Monday Prize Crossword from May 16
Apologies for the late posting. Unusually for Dante, I thought the best clues here were some of the anagrams, e.g. 19 across, rather than the cd’s. I haven’t worked out how two clues work — 2 down and 19 down.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | REFORM RE (with respect to) FORM (criminal record) |
| 4 | BRICKBAT BRICK (decent chap) BAT (club) |
| 9 | CROUCH cd |
| 10 | TOLERATE *(TO RELATE) |
| 12 | PASTORAL *(ALSO PART) |
| 13 | SIENNA IS ANNE (girl), all reversed |
| 15 | SLOW S[outhern] LOW (depression). Precipitation in the sense of speed rather than rain: this bit of misdirection had me trying to fit SNOW for a while. |
| 16 | PHRENOLOGY cd |
| 19 | PHLEGMATIC *(PLACE MIGHT) |
| 20 | ADIT AUDIT (examination) minus U[niversity] |
| 23 | RECORD cd |
| 25 | MEA CULPA *(PAUL CAME) |
| 27 | NECKLACE NECK (kiss) + *(ALEC) |
| 28 | GERMAN dd |
| 29 | PLEASURE PLEA (request) SURE (certain) |
| 30 | TEASER TEA-SERVICE without VICE (“faultless”) |
| Down | |
| 1 | RECIPES *(PRECISE) |
| 2 | FOOTSTOOL FOOTS = pays, and apparently TOOL is a homophone of a word meaning “bill”, but I don’t know what |
| 3 | RECKON dd |
| 5 | ROOM MOOR (African) reversed |
| 6 | CREDITOR *(DIRECTOR) |
| 7 | BRAWN cd |
| 8 | THERAPY RAP (charge) in THEY (those people) |
| 11 | WARHEAD cd |
| 14 | BESIDES BE + SIDES (right and left) |
| 17 | OLD FLAMES cd |
| 18 | EGG ROLLS EGG (part of the clutch) ROLLS (car) |
| 19 | PARSNIP Other than SNIP_ = “cutting,” I haven’t worked out how this works |
| 21 | TRAINER cd |
| 22 | SCHEME cd |
| 24 | CACHE homophone of CASH (money) |
| 26 | SCAR dd |
Thanks, Agentzero.
Can I help you with 2d and 19d?
Maybe.
A ‘ bill’ can be ‘a long-handled saw with a curved blade’ (although it isn’t in Chambers). In that case it is a tool by example.
In 19d I think ‘par’ means ‘paragraph’ of which Chambers says: ‘a short separate item of news or comment in a newspaper’. In fact that paragraph could be seen as a ‘newspaper cutting’ in itself. Maybe, that was Dante’s intention – there is a question mark at the end!
I particularly liked 19ac (PHLEGMATIC) and 29ac (PLEASURE): the surfaces read so well.
As one not having the right antenna for cd’s, it was the WARHEAD of 11d that defeated me. Is it really a cd? The first part is just a straightforward definition (‘the point of missiles’). And then ‘used in earnest’? I don’t get that.
Hi Agentzero
2dn is not a homophone, the ‘say’ is indicating ‘for example’. A bill (or billhook) is “a cutting tool with a long blade and wooden handle in the same line with it, often with a hooked tip, used in eg pruning” (Chambers).
I parsed 19dn as a pun. Pa is an abbreviation for paragraph and one of the definitions in Chambers is “a short separate item of news or comment in a newspaper”. So a ‘newspaper cutting’ could be a PA SNIP.