Two Saturday Klingsors in a row for me – on our five-weekly schedule – as the Indy cryptic verges on a new millennium…
This seemed to be a mixed bag of some pretty easy ‘write-ins’ and some pretty convoluted parsings – maybe driven by the grid shape, with lots of 3s, 4s and 5s – not sure it would have made a Saturday in the old prize puzzle days(?)
Once I’d noticed the number of shorter entries I challenged myself to work up through them – 3s, then 4s, then 5s – rather than my usual speed-solve ‘training’ method of rigorously Across/Down/Across/Down (‘training’ due to Times competition in a few weeks!).
WON, ASS and NIP went in pretty much straight away; SPOT, STIR and GALA also in quick order, although LI(THE)LY at 13A slowed me down a bit. Then TOT+A+L at 8D, AD+AGE at 22D and (T)ISSUE at 5D were all fairly straightforward fare. No complaints with the quality of the clueing in most cases, more that the shorter words must be harder material to make, er, harder material out of?
From there things got a bit more involved – and a bit deeper in the case of 18A, with the FRIGHTENED journalist having echoes of recent events in Turkey… I dillied and dallied between MINSTER and MUNSTER at 3D – it looks like the definition wants to be ‘Irish province’, but the phrasing could almost be taken to mean we are going from there to a minster?
The ‘British PM’ axing defence spending at 11A; 23A with ‘tyre’ and ‘puncturing’ evoking many painful sticky-fingered memories of trying to find and repair holes in inner tubes – and then get the damn things back in again! The magician only getting a tenner for entertaining children at a party. The sports venue (Trent Bridge) ‘deterring canned drinks consumption’ (because they want you to buy their nice profitable draught lager and then tell you off for starting beer glass snakes!) All nice surface readings, and apposite wordplay/anagram indicators.
I also enjoyed the ‘could be Woody’ and ‘could be Murphy’ style of clues at 1A and 24D
My LOI was INTIMATE – it had to be that from the crossers and general gist of the clue, but I spent a while looking for the definition/wordplay split before deciding it was just one of those clever &lit-ish/CD/charade thingummies!
Total solving time about 15 mins – which means I need to sharpen up, as those Times puzzles will probably be a bit more challenging… Hope I haven’t missed any clever theme-ette or Nina, and that all is explained clearly below.
**Update: Yes I did miss something – thanks to David in the comments below – The MUNSTERs TV series – HERMAN, LILY, MARILYN, EDDIE and GRANDPA…and their pet dragon, SPOT!
Thanks to Klingsor – see you in the 10,000s!…
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 1A | HERMAN | Could be Woody Allen on vacation on small island (6) | could be Woody (Woody Herman, US jazz musician) / HERM (small island off Guernsey in the Channel Islands) + AN (A-lle-N, emptied, or on vacation) |
|
| 5A | INTIMATE | One person’s close friend? That’s about it, on reflection (8) | &lit-ish/CD? / I (one) + N (closing letter of persoN) + TI (it, on reflection) + MATE (friend) |
|
| 9A | SCHNAPPS | Sleeps after school, having imbibed Penny’s strong drink (8) | strong drink / SCH (school) + NAP_S (sleeps), around (imbibing) P (penny) |
|
| 10A | ERRATA | Mistakes are coming back to bite singer (6) | mistakes / ER_A (ARE, coming back) around (biting) RAT (singer – traitor, squealer; or member of the Rat Pack, e.g. Sammy D-J or Frank S?) |
|
| 11A | BATTLEMENT | British PM mostly intended axing core defence (10) | defence / B (British) + ATTLE (most of Attlee, former Prime Minister) + ME( |
|
| 13A | LILY | Supply missing article for plant (4) | plant / LI( |
|
| 14A | STIR | Clink glasses tiresomely? Not entirely (4) | clink (as in prison) / hidden word, i.e. not entirely, in ‘glasseS TIResomely’ |
|
| 15A | TAWDRINESS | Fashion in dress at start of Wimbledon showing glitz (10) | glitz / anag, i.e. fashion, of IN DRESS AT + W (starting letter of Wimbledon) |
|
| 18A | FRIGHTENED | Just being locked in bog gets journalist alarmed (10) | alarmed / F_EN (march, or bog) around (locking in) RIGHT (just), plus ED (editor, journalist) |
|
| 20A | SPOT | Spinner’s back, finding turn (4) | turn (e.g. on stage?) / SPOT = TOPS, or spinner’s, backwards |
|
| 21A | GALA | Grand tableau regularly used for celebration (4) | celebration / G (grand) + ALA (regular letters of tAbLeAu) |
|
| 23A | ELEMENTARY | Having uncovered mild puncturing, changing a tyre is simple (10) | simple / E_TARY (anag, i.e. changing, of A TYRE) around (punctured by!) LEMEN (c-LEMEN-t, or mild, uncovered by removing outer letters) |
|
| 25A | SADDLE | Unhappy daughter has extremely large burden (6) | burden / SAD (unhappy) + D (daughter) + LE (extreme letters of LargE) |
|
| 26A | DRAMATIC | Drive Nancy’s friend around at 100? That’s impressive (8) | impressive / DR (Drive, e.g. abbreviation in addresses) + AM_I (friend, in French, i.e. in Nancy) around AT, plus C (one hundred, Roman numeral) |
|
| 28A | REPARTEE | Riposte requires right sword fencing skill (8) | riposte / R (right) + EP_EE (sword) around (fencing) ART (skill) |
|
| 29A | SLEDGE | Small shelf for hammer (6) | hammer / S (small) + LEDGE (shelf) |
|
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 2D | ENCHANTER | Magician could make a tenner entertaining children (9) | magician / EN_ANTER (anag, i.e. could make, of A TENNER) around (entertaining) CH (children) |
|
| 3D | MUNSTER | Church wants university for one Irish province (7) | Irish province / MINSTER (church) with U (university) replacing I (one) = MUNSTER |
|
| 4D | NIP | Fix up a drink (3) | a (short) drink / PIN (fix) upwards |
|
| 5D | ISSUE | Paper has no time to publish (5) | to publish / ( |
|
| 6D | TRENT BRIDGE | Sports venue deterring canned drinks consumption (5,6) | Sports venue (mainly cricket?) / TREN_RIDGE (anag, i.e canned, of DETERRING) around (drinking) TB (Tuberculosis, consumption) |
|
| 7D | MARILYN | Cautiously head off after married Northern woman (7) | woman / M (married) + ( |
|
| 8D | TOTAL | Young child’s given a large sum (5) | sum / TOT (young child) + A + L (large) |
|
| 12D | ENTITLEMENT | He maybe captures new bird? That’s right (11) | right / E_LEMENT (He, maybe – helium, example of an element) around (capturing) N (new) + TIT (bird) |
|
| 16D | WON | Earned money in Korea (3) | double defn. / WON is a unit of both North and South Korean cuirrency; and something WON has been earned |
|
| 17D | SCOURGING | Seething about officer getting whipping (9) | whipping / S_URGING (seething, boiling) around CO (Commanding Officer) |
|
| 19D | GRANDPA | Doctor pockets money, meeting a relative (7) | relative / G_P (General Practitioner, doctor) around (pocketing) RAND (South African money) plus (meeting) A |
|
| 20D | SATIATE | At sea, it cooks stuff (7) | stuff (e.g.with food) / anag, i.e. cooks, of AT SEA IT |
|
| 22D | ADAGE | Saw notice on time (5) | saw (saying, old chestnut) / AD (advertisement, notice) + AGE (time) |
|
| 24D | EDDIE | Indeed, nameless drunk could be Murphy (5) | could be Murphy (Eddie Murphy, US actor) / anag, i.e. drunk, of I( |
|
| 27D | ASS | American bum’s a fool (3) | double defn. / An ASS can be a fool; and across the pond they use ASS to refer to the bottom, or bum! |
|
Never saw the appeal of speed solving. Certainly took me a lot longer than 15 minutes and failed to get 1a not knowing Woody Herman or Herm. Favourite was ENTITLEMENT.
Thanks to Klingsor and mc_rapper67.
At 16D, ORE is an alternative answer – Scandinavian coin and hidden word. Entered that very early, and it held me up for a few minutes as I did know know the Korean currency usage.
16dn was my LOI. Didn’t know the currency unit and couldn’t see the word play. (Didn’t spot the hidden ORE either.) And 15ac was my second-to-last in – just couldn’t see it – and I needed both crossing letters to get 16dn.
Herman, Grandpa, Lily and Marilyn were characters in the Munsters, a tv series of yesteryear.
And Eddie, too.
Aha – thanks, David at #4&5 – so I DID miss a clever theme-ette! The original series (’64-’66) were just before my arrival on this planet, but I’m sure they exist somewhere in the depths of my mind from repeats…
I remember The Munsters – used to go out on Saturday evening on the BBC, I think, and I remember being amused entering MUNSTER in 3dn of a place in Ireland being named after an old TV series, and I still didn’t spot the theme.
Don’t forget their pet SPOT!
Thanks, Myelbow – this is a puzzle that keeps on giving!…