This was probably one of the easiest advanced puzzles I’ve ever completed but it was a very satisfying solve. I only needed Chambers on a couple of occasions and there were some great new words to learn (FISTIANA,MEIOFAUNA). Still not sure about the wordplay for 19D though.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 4 | (IT IS)* in FAN,A – what a great word FISTIANA is. |
| 10 | (PERSON)* in CORDED |
| 11 | ART in LINE< – the deception in this clue comes from the capitalized R in Ravel, leading you down a musical garden-path. |
| 13 | DAM in A SWINE – ADAM’S WINE. This clue illustrates something that has always puzzled about advanced cryptics: why are answers of more than one word never fully enumerated? For this clue, we get (9, two words) instead of (5,4). Anyone know why this is? |
| 18 | A,T in IN TIME – tough clue to parse and it took me a while to twig that “eventually” was IN TIME. |
| 20 | GIS[t] in E,LETS. |
| 21 | A in I,FAN – NAAFI. I wouldn’t have known this word were it not for the Times puzzle in which it appeared a couple of weeks ago. It’s an abbreviation which stands for “Navy,Army and Air Force Institutes”. |
| 25 | EVE in A,G,GRID – unusually, a less than convincing surface reading for this setter. |
| 28 | (CERTAIN ROUND)* – COUNTERDRAIN. “Barking” is the anagram indicator here and I assume it’s in the sense of mad or crazy. |
| 29 | AN,Z,A,CD,A,Y – lots of elements to put together here. |
| Down | |
| 1 | (IN A CANOE)* – OCEANIA. |
| 2 | CON,DEN,(AS INTO)* – CONDENSATION. |
| 7 | ADS,ORBS – not to be confused with “absorb”. |
| 14 | (ANIMALCULES OAF [-calls])* – we only see this type of anagram in advanced cryptics, and even there it’s quite rare I think. The idea is that “calls MEIOFAUNA” is an anagram of “Animalcules oaf”. |
| 15 | M[-is]ALIGNED – “true” is used in the something being in the correct position. |
| 19 | THAMMUZ – can’t work out the wordplay for this one. The full clue is “Representation of sun in the morning – endless blur”. “Morning” could be AM but I don’t know about the rest. |
| 22 | KIND[-l]Y |
| 24 | OR,C[atace]A |
Is 19d TH’ + AM + MUZ(z)?
I can find MUZZY meaning blurred in Chambers 1998 so I guess MUZZ meaning blur is in one of the dictionaries.
Chanorak section: MUZZ is in C 2003 as a back-formation from MUZZY. A bit disappointingly, a *fauna search in the CD-ROM version doesn’t find a whole sequence of words ranking animals by size in mm, just micro- (not visible with the naked eye), macro- (visible …), and mega- (visible and ‘large’). (Plus others based on habitat or membership – do we really need both epi- and in- ?)
Multi-word answers: I think it’s just because full enumeration gives you a bit too much help. Seeing (6,2,3,4) in a 15×15, I’m looking for MIDDLE OF THE ROAD immediately, closely followed by other IN THE or OF THE options. US-style solvers cope without any enumerations, which can lead to some fine kick-self moments. The one I remember best: “Hockey game starter” for a 7-letter entry. I racked my brains for the ice-hockey version of ‘bully off’, and then felt increasingly baffled as the checking letters came in. Answer: O Canada