A bit of a tricky puzzle from one of our trickier setters.
Plenty of head-scratching along the way in this excellent puzzle from Lupa, from the concision of 1ac all the way to my LOI, the bunged-in-with-a shrug TIMESERVER: a word that failed to ring even the faintest of bells; thankfully the wordplay was more generous than it might have been.
Other tricky things along the way. There were a lot of everyday words requiring less-than-obvious synonyms, which always makes for good PDMs and a very enjoyable solve. A passing knowledge of Roman emperors would only have been of minor help.
I crept home in 8:02, a minute slower than yesterday and several minutes slower than earlier in the week. Lovely stuff – many thanks to Lupa!
| Across | |
| 1 | Son assumed unknown naivety (10) |
| SIMPLICITY – S(on) IMPLICIT (assumed) Y (unknown in maths) | |
| 7 | Ring English beauty (5) |
| BELLE – BELL (ring/call/phone) E(nglish) | |
| 8 | Most liberal pals met after disturbance (7) |
| AMPLEST – anagram (after disturbance) of PALS MET. Bit of an ungainly word. | |
| 10 | Sat inert, shocked about new brief (9) |
| TRANSIENT – anagram (shocked) of SAT INERT about N(ew) | |
| 12 | Result initially sent us mad (3) |
| SUM – “initially” Sent Us Mad | |
| 13 | Provide part of meatloaf for dinner (6) |
| AFFORD – “part of” meatloAF FOR Dinner | |
| 15 | Allows benefits (6) |
| GRANTS – double definition | |
| 16 | Writer referring to tiny amount charged (3) |
| ION – I (writer) ON (referring to, on = RE, etc) | |
| 17 | Go-between taking time for Marcus Aurelius? (9) |
| MEDITATOR – MEDIATOR (go-between) taking T(ime). Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher, whose work Meditations is “considered by many commentators to be one of the greatest works of philosophy” (cited in Wiki). I actually bought this a couple of years ago but never got round to opening it. I should take this as inspiration to do so.. | |
| 20 | Harsh fight with sunburn (7) |
| SPARTAN – SPAR (fight) with TAN (sunburn) | |
| 22 | Demolish last of sponge pudding (5) |
| BOMBE – BOMB (demolish) E (“last” of spongE) | |
| 23 | Term shortened on approval twelve months in the past (10) |
| YESTERYEAR – TER |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Lass confused by a dance (5) |
| SALSA – anagram (confused) of LASS by A | |
| 2 | Turmoil from distressed mom’s alert (9) |
| MAELSTROM – anagram (distressed) of MOMS ALERT | |
| 3 | Moderate backing Liberal contract (5) |
| LEASE – EASE (moderate) backing L(iberal) | |
| 4 | Impose an upper limit on 50 per cent of cars parking (3) |
| CAP – “50% of” CA |
|
| 5 | Senator engineered betrayal (7) |
| TREASON – anagram (engineered) of SENATOR | |
| 6 | Part of paper for those who’ve passed? (10) |
| OBITUARIES – cryptic definition: a play on the word “passed”, as in DEAD, in the cryptic reading | |
| 9 | Waiter under sentence? His views are fickle (10) |
| TIMESERVER – SERVER (waiter) under TIME (sentence, as in prison). A word going back to the 16C: there is a rare, obsolete positive sense of “A person who adapts his or her conduct to what is proper and appropriate for the time and place” (OED); very much more frequent, and still current, is the negative sense, “A person who out of self-interest adapts his or her conduct or views to suit prevailing circumstances.” You can see why the positive connotation lost this battle; the word doesn’t exactly smack of sincerity. | |
| 11 | Change present record player (9) |
| TURNTABLE – TURN (change) TABLE (present) | |
| 14 | Ostentatious display of food for supporter? (7) |
| FANFARE – cryptic hint: food for a supporter could be FARE for a FAN | |
| 18 | Benefactor’s name in entrance (5) |
| DONOR – N(ame) in DOOR (entrance). The ‘s is simply possessive in the surface reading; in the cryptic, it is a link between the definition and wordplay, so “Benefactor IS [as in: equals] name in entrance” | |
| 19 | Less adventurous rogue back with me on board (5) |
| TAMER – RAT (rogue) “back” = reversed, with ME “on board” | |
| 21 | Stutter hiding note of disapproval (3) |
| TUT – hidden in sTUTter | |
Found this challenging and DNF.
To a yank, English rivers are bad enough, but English puddings live in a linguistic world of their own
Total nightmare.
28 minute DNF. Put METTERYEAR for 23ac. God knows why! Struggled hugely with rest of it for some reason.
After 2 days of something approaching decent, I am right back to my usual level of incompetence. Truly dreadful. The days when I regularly recorded 5 solves for the week are now just a distant memory. ☹️☹️☹️
2 short on 15 x 15 to compound the misery. Had one but couldn’t parse so didn’t put it in. Other one was perfectly gettable. Also noticed a spelling error so actually 3 short.
Any sense of enjoyment continues to elude me.
One of my most enjoyable QC’s, not the quickest but solved with plenty of patience and thought in the end.
A day late as life as life is getting in the way. I actually found this fairly straightforward and finished over coffee as usual. Some thought definitely involved but nothing too much. Just right for me. LOI AFFORD, biffed then very belatedly spotted the hidden 🙄 Thanks both.
Absolute GARBAGE!