I was slowed by two words of which I’ve never heard, one of which I can find in no English dictionary; and there’s one more I’m not very comfortable with. Otherwise (at least) the usual high-class crossword from Dac.
Has anyone noticed the time when the new day’s puzzle goes online? I often like to do my blog in the small hours, but at 12.20 this morning yesterday’s crossword was still there, so I decided not to wait and went to bed instead.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | BERE(F)T |
| 4 | BUSH TEA{m} — an increasingly popular drink that some people (like Mma Ramotswe ) swear by |
| 8 | SALOON BAR — two senses of this expression |
| 10 | GRAFT — two defs |
| 11 | ANTONIA — (a nation)* |
| 12 | mONTH E.G. October — a nicely-hidden hidden |
| 13 | CIVIC CENTRES — (revisit C C C)* around {K}en{T} |
| 17 | PETERBOROUGH — P (bother rogue)* — the anagram indicator seems to be ‘created’: a bit tenuous? |
| 20 | P(REV 1)EW |
| 21 | AC(CU’S)E {lawye}R |
| 23 | ECLAT — C in (tale)rev. |
| 24 | RES(TRAIN)T |
| 25 | SAMO{s} YE’D |
| 26 | GANG(E)S |
| Down | |
| 1 | BISMARCK — not sure here: ‘his currency’ is the mark, which gives MARCK, and I suppose that BIS is a Swiss bank. Is it the ‘Bank for International Settlements’ mentioned in Chambers? |
| 2 | RELATIVE — (ate liver)* |
| 3 | F{ea}R OWN |
| 4 | BORLOTTI BEANS — (on bistro table)* — some research needed here, as I’d never heard of them |
| 5 | SIGHTSEER — “site sere” — good bit of misdirection: the definition is simply ‘Tourist’ |
| 6 | T RACES |
| 7 | {f}ACTION |
| 9 | B RAVE NEW WORLD — ref. Dvorak’s symphony |
| 14 | CHEMISTRY — two defs |
| 15 | NURSLING — (run)rev. sling |
| 16 | CHA RITES — but I can find nothing in the dictionaries here. Is it simply the French word charités? |
| 18 | U(P SET)S |
| 19 | BEDLAM — (blamed)* [edited after my silly mistake first time round] |
| 22 | internationAL RACket — hidden rev. |
It’s the Graces from mythology,
Yup…THE KHARITES (or Charites), also commonly known as the Graces, were three goddesses of grace, beauty, adornment, mirth, festivity, dance and song.
John
CHARITES is in Chambers, under ‘Charis’, which is the singular.
Hello John,
I don’t know how the puzzle wasn’t available to you at 12.20.
I started mine at shortly after midnight, which is when they usually become available…
Great stuff as ever from Dac, though he beat me on GRAFT and SIGHTSEER.
I had 25A as SAMO[-a],YE’D, but probably just a typo above.
I didn’t check this morning, but yesterday’s Virgilius was definitely online just after midnight.
I think it’s SAMOS as John says, that’s an island (in the Aegean) whereas Samoa is more a group of islands, I think.
19d is (blamed)*
I thought of SAMOA as I had not heard os SAMOS
Collins says BIS =
Bank for International Settlements: an institution, based in Basel, Switzerland, that accepts deposits, makes loans for national central banks, and assists in offsetting speculative movements of funds between the major currencies; set up in 1930.
I’d slightly take issue with whether BIS is a Swiss Bank. It seems to be an international institution which happens to be based in Switzerland. It seems a bit like describing the UN as an American organisation because it has offices in New York. Other than that, I really enjoyed this one. 5 down was particularly good – I was really convinced for a long time that it had to be “sun something”.
Probably the fact that before midnight I had called up the Virgilus puzzle was the reason why my machine (but what part of it I’m not sure) couldn’t recognise that a new puzzle was on the site. In future I must be careful not to look at the previous day’s puzzle.