Beelzebub 1,193

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This was a particularly challenging week, I found. In fact it’s rare that I’m completely beaten by a clue even as I blog the puzzle, but two have come along at once. At 29ac and 6dn I’ve reproduced the clue and the checking letters.

In both cases, I can see how the clues seem to work, but just can’t find any likely candidates in Chambers, so all help welcome.

*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, cd=cryptic definition, dd=double definition.

Across
1 SENSE – (N + S) in SEES. North and South are partners in the game of bridge.
6 APSES – S in APES.
10 PILGARLICK – (RAG + LIP)< + LICK.
11 RETRIAL – I in RETRAL.
13 ANDROCENTRIC – (INCORRECT AND)*.
14 ETHE – ET + HE.
16 KOREA – K + O’ + [a]REA.
17 CHEVERIL – EVER in CHIL[d], and I think &lit.
20 LACROSSE – L + ([c]ROSS in ACE).
21 USURY – U.S. + [j]URY.
23 MEEK – MEE[t] + [fol]K.
25 DIDELPHYIDAE – (YIELDED APHID)*.
27 OIL SAND – (IN LOADS)*.
28 CONCINNITY – CON + (INN in CITY)
29 A?GER – Monkey runs from park officer once.
30 LESSEE – LESS EE, as in the word “beer” less the “ee” would be emptied out.
Down
1 SCRAE – SCRA[p]E.
2 EPENTHESIS – S in (E + PEN + THE + IS).
3 SIR-REVERENCE – (NEVER* + C) in SIRREE. An interesting word, new to me of course. It comes from a contraction of “save-reverence”, prepended to statements much as we might say “Don’t take this the wrong way, but…”
4 ELIOT – E + (0 in LIT) One hardly need add that the poet is T.S. Eliot.
5 MALEVICH – LEVI Strauss in Ernst MACH.
6 AR?N – A flow of water!.
7 PLUTONOMISTS – PLUTO + NO + MISTS. Another interesting word, this time for its newness: this seems to have been coined by financial boffins in 2005 and added to the OED in 2006.
8 SIERRAS – S + I ERR + AS.
9 SKYCAR SKYCAP – SK + PACY<. The definition here is “US porter”, which I don’t quite follow, and while the entry isn’t in Chambers, I can only assume we’re dealing with one of these things. I rather hope we are, as they look pretty spiffing. It appears I was wrong, and thanks to Beelzebub in the comments for clarification.
12 BIENSEANCE – (A + N + C) in (BIEN + SEE).
15 CRAMPONS – CRAM + PONS.
18 EXUDING – EX[cl]UDING.
19 JUDICA – (D in JUIC[e]) + A.
22 KYLIE – I in KYLE. Nothing to do with Ms. Minogue, rather this is an Australian term for a boomerang.
24 KEDGE – K + EDGE.
26 LAIR – [f]LAIR.

7 comments on “Beelzebub 1,193”

  3. Oh, and I think I’ve got 29a too. ANGER is given in Chambers as a slang meaning for “monkey” and is formed by removing R from RANGER, a park officer.

  4. I guessed those two – correctly, it would appear – from the wordplay. I’d never heard of the River Arun, but I see I could have just googled it. ANGER meaning monkey I could sort of see, but the second week in a row, if I’d just looked up the word from the clue I would have got it.

  5. 9d – spiffing they are, but the answer is more mundane: SKYCAP (in ODE not C)

    6d – I thought this common enough – clearly the Arun must flow through a valley (or dell) some of the time, and if I’d given you Arundel, you’d not have blinked. (On my only visit to Arundel, I popped into a second-hand bookshop and emerged with a collection of Australian crosswords – how did they get there?)

  6. SKYCAP – didn’t notice that in the blog. You only check the parsing you’re not sure of, and I’ve flown from enough US airports to be familiar with the term.

    A US railway porter is called a redcap and I assume that’s where the term comes from.

  7. Thanks, everyone. ARUN was top of my list of candidates, but I’d completely overlooked that it might be a proper noun, hence being befuddled by its absence from Chambers.

    On the plus side, I think that’s a record number of comments for a Beelzebub post on my watch.

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