TLS Crossword 1117 by Praxiteles. March 18, 2016

For a while over the weekend of March 18th it was as if the setter had stretched an invisible tripwire across the course and felled the whole field – not a single correct grid appeared on the Club board – and I was getting ready to “phone a friend” (email PB) for a lifeline.  All the while thinking that the setter had lived up to his name because, as with his surviving sculptures, there was a vital piece missing.  But by the Sunday morning Peter had identified the glitch which was the middle word in 3d, and he handsomely noted that “100% wrongness by solvers does not happen.  Ever.”  Relief!

A mix of write-ins and head-scratchers here but certainly enjoyable.  There’s a mini-theme with internal referencing but nothing to hold up the proceedings.  A leisurely 49 minutes for me which included a break to brew another cuppa.  I try to get as far as I can without reaching for the reference books (or Google) but I usually end up with items which either can’t be guessed or which need to be sourced.  The two puzzles which followed this one (by Mrytilus and Broteas respectively) were a great deal more difficult so Zabadak and Sotira have their work cut out.  I’m just a bit nervous about today’s (which I haven’t looked at yet) when my turn on blog duty comes round again.  N.B  If you want to be in the prize drawing you must submit by mail.  It’s too late for this one and online submission doesn’t count.

Across
1.  Sayers’s Montague goes crazy for cocktails (3,5)
EGG FLIPS.  Montague Egg is a character in a series of short stories by Dorothy Sayers.  He’s a travelling salesman for a Piccadilly wine merchant.  They’re a bit silly and certainly dated but very readable.  He likes to quote rhyming bromides from his “Salesman’s Handbook”, as in – He always turns up just in time, to help the bobbies solve the crime.  Don’t blame Sayers for that, Idunnit.  If a flip is the same as a nog, no thanks.
6.  Will errors here occur at start and end of day? (6)
COMEDY.  Will, as in Shakespeare.  COME=occur.  D[a]Y.  Two sets of twins with predictable mix-ups.  This play rates just one entry in my 1953 (2nd ed.) Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.  I’ve seen it once – a high school production with my older daughter in a non-speaking part.
9.  11 of Agatha Christie’s standard (1,2,1)
N OR M.  You don’t need to solve 11a first to get this, even if you’re like me and hadn’t heard of it.  “Standard” gives it to you.  Continuing with lesser known characters from famous detective story writers, this tale features Tommy and Tuppence.
10.  Quietly note time to finish reason for Hamilton’s insomnia (10)
PRETENDING.  From Pretending Not To Sleep by poet Ian Hamilton.  P=quietly.  RE=note.  T=time.  Ending=finish.  No I didn’t know it.
11.  Variant letters could produce these, right? (12)
ALTERNATIVES.  So this is the puzzle theme, as in this or that.  I’m not really confident of my parsing however.  It seems to be an anagram of VARIANT with some of the letters in LETTERS, but dropping the R and one T.  No doubt someone has a better idea.
14.  Distressed old loser described in six books by Browning (8)
SORDELLO.  Anagram of OLD LOSER.  Narrative poem by Robert Browning.  For all its length the editors of my O D of Q give it one short entry.  Beyond Pippa Passes and My Last Duchess, by Robert, and Let Me Count The Ways, by Elizabeth, lies a great lacuna in my Browning education.
15.  One like Thomas Gradgrind, arm shaking a stick (6)
RAMROD.  Anagram of ARM with ROD=stick.  As in martinet, although I can’t find a direct reference to this in the book and it isn’t really fair to the character who experiences an epiphany by the end of the novel.  Gradgrind is the “eminently practical” protagonist of Dickens’s Hard Times, who’s the patron of a model school cramming the students with “facts”.  I remember an excellent tv adaptation in the 70s with Timothy West as Bounderby.
16.  Storm Jameson’s Mr Thorgill found a storm here (6)
TEACUP.  A cup of tea for Mr. Thorgill being the book.
18.  Sherwood forest endlessly destroyed in conjunction with part of Nottingham (8)
ANDERSON.  Sherwood Anderson, American author.  Not read so much nowadays.  AND=conjunction.  Anagram of [f]ORES[t] (endlessly) with N[ottingham].
20.  11 of John Cowper Powys losing nothing in Parliament (3,2,7)
ALL OR NOTHING.  For a while I wondered if this was the one I (and everyone else) got wrong because “nothing” appeared in both clue and answer, which seemed odd, and  I couldn’t see what “Parliament” was doing in there.  And was the clue directing us to drop the “nothing”?  With a bit of effort I finally got it. ALTHING=Parliament, surrounding LORN=lost and O=nothing.  I read his Wolf Solent but never finished this one – not my cup of.
22.  Cold brown soil found in Bragg country (10)
CUMBERLAND.   C[old]. UMBER=brown.  LAND=soil.  Broadcaster and author of a Cumbrian trilogy among other works.
Particular Voss reveals in the afternoon, according to Patrick White (4)
ARVO.  Contained in [particul]AR VO[ss].  I don’t know if he actually does but Australian author White might well use the Aussie slang word for “afternoon”.  Voss is one of his principal characters.
25.  To increase Orange Prize sum finalists get previous award (6)
ADDEEM.   Well you learn something.  I’d always mixed this up with “adeem”, a legal term that means something quite different.  It’s an old word (previous) for award or judge.  Took me a while to parse too.  ADD=increase.  Then the last letters (finalists) in [orang]E [priz]E [su]M.
26.  And then came forth two — out of the wood, and tare forty and two children (2nd Book of Kings) (3,5)
SHE BEARS.  From the KJ version.  This comes after the chariot of fire sweeps Elijah away from Elisha and into a whirlwind.  Later in the chapter, Elisha’s bald head is mocked by a bunch of children from Bethel , so he gets the Lord to sic the bears onto them and goes on his merry way to Mount Carmel.  Perhaps the batsqueak of a wavelength here with Willian Cowper’s (Powys was descended from him) “Can a mother’s tender care cease toward the child she bear?”.  Or not.

Down
2.  One of The Searchers at the end to go and perform, backing “Pretty Woman” (4-6)
GOOD-LOOKER.  So we weren’t going to the movies after all.  LOOKER=searcher, coming after GO and OD (DO=perform backwards).
3.  “… the — have the right to sell the old discarded clothes of the Dauphine” (Kathryn Lasky) (6, 2, 7)
FEMMES DE CHAMBRE.  This I looked up after getting most of the crossing letters and guessing it, as it turned out correctly – although I did a lot of second-guessing while I was still marked with an error!
4.  I’m with Peter on a kind of train, put together with 11 others (7)
IMPANEL.  Not a reference to 11a in this puzzle but 11 other jurors.  IM.  PAN=Peter.  EL=train.  Parts of the NYC subway system run above-ground on an elevated track, and Chicago has the well-known elevated Loop system.  EMpanel is the more usual spelling.
5.  Haggard character embraced by his hero (3)
SHE.  Who must be obeyed.  Contained in [hi]S HE[ro] and I suspect a “gimme” for most of us.
6.  Short story writer, revolutionary at all times (7)
CHEEVER.  CHE=the setters’ favourite revolutionary.  EVER=at all times.  Excellent stories – Goodbye My Brother (which has one of the most arresting and wonderful final images I can think of) and The Enormous Radio are the ones that stick in my mind.
7.  “Well this beats cock-fighting!  The man’s as –” (Edward Bulwer-Lytton) (3,2,1,5,4)
MAD AS A MARCH HARE.  This comes from My Novel, Complete.  With just a few of the checked letters this could surely be guessed but I confirmed with Google.  I read The Last Days of Pompeii a very long time ago but nothing of his since.
8.  Sandy Herbert novel? (4)
DUNE.  First in a series by Frank Herbert.  A write-in, as I surmise will be true for most of us even if, like me, you know them but haven’t read them.
12.  Room At The Top, perhaps, with top atmosphere about top of Warnely (3-4)
TWO-PAIR.  A plethora of “tops”.  Warnley is the town in Yorkshire in which the story takes place in the novel by John Braine and the movie of the same name.  TOP=top.  AIR=atmosphere.  Containing W[arnley].  In the works of Dickens and other 19th century novelists, “two-pair back” would describe humble lodgings, such as an attic or garret.
13.  11 of Richard Baxter’s, not one out of date at any time (3,2,5)
NOW OR NEVER.  Another of the themed clues.  Entered without parsing and I didn’t know the book.  NO=not one.  WORN=out of date.  EVER=at any time.
17.  Progressive Christian, say, turning cheek, gloomy (7)
PILGRIM.  As in Progress, by John Bunyan.  Yup, a write-in.  LIP backwards (turning)=cheek.  GRIM=gloomy.  I first read this when I was 10 and can date it from my neat(ish) inscription in bright green biro “this book was given to her by Granny and Grandpop for Christmas”.  The Ardizzone illustration of Apollyon scared the daylights out of me.
19.  11 of Suzanne Brockmann’s to entrance before long (2,2,3)
DO OR DIE.  Ours to reason why.  DOOR=entrance.  DIE=long.  Guessed, not known, and Googled for the blog.
21.  Sounds like there’s something immature in Melville’s character (4)
BUDD.  Homophone of BUD (something immature).  Yes, a “gimme”.  Billy Budd by Herman Melville.  I haven’t read the book but I do know the Britten opera.  E.M. Forster wrote the libretto.
23.  What Jonson’s devil is like, a bit stupid (3)
ASS.  The Devil is an Ass, by Ben Jonson.  And another “gimme” with the checking letters.  I did just about recall it but Googled anyway.