Smooth puzzle from Mara. As per yesterday, if you had your anagram hat on then you could make swift inroads: five in all, including the long 1a. Spice was added by a few tricksy ones (12a, 13a), a couple of (to my mind) slightly iffy definitions (8a, 2d) and one word which is listed in only one of the three main sources (1d).
All done in regulation 07:49 for a Decent Enough Day. Many thanks Mara. Hope you all enjoyed it.
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 1 | Son, we learn, wrecked US city (3,7) |
| NEW ORLEANS – anagram [wrecked] of “son we learn”. | |
| 7 | Deer with one tongue (5) |
| HINDI – HIND [deer] + I [one]. | |
| 8 | Fastener in the air, drop a brick (5,2) |
| SCREW UP – SCREW [fastener] + UP [in the air]. Not very convinced by the definition – “drop a brick” means to make an unfortunate remark, whereas “screw up” means to make a mess of things. I suppose they’re in adjacent postcodes. | |
| 10 | Arms under wobbly instrument (5,4) |
| SNARE DRUM – anagram [wobbly] of “arms under”. | |
| 12 | Something to eat for one dining, finally (3) |
| EGG – EG [“for one”, very sneaky] + G [dining, finally]. | |
| 13 | Game where white has energy drained (6) |
| HOCKEY – my LOI; it went in unparsed from checkers/the definition and then I sat and stared at it. Eventually light dawned: HOCK is “white” (the German white wine) and EY is “energy drained”, that is “energy” without its contents, leaving only its first and last letters. Very good, but tricky. | |
| 15 | Nod when despatched (6) |
| ASSENT – AS [when] + SENT [despatched]. | |
| 16 | Manage marathon, say (3) |
| RUN – double definition, the second a definition by example. | |
| 17 | Someone wearing metal-tipped shoes, and carpet ruined (3-6) |
| TAP-DANCER – anagram [ruined] of “and carpet”. Terrific surface, COD from me. | |
| 20 | Ebbing river was filled with last of the algae (7) |
| SEAWEED – reading this backwards [ebbing] we have DEE [river] and WAS [was] containing [filled with] E [last of the]. | |
| 22 | Judge beyond indignant at first — furious! (5) |
| IRATE -RATE [judge] after [beyond] I [indignant at first]. | |
| 23 | Curse about tool that’s found at rear of vehicle (5,5) |
| BRAKE LIGHT – BLIGHT [curse] going round [about] RAKE [tool]. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Fool visited by new relative (5) |
| NANNA – NANA [fool – bit antiquated now, but as in My Old Man’s A Dustman (“He looks a proper nana, In his great big hobnail boots …“)] containing N [new]. NANNA as a relative is not in my idiolect so I looked it up. It isn’t in Chambers at all, either in the online version or in the rubbish app (on which I’ve now wasted £9.95). Collins has two definitions for NANNA, both stated as being American English: “Norse Mythology – the wife of Balder” and “the Sumerian god of the moon: the counterpart of the Akkadian god Sin“. However, Mara is saved by my ancient (1990) paper Shorter Oxford, which lists it as “variation of nan”. | |
| 2 | Choice of turkey cooked with tea: yours truly tucking in (5,4) |
| WHITE MEAT – anagram [cooked] of “with tea” containing “me” [yours truly tucking in]. I wonder if this was supposed to say “choice bit of turkey” (or similar) since “choice of turkey” seems an odd definition. | |
| 3 | Vertical part of flight in error is erased (5) |
| RISER – hidden. The flight is a flight of stairs. | |
| 4 | What may resemble cauliflower and some corn? (3) |
| EAR – cryptic definition. If you want to know what a cauliflower ear is, watch some of the Six Nations interviews/post-match analysis. | |
| 5 | Present and present again or not present at all? (7) |
| NOWHERE – NOW [present] + HERE [present again]. | |
| 6 | Element in posh revolutionary with power over Egyptian god (10) |
| PHOSPHORUS – anagram [revolutionary] of “posh” + P [power] + HORUS [the Egyptian Sun God, hawk-headed]. I got this all wrong when I first looked at it, thinking that it was going to be U for “posh” and CHE or RED for “revolutionary” – none of that worked so I had to wait for checkers, which was a shame because all those lovely first letters would have helped! | |
| 9 | Good book where attendant meets artist (4-6) |
| PAGE-TURNER – PAGE [attendant] + TURNER [artist]. | |
| 11 | Canteen in decline, sending a note (9) |
| MESSAGING – MESS [canteen] + AGING [declining – which is true unless you’re a bottle of good wine, for example, in which case you are improving with age!]. | |
| 14 | Coin, gold, on head of roc, mythical beast (7) |
| CENTAUR – CENT [coin] + AU [gold] + R [head of roc]. Centaurs were half man, half horse, which must have been exceptionally inconvenient. | |
| 18 | Cycle exercise has boy going uphill (5) |
| PEDAL – PE [exercise] + a reversal [going uphill] of LAD [boy]. | |
| 19 | Price including a cruise (5) |
| COAST – COST [price] with A inside it [including a]. COAST along/cruise along. | |
| 21 | Yikes, some weekend! (3) |
| EEK – hidden. | |
Most of the clues were not difficult, but there were a couple of hard ones. It didn’t help that I had biffed soccer for no particular reason, making phosphorus rather difficult. I eventually saw that phosphorus was probably the answer, which gave me hockey almost immediately.
Time: 9:50
15 minutes
Slower than usual at 13 minutes. I found some of this hard going, namely HOCKEY, SEAWEED, WHITE MEAT (yes, a bit of a strange clue) and PHOSPHORUS so I don’t feel too bad about the time. I had the same MER at SCREW UP for ‘drop a brick’ but I suppose it’s close enough. I liked the ‘mythical beast’ that wasn’t a ‘roc’.
Thanks to Templar and Mara
Had a wait for the park and ride yesterday so tried the 15×15, got about halfway. So no surprise that I couldn’t parse SEAWEED or HOCKEY. With seaweed my working theory was ‘seaward’ for ebbing river and then some substitutions. HOCKEY just fitted. I do like “energy drained”, it’s all there, wonder why I couldn’t see it. I was pleased with myself for PHOSPHORUS though – via all the things Templar mentions and Ra too. All green, if ndot all parsed, in 15.48. Thanks Mara for the challenge and Templar for today’s much needed helping hand.