Armonie usually appears on a Tuesday so I wasn’t expecting him today, though perhaps I should have done since there was no puzzle on Monday and yesterday we had a Dante prize puzzle.
During the first pass through the clues I confidently entered DEEP for 11ac and was then held up for a short while when I came to 3dn. Initially I was not too happy with the use of ‘car’ to give ‘T’ in the wordplay of 4dn but then I visited Wikipedia.
| Across | ||
| 1 | GAS POKER | SPOKE (stated) in RAG (journal) reversed – according to Chambers and Collins the enumeration should have been (3,5) not (8). |
| 6 | CACHET | ACHE (suffering) in CT (court) |
| 9 | DETAIL | DE (of French) TAIL (detective) |
| 10 | SNAPSHOT | SNAPS (biscuits) HOT (straight from the oven) |
| 11 | WELL | dd |
| 12 | WEIMARANER | *(MINER AWARE) |
| 14 | FRIGHTEN | RIGHT (Tory) in FEN (marsh) |
| 16 | BRAG | BRA (supporter) G (grand) |
| 18 | STET | hidden in ‘obSTETricians’ |
| 19 | OVERVIEW | O (old) I (one) in VERVE (force) W (week) |
| 21 | MARSEILLES | *(ARMIES SELL) |
| 22 | LACE | L (Latin) ACE (expert) |
| 24 | STAND OUT | AND (joiner) in STOUT (porter) |
| 26 | APNOEA | AEON (years) PA (father) reversed |
| 27 | EDITOR | TIDE (trend) reversed OR (gold) |
| 28 | ENTREATY | EAT (breakfast) in ENTRY (competitor) |
| Down | ||
| 2 | ARÊTE | [f]A[i]R [w]E[a]T[h]E[r] |
| 3 | PEARLY GATES | P (penny) EARLY (advanced) GATES (tycoon) – Microsoft founder Bill Gates. |
| 4 | KILOWATT | LOW (poor) A (American) T (car) in KIT (equipment) – I assumed that ‘car’ was referring to the Ford Model T but I had never heard it called just ‘T’ (usually ‘T’ would be clued by ‘model’). However, during subsequent research, Wikipedia informed me that, as well as several others, ‘T’ is a colloquial name for this vehicle. |
| 5 | RUSSIAN ROULETTE | *(IRRESOLUTE AUNTS) |
| 6 | CRAVAT | C (many) RA (artist) VAT (tax) |
| 7 | COS | COS[t] (price cut) |
| 8 | EXONERATE | EX (once) ONE RATE (rebuke) |
| 13 | AMBIVALENCE | VAL (Valerie) in AMBIENCE (mood) |
| 15 | RETRACTED | TRACT (book) in REED (grass) |
| 17 | NEWSCAST | NEW (latest) S (special) CAST (model) |
| 20 | RIGOUR | RIG (fiddle) OUR (FT’s) |
| 23 | CREST | C[limber] REST (break) |
| 25 | NUT | TUN (barrel) reversed |
I found this tough. First Armonie puzzle that I’ve failed to complete in a long time. I found it much harder than the Chifonie puzzle in Tuesday’s Guardian which I completed without a problem.
Thank you for the blog Gaufrid. I never got 1a, so I failed on this one. Tried mega, giga, Tera, mili, and pico watt in desperate attempt to avoid the k…
Having spent loads of time over the holidays doing cryptics, I was very disappointed only to solve 18a,21a, 22a, 23d & 25d. Made more progress with today’s Times than with this. I did guess cos but couldn’t see the wordplay so didn’t write it in.
Even my trusty anagram solver (which I only turn to when I have abandoned all hope of unaided progress) couldn’t get Weimaraner, a breed I have never heard of.
Thanks for the blog-makes it look easier than I found it.
I found it hard too. Did not get 1a, due to the incorrect enumeration. Also had trouble with lower right. Thought of apnea (sic) but we spell it without the o in the US. Never heard of arete but got it from the wordplay. I got waimaraner early on but for a long time had it spelled wrongly!
But why is “detail” defined by “respect” in 9a?
Hi bamberger
The on-line Chambers Word Wizard would have given you ‘weimaraner’.
Hi Tony
“But why is “detail” defined by “respect” in 9a?”
The Chambers Thesaurus gives ‘detail’ and ‘respect’ as synonyms. Try the sentence ‘My report was accurate in every detail/respect’.
Thanks, Gaufrid. I won’t argue with Chambers but I think a report could be accurate “in every detail” but not “in every respect” which to me means more like “from every point of view.” i.e. the report could get the details right but miss the big picture. The MacMillan online dictionary offers “The two stories differ in fundamental respects” as an example of this sense of respect, which I think would be different from “The two stories differ in fundamental details”. Actually I am not sure a detail can be fundamental!
A minor quibble, however, since I solved the clue anyway.
I’d have regarded from ‘real life’ that detail and respect meant the same (tho of course they have other meanings too) and I did not think twice about it when solving. Looking in dicts now, both Collins and Concise OED give ‘detail’ as one of the definitions under the heading ‘respect’ which is the definition in the clue here so I think it’s entirely OK.
Thanks Gaufrid.
Not the best Armonie I’ve solved,1 across should definitely have been 2 words and I wasn’t too impressed with T for car – even though Wiki does give it.
DETAIL,I thought was a bit iffy,I don’t think detective and tail are synonymous.
I also thought 11 across was DEEP,but WELL is O.K.
I did like 13 down,the anagram at 5 and,particularly,23 down.