | Maybe activity in the main secure: daughter browsing the Net (11) |
| WINDSURFING – WIN (secure) D(aughter) SURFING (something pre-millennials used to do online) | |
| 4 | The French on journey behave uncontrollably (3,3) |
| LET RIP -LE (the, french) on TRIP (journey) | |
| 6 | Animated chap starts to notice inner strength — eating this veg? (7) |
| SPINACH – anagram (animated) of CHAP and NIS (the “starts” to Notice Inner Strength). Lovely Popeye reference. | |
| 7 | Cut small tree (5) |
| STEAK – S(mall) TEAK (tree). I was considering the PEAR tree for a bit. | |
| 10 | Public school blue regularly fit for sport (5,6) |
| RUGBY LEAGUE – RUGBY (public school) B L U E “regularly”, AGUE (fit). Specifically, AGUE is an acute fit, deriving from the Latin acuta. | |
| 14 | Wreck games lesson after teacher finally stops commotion (7) |
| TORPEDO – PE (games lesson) after R (teacheR “finally”) stops TO-DO (commotion). The torpedo is named after a genus of electric flatfish, and was originally more of a floating mine. Before that, it had developed a figurative sense of something numbing: the OED has a lovely quote from 1762, “He used to call a pen his torpedo, whenever he grasped it, it numbed all his faculties.” (, Life of Richard Nash) | |
| 16 | Artless character spoilt Evita in New York (7) |
| NAIVETY – anagram (spoilt) of EVITA in NY | |
| 17 | Comic actor Stan’s wreath of honour (6) |
| LAUREL – double definition | |
| 18 | Army beginning to approach plant (5) |
| HOSTA -HOST (army) A (“beginning” to Approach) | |
| 19 | Man on board catches right shellfish (5) |
| PRAWN – PAWN (man = any piece on a chessboard) catches R(ight) | |
Very hard for me, finishing in 29:21 but with what I believe is a “technical DNF” due to needing aids for Alderney. My geography is shockingly poor.
Thank you for the blog!
All done and dusted. put spear in to begin with but sling back changed that.
Not happy with steak as a cut of meat as it refers to a number of possible parts
Today’s QC seemed kind of sectarian with clues for Cotswold, Shergar, Alderney, Rugby League, Laurel, Steak, Tweed. Maybe my imagination was sparked as I have been listening to Stephen Fry’s Mythos.
Oh well.
My usual steady but slow pace … struggled a bit with the SE corner but once I saw PRAWN instead of PEARL it all went in. Nothing I hadn’t heard of before … SHERGAR a doddle for Irishmen of a certain age.
Enjoyable but a dnf for me: I could neither see nor parse SHERGAR so I biffed CHARGER (I’m sure there must have been a well-known horse of that name sometime or other) and that ruined HOSTA. Ah well. I liked LET RIP (my COD) but French purists might frown a bit!
7:26
Finished yesterday but forgot to comment. No great hold-ups, just a little slow around the block – I didn’t entirely parse SHERGAR and have never heard of HOSTA, but both answers were clear from the wordplay.
Thanks Breadman and Roly
17 minutes