A fun tussle with Trelawney here – who I declare the winner after pushing me just over 10 minutes. Lots of anagrams, double definitions, blind alleys and smooth surfaces. Great fun – thanks.
Definitions are underlined in bold italics.
| Across | |
| 1 | Abrupt way to stop using Christmas leftovers? (4,6) |
| COLD TURKEY – double definition. I should have been quicker off the mark with this one, | |
| 7 | Neighbourhood surrounding Newcastle’s first stadium (5) |
| ARENA – neighbourhood (AREA) surrounding (N)ewcastle. | |
| 8 | Colours on drinking vessel (6) |
| FLAGON – colours (FLAG – as in ‘hoist the colours’), on (ON). | |
| 10 | Bread we gather for animal (3) |
| DOE – homophone (we gather) of bread=dough. | |
| 12 | Renegade‘s terrible speed approaching rough road (9) |
| DESPERADO – anagram (terrible) of SPEED next another anagram (rough) of ROAD. | |
| 13 | Plant‘s strange allure (6) |
| LAUREL – anagram (strange) of ALLURE. | |
| 14 | Sack impure judge (6) |
| UMPIRE – anagram (sack) of IMPURE. | |
| 17 | Have guests come into vehicle with no right? (9) |
| ENTERTAIN – come into (ENTER), vehicle with no right (T)r(AIN). | |
| 19 | Key amount to pay (3) |
| TAB – double definition. | |
| 20 | Outlaw in favour of offer (6) |
| FORBID – in favour of (FOR), offer (BID). | |
| 21 | Beginning to open very large letter (5) |
| OMEGA – (O)pen, very large (MEGA). | |
| 23 | US soldier, with pound, gets hold of small creatures and a big one (5,5) |
| GIANT SQUID – US soldier (GI) and pound (QUID) holding small creatures (ANTS). Last clue-itis hit on this one. GI was obvious but then I was stuck. I cracked it by heading off the wrong way – I thought ‘with’ could be ‘and’ which gave GIAN – so giant was obvious and then so was squid. I then had to rework the parsing to see how it worked. All that must get COD. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Cleaner hid broken light fixture (10) |
| CHANDELIER – anagram (broken) of CLEANER HID. ‘Char’ seemed an obvious ‘in’ to this clue but wasn’t to be. | |
| 2 | It’s not true rest (3) |
| LIE – double definition. | |
| 3 | Time to walk like a duck? Nonsense! (7) |
| TWADDLE – time (T), to walk like a duck WADDLE. | |
| 4 | Say no to waste (6) |
| REFUSE – double definition. | |
| 5 | Delete periods before end of sentence (5) |
| ERASE – periods (ERAS), sentenc(E). | |
| 6 | Disturb solitary supporter of the crown (8) |
| ROYALIST – anagram (disturb) of SOLITARY. | |
| 9 | Futuristic vehicle initially hauled into the sea? (10) |
| HOVERBOARD – (H)auled, into the sea (OVERBOARD). Hovercraft flashed into the grid but had to be removed and reworked. | |
| 11 | Mathematical statement butchered in a quote (8) |
| EQUATION – anagram (butchered) of IN A QUOTE. | |
| 15 | Chap leaves fruit (7) |
| MANGOES – chap (MAN), leaves (GOES). | |
| 16 | Young lady‘s help accepted by chaps (6) |
| MAIDEN – help (AID) inside chaps (MEN). | |
| 18 | Religious leader‘s pet, perhaps, with no tail (5) |
| RABBI – pet, perhaps, with no tail (RABBI)t. | |
| 22 | Bird beginning to emit kitten-like sound we can hear (3) |
| EMU – (E)mit, homophone (we can hear) of kitten-like sound – mew. | |
First time I actually timed myself today, I am a Scot in NYC, so always start this a little bit later than everyone else.
Liked 23 ac, pondered Gaint Snail for a while with Pound = L but Hoverboard put an end to that caper.
Flagon LOI and took up a number of minutes, so I didn’t exactly McFly through it..
20:41
Welcome!
Thanks!
A few chewy items and the unknown but gettable (eventually) HOVERBOARD made for an entertaining challenge. Helpful to get 1a and 1d early on for the useful first letters.
Very odd – I posted an hour or so ago, but no sign of it!
Suffice to say, I struggled with this one for some reason, although I can’t really say why. I thought it was a very nice puzzle, but HOVERBOARD and GIANT SQUID in particular slowed me down, and I came in at 16 minutes. I went halfway down the acrosses before going across to the downs to get my FOI!
FOI and COD Chandelier LOI Hoverboard WOD Twaddle
Thanks Trelawney and Chris
Wow, can’t recall ever getting to the line ahead of you. A digestif beckons 😉
I’m sure you have! Hope you enjoyed the digestif 🍷😊
Calvados ❤
Mr B’s favourite 😋 A nice malt whisky for me!
7:23 starting at the 1s and held up by a GIANT PANDA before motoring over the finish line on a HOVERBOARD.
7 is quick for me so flying may be more appropriate than motoring?
DNF
Was romping through this one with just the SE corner to go after 6 minutes. But then I hit the buffers on UMPIRE and HOVERBOARD and ended up putting GIANT SOUND instead of SQUID for the LOI.
Started with brain fog. Thought cold turkey but couldn’t parse it so waited for some checkers. Picked up speed on the down clues before being held up briefly by 14ac and 23ac. A hugely enjoyable QC.
Thanks for the blog today. I needed it for some of the parsing.