Crosophile had the edge over me this morning, I have to say. Having only blogged one of his puzzles until today, I have not yet fully fathomed how this setter’s mind works. Perhaps end-of-term fatigue is setting in for me on the solving front as well as on the work front.
In any case, I am confident that I have correctly completed the grid, although I need help explaining part of the wordplay in 11 (as indicated by my triple question mark) and all the wordplay in 3 (reversal of cafe appears to be part of it). I have been staring at the letters in 3 for so long now that I just can’t see the wood for the trees, so I look forward to being enlightened and to correcting the blog accordingly. I am also rather ashamed to admit that I had to search Chambers to find 7A, having been blinded by a wrong answer to this clue since almost my first perusal of the puzzle.
On the positive side, the brilliantly hidden definition in 13 was a highlight for me, as were the & lit. at 17, the less common letter at the intersection of 6 and 9 and the misleading reference to a month of the year in 24.
*(…) indicates an anagram
| Across | ||
| 6 | GNOME | Reversed and hidden (“smuggling back”) in “scarEMONGers” |
| 7 | CARDINALS | Double definition: CARDINALS are “Church dignitaries” AND “sixes” and “sevens”, i.e. cardinal numbers. |
| 9 | ZESTIER | Z (=final letter) + <caus>ES (“causES” couple finally, i.e. last two letters) + TIER (=row) |
| 10 | EMBARGO | O (=ring) + GRAB (=snatch) + ME (=Crosophile, i.e. compiler of this puzzle); “back” indicates reversal; the definition is “restraint”, as in restraint of princes. |
| 11 | BARCELONA | BAR (=bank |
| 12 | CYCLE | Hidden (“some”) in “proficienCY CLEarly”; & lit. |
| 13 | FANCY THAT | T<affeta> (“a sample of” means first letter only) in [FANCY (=ornate) + HAT (=headgear)]; the cleverly hidden definition is simply “My!” (as an exclamation) |
| 19 | CLOSE | Double definition: CLOSE is “near”, not far AND “the end”, finish |
| 20 | ELABORATE | ELAB (BALE=bundle; “over” indicates reversal) + O (=zero) + RATE (=levy) |
| 22 | AQUARIA | A (=acceleration) + QUA (=in capacity of) + RIA (AIR=gas; “returnable” indicates reversal) |
| 24 | ALMANAC | ALM<s> (=charity; “receives cut” means last letter is dropped) + A (=adult) + NAC (CAN=may, i.e. modal verb not month; “returns” indicates reversal); the definition is “annual”, as a noun. |
| 25 | SOLAR WIND | SO (=very) + [WIN (=success) in LARD (=fat, as a noun); a solar wind is made of fast travelling, charged particles emitted by the sun, hence “output of local star”. |
| 26 | IBSEN | NESBI<t> (=children’s author, i.e. Edith Nesbit (1858-1924), author of The Railway Children, etc; “aborted” means last letter dropped); “comeback” indicates reversal; the reference is to Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), author of A Doll’s House, etc. |
| Down | ||
| 1 | TONSURE | TON (=not; “over” indicates reversal) + SURE (=certain) |
| 2 | DELIBERATE | Definition: “on purpose”, intentional; cryptic definition: reincarcerate = de-liberate; i.e. again deprive of liberty |
| 3 | ARTEFACT | Definition: “it’s a designer thing”, i.e. a crafted object; |
| 4 | LIMB | Hidden (“needs to hold”) in “tree-cLIMBer”; & lit. |
| 5 | RAT RACE | RA (=of an artist, used attributively) + TRACE (=mark) |
| 6 | GAZEBO | GAZE (=long look) + B (=book) + O’ (=of, i.e. abbreviation in poetry) |
| 7 | CARGO | CAR (=vehicle) + GO (=make a move) |
| 8 | SMOKER | MOKE (=donkey) in SR (=Spaniard, i.e. abbreviation of Señor) |
| 12 | COAT OF MAIL | Cryptic definition relying on two meanings of MAIL: “post”, letters AND chain “mail”, armour. |
| 14 | CLEMATIS | C (=about, i.e. circa) + L (=fifty, in Roman numerals) + EMAT (TAME=not wild, of animal; “about” indicates reversal) + IS (=Iceland, in IVR) |
| 15 | OCEANS | *(C (=sound of sea, i.e. homophone) + ON SEA); “churning” is anagram indicator. |
| 16 | SOLUBLE | S<peakers> (“first of” means first letter only) + <v>OLUBLE (=loquacious”; “not Very” means the letter “v” is dropped) |
| 17 | GARNISH | N<osh> (“bit of” means first letter only) in GARISH (=colourful, over the top); & lit. |
| 18 | DEACON | CO (=company) in DEAN (=church official); the definition is “another one”, i.e. another church official. |
| 21 | AWARD | A (=academy) + WARD (=hospital unit) |
| 23 | RARE | Double definition: RARE is “bloody”, uncooked (of steak) AND “unusual”, uncommon |
3 Reversal of CAFE TRAT(toria) with the head (now a T) moved to tthe bottom.
I think the Bar is just from Gold Bars that banks take as collateral, Dialrib @1 has the same idea as me for artefact. Didn’t help myself by not fully reading 6d and entering gander=garden*.
13a is quite nice, took me ages to get it but my first reacrion was that MY was the definition.
Thanks RR and Crosophile.
Thanks for the blog, RatkojaRiku.
“I have not yet fully fathomed how this setter’s mind works.”
Don’t worry; nor have I!
Dialrib and Flashling are right about ARTEFACT.
re 11, collateral = ‘side by side’ so is merely misleading padding to help the surface reading. So
City bank’s collateral with church before dodgy loan =
……. BAR ………….+……………. CE ……..+……. LOAN*
Thank you, RatkojaRiku.
Got ARTEFACT without the slightest reason why; still don’t understand where the BAR in BARCELONA is coming from ; and wasn’t mad keen on CARDINALS.
But overall this was a really enjoyable puzzle. DELIBERATE was cleverly thought out, and IBSEN too. Plenty of variety in the clueing which kept me engaged, although I noticed that there were no full anagrams, which is a bit unusual, I guess.
Good stuff from Crosophile today, thank you.
Thanks RatkojaRiku and Crosophile.
This was the easiest of the Big 3 today (still struggling with Araucaria). Favourites were 25A SOLAR WIND (my scientific inclination), 16A SOLUBLE and 11A BARCELONA. Hi K’sD@4 BAR = “bank”, as in “sandbank” = “sandbar”, ie. a raised ridge of material.
Thanks, scchua, that makes sense of course.
Thanks, Crosophile and scchua, for the explanation of “bar” in 11.
Thanks, dialrib and flashling, for unpicking 3 for me: I have never come across the abbreviated form of trattoria, so I would never have correctly parsed this clue unaided.
Thanks RatkojaRiku for the blog, and to Crosophile for an entertaining, if tough, puzzle. I came back to this at times over the course of the day and managed to complete it without cheating, and without understanding some of the answers; I struggled with ARTEFACT, BARCELONA and AQUARIA as I missed QUA for “in capacity of” and got myself fixed on measures of volume for a while.
My favourite was FANCY THAT, and because I convinced myself it was heading for a pangram I tried valiantly (and stupidly!) to make TAX fit for LEVY in 20ac. Duh……
Got off to a very good start with this one and then hit the buffers, including AQUARIA, which I failed on too, but overall a very enjoyable puzzle. Thanks Crosophile and RR. Liked 4d as well as others already mentioned.
One tiny peeve – what’s a colon doing after the question mark in 16d? I thought it had to be part of the wordplay at first as it’s completely wrong as punctuation.
Didn’t enjoy this one. Not really happy with clues for 3 or 4 down (when has a trattoria ever been a trat?). Also not heard of qua and not sure where the ‘at’ fits in for 7a. Oh well just not my thng I suppose.