Nice middle of the road puzzle from Dangle, taking me 07:02. A couple of ugly (IMO) words in the answers but more than compensated for by a lot of smooth, witty surfaces. Hope you all enjoyed it too.
This is the first blog I’ve done for a while which has been a stress-free experience, so huge thanks to John Interred (for slaying the Error 500 beast), Starstruck (for the new blogging IT), and indeed the whole “behind the scenes” team who keep this show on the electronic road.
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 1 | Nuts about large island’s birds (8) |
| PELICANS – PECANS [nuts] going round [about] L [large} + I [island]. “A wonderful bird is the Pelican/His beak can hold more than his belican/He puts in his beak/Enough food for a week/But I’m darned if I know how the helican.” | |
| 5 | Corvid, rook, hidden by bovine (4) |
| CROW – R [rook, chess notation] inside [hidden by] COW [bovine]. | |
| 9 | Special offer from Japan in Japanese (5) |
| NINJA – hidden inside [from] “Japan in Japanese”. I’ve underlined the whole clue because I think this works as an &Lit. I scratched my head a bit over “special offer” but decided that it must be a play on words – to “off” someone is to kill them; therefore you could jocularly describe a killer/assassin as an “offer”; and if they were particularly good at their job they’d be a “special” offer. A NINJA (highly skilled assassin) is therefore a “special offer”; and they’re also “from Japan”; and the word being used to describe them (ninja) is a Japanese word and thus “in Japanese”. Therefore the whole clue is both the definition and the wordplay.
That lengthy explanation felt like breaking a butterfly upon a wheel, but I hope you see what I mean! COD from me. |
|
| 10 | Maybe Eminem picked up dust jacket? (7) |
| WRAPPER – Ye Olde Homophone. Mr Eminem is a popular singer, my Lord, whose genre is “rap music”; he is thus professionally known as a “rapper”. | |
| 11 | Endanger girl waving around power tool (5,7) |
| ANGLE GRINDER – anagram [waving around] of “endanger girl”. | |
| 13 | Most uninspiring test cases in the morning (6) |
| TAMEST – TEST [test] goes around [cases] AM [in the morning]. | |
| 15 | Piles of stones in Australian city (6) |
| CAIRNS – double definition. Disappointingly the Australian city turns out to be named not after rocks but after William Cairns (Governor of Queensland in 1876). | |
| 17 | Unwilling to compromise about training nets (12) |
| INTRANSIGENT – anagram [about] of “training nets”. | |
| 20 | Criticise wonderful American cure-all (7) |
| PANACEA – PAN [criticise] + ACE [wonderful] + A [American]. A is a perfectly legitimate abbreviation for American, get over it. | |
| 21 | Expression of fool scratching backside with enthusiasm, ultimately (5) |
| IDIOM – an IDIOT is a “fool”. Remove the last letter [scratching backside – made me chuckle!] and add M [enthusiasm, ultimately] instead. | |
| 22 | Edit changes for regime (4) |
| DIET – anagram [changes] of “edit”. | |
| 23 | Chaps use foul language in section of department store (8) |
| MENSWEAR – MEN SWEAR, ho ho! | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Nasty smell starts to put off nice guests (4) |
| PONG – first letters [starts to] of “put off nice guests”. | |
| 2 | Wrinkle on new flax cloth (5) |
| LINEN – LINE [wrinkle, as in lines on one’s face] + N [new]. | |
| 3 | Actor playing Chandler’s ace (7,5) |
| CHARLES DANCE – anagram [playing] of “Chandler’s ace”. I will always remember him as Mr Tulkinghorn in a BBC Bleak House, but he has since found a global audience as Tywin Lannister in Game of Thrones. No, me neither. | |
| 4 | Spiritual movement reduced net salary (3,3) |
| NEW AGE – NE [reduced net, i.e. “net” without its last letter] + WAGE [salary]. | |
| 6 | More hasty invader punched by Penny (7) |
| RAPIDER – oh my goodness what a horrible word. Assuming it exists (it’s not actually listed in OED, Collins or Chambers, but then they don’t always list all derived forms, I think, so it’s probably legit) it’s ugly and awkward. Anyway, enough aesthetics. RAIDER [invader] contains [punched by] P [Penny – as in pence, not as in of this parish!]. | |
| 7 | What to wear when fighting female prison officer? (8) |
| WARDRESS – another ugly word. The female form of “warder”, once, and so possibly a “female prison officer”. If you were fighting you might wear WAR DRESS. | |
| 8 | Perhaps Beijing increases profits (7,5) |
| CAPITAL GAINS – CAPITAL [perhaps Beijing] + GAINS [increases]. | |
| 12 | Son fell and took clothes off (8) |
| STRIPPED – S [son] + TRIPPED [fell]. | |
| 14 | Early showing from friend drinking at home with European (7) |
| MATINEE – MATE [friend] containing [drinking] IN [at home] + E [European]. | |
| 16 | All one’s possessions in large car (6) |
| ESTATE – double definition. | |
| 18 | Sound of one cutting bouquet (5) |
| NOISE – I [one] goes inside [cutting] NOSE [bouquet, as in scent]. | |
| 19 | Muslim ruler, am I right? (4) |
| AMIR – a variant spelling of “Emir”. AM + I + R. Hope you didn’t do what I did, which was to see “Muslim” and “am I” and lazily bung in “imam” without bothering to read the clue. | |
“Rapider” is not in the OED, so is not a real word imo.
Wiktionary has it but says “This word is considered erroneous.”
The Times should do better.
20 min finish. Would have been rapider (ugh!) if not interrupted by Lady Vimes querying her contribution to the joint account.
LOI Cairns – took time to remember what a pile of stones was called.
Thanks Dangle and Templar
8:05 here. Loved NINJA, disliked RAPIDER. So that solidly aligns me with, um, everyone else.
Thanks to Dangle and Templar.
I just assumed NINJA is a colloquial word for ‘Special’ and ‘Offer from’ then directs you to search (hidden) in ‘Japan in Japanese’ – maybe not?
7.18.
Hadn’t fully appreciated NINJA – brilliant and clear COD for me. Took a while to remember CAIRNS. I didn’t really mind WARDRESS. No one would use this word now. That’s probably all that matters. Thanks Dangle and great blog Templar.
Didn’t love NINJA or WARDRESS – or RAPIDER, obviously! An ugly word and I’ve never punched anyone 😅 But otherwise all was fine.
Back home now and solved online for the first time in ages. I’m relieved that the crossword club is back up and running again – hooray!
6:24 FOI Crow LOI Angle grinder. That was a candidate for COD, along with Pelicans, but in the end I decided on Charles Dance
Thanks Dangle and Templar
9 minutes.
Thanks Templar for demystifying NINJA I initially had NIPON.
Nice puzzle all green in 7:24.
A rare sub-10 (9:44) for me, and all the rarer because I did it after coming home late after work and running and the gym. Probably the only example of a sub-10, after 10.