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 an unusual variant spelling (1d) [I’ve edited my moaning about this after jill-anne pointed out to me how to use the Chambers app].
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. 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, my ancient (1990) paper Shorter Oxford lists it as “variation of nan” and the Chambers app (on which I’ve now wasted £9.95) has it as a variant of “nanny” if you click the right bits. | |
| 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.
Mrs RH was away yesterday, so I also had a go at the 15, and also got about half.
She’s back today and we enjoyed this typical Mara. Thanks Templar for the parsing of our LOI hockey which was biffed from crossers but after a good look still couldn’t see why.
All done in 16.10, thanks Mara
I found this tricky in places.
I took the same circuitous route to PHOSPHORUS as our blogger and made life hard for myself by not being able to spell EEK (I initially went for eke for no good reason). HOCKEY and SEAWEED also caused me problems.
Started with NEW ORLEANS and finished with BRAKE LIGHT in 9.17 with COD to NOWHERE.
Thanks to Templar and Mara
Finished but couldn’t parse HOCKEY and LOI SEA WEED. Struggled with NANNA. Familiar with it as a variant of Nan, but couldn’t get NARNA out of my head for fool. All in all, mostly straightforward with the afore mentioned posers. 21 mins, so a bit under my norm.
Thanks Templar and Mara
Enjoyable puzzle. Very fast then stuck on 13a and CENTAUR. Eventual PDM with CENTAUR and then parsed HOCKEY at last, aided by more coffee.
NHO SNARE DRUM but it had to be. Also had to think about NANNA.
COD PAGE-TURNER. Also liked SCREW UP, HINDI, PEDAL, and NOWHERE.
Thanks vm, Templar.
Nice from Mara a regulation 9:06 for me. Couple took a while to parse including LOI SEAWEED – thanks Templar
Some brilliant anagrams: liked WHITE MEAT and SNARE DRUM but especially COD TAP-DANCER for its excellent surface. LOI SEAWEED but needed Mrs M’s GK for parsing: NHO cauliflower ear or Horus. Thanks Mara and Templar.
Oh I think “choice of turkey” works ‘cos it’s common to start by asking the guest “do you prefer white meat or brown?”.
Enjoyed today’s QC with some quite chewy clues. Biffed HOCKEY – thanks Templar for parsing. COD NOWHERE.
Found this unusually tough for a puzzle by Mara, with several queries as I went through it. Unlike our blogger I was OK with SCREW UP for drop a brick, but only after I’d overcome my hesitation about screw for fastener. EGG was a real biff-then-parse, as it took time to accept “for one” could imply eg. NANNA my LOI as it seems to me more a pet name than a word for a relative. But overall I was just not on Mara’s wavelength, for a laboured 14:29 finish.
Many thanks Templar for the blog.
HOCKEY, SEAWEED, EGG, NANNA (never seen this spelling) all problematic and unparsed and biffed, but completed in 20:42 – about average for me, but good for a Mara puzzle as I often struggle with this setter.
5:58
No major hold-ups. No problem with SCREW UP. Same thoughts about NANNA – hardly surprised it can be spelt that way, but definitely uncommon. Perhaps a shade slow with TAP DANCER where my first thought had been TOE-CAPPED which didn’t quite match the anagrist. L2I were PHOSPHORUS from four checkers and HINDI which was obvious once the first letter appeared.
Thanks Templar and Mara
A slow grind as yesterday but, also as yesterday, an enjoyable one. Finished on 26 minutes without being able to parse SEAWEED or WHITE MEAT. I was very slow to solve the anagram at 1ac having convinced myself that it started with either san or los.
FOI – 16ac RUN
LOI – 13ac HOCKEY
CODs – 5dn NOWHERE and 8ac SCREW UP (no problem with the latter).
Thanks to Mara and Templar
Thanks for the blog. I did find nanna in Chambers App by typing in nanna. It is an alternative spelling for nanny. I spent a lot of time on that corner of the grid as I had niece at first.
Ah, thank you. I did type in “nanna” but since no entry appeared I thought it wasn’t listed. I now discover that because it is a variant word, I needed to click on it in order to make the relevant entry appear.
32:13
Found that really chewy. Only a handful on first pass and never did work out what was going on with HOCKEY. Then 10 minutes on LOI SEAWEED where I was looking to put the last E from algae into a river to give a word meaning ebbing. I should have tried algae as the definition much earlier but I didn’t.
NANNA is quite common in North East England