An Azed of average difficulty this week, I think; I needed a dictionary to check several answers. The words ‘whample’ and ‘sprangle’ were both delightful discoveries. No clue stands out as favourite of the week, but I’ll give my vote to 10a.
I wish you all a brilliant Christmas and New Year, and a cruciverbally fulfilling 2010.
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | GASTHOF | GAS = garrulity; THO = even if (though); F = loud (forte). A German hotel or guest-house. | |
| 6 | IMBAR | A mimbar is a mosque pulpit; remove M (mass) from the beginning, and you get this archaic word meaning ‘shut in’. | |
| 10 | AIGRE-DOUCE | *(Die courage), with ‘in the wars’ as an anagram indicator; ‘for the wife’ indicates that this is the feminine form of the French adjective. There’s a music link here. | |
| 11 | STUMPAGE | TUMP = mound; in SAGE = wise old fellow. In the US, standing timber, its monetary value, or money paid for it. | |
| 13 | SIDER | RED IS, reversed. Someone who takes a side. | |
| 14 | VAISYA | *(Siva), with ‘incarnation of’ as an apt anagram indicator; AY = alas, reversed. A member of the third caste of Hinduism. The Sudras, or Shudras, are the fourth caste. | |
| 17 | HALLANS | ALL = entirely; HANS = a German. A hallan is a partition or screen between the door and fireplace in a Scottish cottage, or bothy. | |
| 18 | CHEAPEN | *(ache); PEN = author | |
| 19 | SKAT | K = king; SAT = was fitting. A three-handed card game using 32 cards. | |
| 20 | RONG | Sounds like ‘wrong’ = defective; an obsolete past tense of ‘ring’. | |
| 21 | WHAMPLE | MP = commoner (a member of the House of Commons); WHALE = big un. A lovely Scottish word, meaning a stroke or blow. | |
| 23 | ANATASE | A = one; former tennis player Ilie Nastase (with an accent over the first a which needs a font with an extended character set), minus his third letter. Anatase is one of the three mineral forms of titanium dioxide. | |
| 26 | GEMONY | ‘Hegemony’ minus ‘he’. An obsolete word expressing surprise, defined in Chambers in the entry for geminate, possibly related to the word ‘geminy’, a pair of eyes. | |
| 28 | STREP | ‘Perts’ (impudent people) reversed. Streptococcus, a genus of spherical Gram-positive bacteria, with a name derived from the Greek meaning ‘easily bent or twisted, like a chain’. | |
| 30 | GRIPTAPE | GRIPE = complaint; TAP = a metal piece attached to the sole and heel of a shoe for tap-dancing. A rough adhesive tape, as used on skateboarding equipment to provide extra grip. | |
| 31 | NIBELUNGEN | *(linen begun). The Nibelungen, in Wagner’s opera Der Ring des Nibelungen, were dwarves, the guardians of a magic ring that granted the power to rule the world. | |
| 32 | DISME | Hidden in ‘yield is measured’. A tenth or tithe. | |
| 33 | BALNEAL | NEA[r] = almost; in BALL. Of baths or bathing. | |
| Down | |||
| 1 | GOSS | S-SOG, reversed. An informal short form of ‘gossip’, in Chambers (2008) but not in the earlier version on my computer. | |
| 2 | ANTIPHONER | *(then piano r). A book of antiphons or of anthems (also called ‘antiphonary’ and ‘antiphonal’). | |
| 3 | SAUDI | ‘S = has; AUDI[t] | |
| 4 | TIME LAG | *(Get mail) | |
| 5 | ORACHE | Hidden in ‘sailor a cheap’. Atriplex hortensis, the garden orache, also called red orach, mountain spinach, or french spinach, is an annual leaf vegetable with a salty, spinach-like taste. There’s also an oblique reference to Popeye, who gained his strength from eating spinach. | |
| 6 | IDEAL GAS | IDES = fish; ALGA = seaweed. An ideal gas is a theoretical gas composed of a set of randomly-moving, non-interacting point particles. | |
| 7 | MOBIL | MIL = military; OB[o], a vessel designed to carry oil and bulk ore, together or separately. Mobil is a major American oil company which merged with Exxon in 1999 to form ExxonMobil. | |
| 8 | BUSS | Frances Mary Buss (16 August 1827 – 24 December 1894) was a headmistress and an English pioneer of women’s education. ‘Buss’ is also a rude or playful kiss, a smacker. Miss Buss was associated with Dorothea Beale, headmistress of The Cheltenham Ladies’ College, in a (rather sexist) satirical rhyme: Miss Buss and Miss Beale, Cupid’s darts do not feel. How different from us, Miss Beale and Miss Buss. … so maybe rude or playful kisses were out of the question. |
|
| 9 | REMASTER | REM = an American rock band; ASTER = the Michaelmas daisy | |
| 12 | SYNALOEPHA | *(Elsa aphony). The melting of a final vowel or diphthong into the initial vowel or diphthong of the next word. | |
| 15 | SCRAG-END | RAG = a scrap of cloth; SCEND = to pitch into the trough of the sea (given in Chambers in the entry for send). A joint of mutton from the neck of the sheep. | |
| 16 | SPRANGLE | SPANGLE = glitter; R = middle of array. In the US, a straggling line or group. | |
| 19 | SMITTEN | SEN[t] = ecstatic; MITT = hand | |
| 22 | HEMINA | HA = expression of scepticism; EMIN = Tracey Karima Emin, whom I can’t help admiring, even if I don’t rate her art much. A hemina is a measure for corn, of varying amount. | |
| 24 | TOTEM | Hidden in ‘some to treasure’, reversed (‘erected’ works for reversal when it’s a down clue) | |
| 25 | CRANE | Double definition — the demoiselle, Anthropoides virgo, a graceful variety of crane; and ‘to stretch out the neck, usually in order to see better’. | |
| 27 | MOBS | First letters of ‘make overtures by soliciting’. Loose women (unlike Miss Buss and Miss Beale). | |
| 29 | PEEL | P = phosphorus; EEL. John Peel was a Cumbrian huntsman, the subject of the 19th-century song D’ye ken John Peel?, and he wore a grey coat. | |
One mistake threw me: I had the ??MON? of 26a, and put in LAMONT (Norman). Clearly wrong, this mucked up the left had side for a long time!
Thanks, Jetdoc. I was pleased to finish this. WHAMPLE was the last one I got. Although I got PEEL I’d forgotten the reference to John Peel’s ‘coat all grey’, so thanks for enlightening me. MOBIL and IMBAR were the other ones where I didn’t see the wordplay.
I’m sure we used to sing about John Peel and his coat so GAY when I were a lad (long before “gay” had its current meaning, of course), and there does seem to be some dispute about which version is correct.