Back after a week away for a firework competition in Plymouth, this is a personal milestone of my 100th blog.
Not eXternal at his hardest I thought, but need a little help on 22a.
| Across | ||
| 1 | LEPER | Small change in look undesirable (5) |
| P(ence) in LEER | ||
| 4 | AIRWORTHY | Ready to fly toy starting with a whirr (9) |
| [TOY A WHIRR]* “starting” | ||
| 9 | FORAGER | Pro nurses storm one gathering (7) |
| RAGE nursed by FOR | ||
| 10 | EASTERN | Oriental festival’s name (7) |
| EASTER & N(ame) | ||
| 11 | SMOKE AND MIRRORS | Trick played on masked apes (5,3,7) |
| [ON MASKED]* “played” & MIRRORS (apes) | ||
| 12 | VOICE BOX | Source of sound coming from very old freezer (5,3) |
| V(ery) O(ld) & ICE BOX | ||
| 14 | GASKET | Take over request for engineering part (6) |
| ASK in GET | ||
| 17 | RUINED | One overturning animal’s home after game’s shot (6) |
| R(ugby) U(nion) & 1 & DEN rev | ||
| 18 | HAWTHORN | Hotel throw a wobbly with new fruit supplier (8) |
| H(otel) & [THROW A]* “wobbly” & New | ||
| 20 | WHATCHAMACALLIT | Greeting Davina, some might say it’s unmemorable thing (15) |
| WHATCHA & hom of (davina) McCall & IT | ||
| 22 | REISSUE | Again, send out note prior to me fetching kids (7) |
| I can’t really get this to work, seems to be RE (note) & ISSUE (kids) but there’s other stuff too I just don’t get. | ||
| 23 | CHUNDER | Heave grouse, having died over time (7) |
| D instead of T in CHUNTER | ||
| 24 | TONED DOWN | Modest community nets a large cup (5,4) |
| ONE & DD (large cup) in TOWN | ||
| 25 | TWEED | Daughter after precious material (5) |
| TWEE & D(aughter) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | LIFESAVER | Crucial helper flies around state (9) |
| FLIES* & AVER | ||
| 2 | PERSONIFICATION | Start of avarice in human, one story’s representation (15) |
| PERSON & 1 & A(varice) in FICTION | ||
| 3 | ROGUE | Stray shoe missing upper (5) |
| (b)ROGUE | ||
| 4 | AT RANDOM | Casually, drunk don gets into a people-carrier (2,6) |
| DON* in A TRAM | ||
| 5 | RHEUMY | European overwhelmed by noise in railway with congestion (6) |
| (E in HUM) in R(ailwa)Y, eXternal must travel on the same trains as me. | ||
| 6 | OBSERVANT | Old boy requiring help to be aware of surroundings (9) |
| Old Boy & SERVANT | ||
| 7 | TREE OF KNOWLEDGE | Eden folk were got badly by this (4,2,9) |
| [EDEN FOLK WERE GOT]* “badly”. Very nice clue. | ||
| 8 | YONKS | An age is number to get blue about in retrospect (5) |
| NO (number) in SKY all reversed | ||
| 13 | EXERCISED | Worked out decree is wrong, getting cross inwardly (9) |
| X in [DECREE IS]* “wrong” | ||
| 15 | TINCTURED | Stained metal better cut with tool’s head (9) |
| TIN & T(ool) in CURED | ||
| 16 | JAMAICAN | Fix top on vessel for islander (8) |
| JAM (fix) & A1 (top) & CAN (vessel) | ||
| 19 | GAZEBO | Structure outdoors life around navigational aid with live upgrade (6) |
| A-Z (map) & BE (live) rev all in GO (life) | ||
| 20 | WORST | Beat two jockeys over races, expert overlooked (5) |
| TWO* “jockeys” around R(ace)S | ||
| 21 | ADULT | Mature broad ultimately content (5) |
| Hidden answer | ||
22a RE is note prior to me in musical scale – Doh, re, me, etc.
Thank you, flashling, for blogging and congrats on the ton. You may raise your bat modestly to the rest of the team on the balcony, and to the crowd. But two blogs in one day – that’ll learn you to take on stuff in Another Place.
Pleasing puzzle, in which I enjoyed TREE OF KNOWLEDGE particularly, and SMOKE AND MIRRORS once you’d explained it.
I’m going into elderly judge mode here: who is Davina Macall? Yes, I know I could google it …
Bravo, eXternal.
Thanks eXternal and flashling – Congratulations on your 100th blog, and on doing 2 blogs that I know of today.
New for me was English TV presenter Davina McCall (for 20a), and ‘chunter’ (23a).
I could not parse 19 (is that the “London A-Z” map?).
I liked 7d, 25a, 8d, 4d, 11a and my favourite was 13d EXERCISED.
I parsed 22a same as Gazza@1.
Thanks for the explanation of 22a, only 2 blogs today and believe me that was tough enough, rather glad it wasn’t Enigmatist in the other place…
Hi Michelle. I’ve always had CHUNDER down as an Australian term. Allegedly from ‘WATCH UNDER’ as those sent to the colonies threw up from the top decks. But CHUNTER is a definite Britishism.
Congrats on the 100 blogs.
CHUNDER always reminds me of the Barry McKenzie films from many years ago. TONED DOWN was my LOI from the definition, so thanks for the parsing. This was another pleasant Monday puzzle from the Indy.
Thanks eXternal for an enjoyable puzzle and flashling for the blog. Lots of very smooth surfaces. I think I will plump for 18ac as my favourite.
4ac: I raised an eyebrow at this one, but Chambers 2008 gives us “start vt to spring open, out of place, or loose”, which works for me as an anagram lead.
22ac: Nice idea, but I cannot quite make it work. The problem is that me is the anglicised spelling of mi, so the note prior to me is ray (the anglicised form of re). As always, I have no quarrel with those who are less bothered than I am by such details, and I will be delighted if someone can dissolve the problem by pointing me to a recognised system that uses re and me in the same version of the scale.
7dn: I think you need the whole clue for the definition. To me, the whole of “badly by this” can be taken as the anagram indication, which makes it a complete “& lit” clue.
@Pelham about 7d: Describing something as &lit causes more aggro than it’s worth sometimes but I agree with you. 🙂
Hi KsDad@5
I only know the word “chunder” from a song by ‘Men at Work’:
“I come from a land down under
Where beer does flow and men chunder
Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.”
[full lyrics @ http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Land-Down-Under-lyrics-Men-at-Work/3DD99B09485EE01D48256E00000F7300%5D
But I did learn the word “chunter” today.
PelhamBarton@7
Re 22a – I think we can use our imaginations a bit to make clues like this work. I will not be searching the internet to prove the point. I just think that we can be a bit more flexible when it comes to cryptic crossword clues/answers, eg today I had to accept that A-Z = “map/navigational tool”. Stretch the mind a bit ……
Thanks, eXternal – I haven’t enjoyed a Monday so much in years, though it was quite hard going. Particularly loved WHATCHAMACALLIT
An excellent puzzle and blog. I had the same problem with “me” in 22a which made me uneasy given the accuracy of everything else but it couldn’t be anything else, I thought, so in it went.
Thanks, both. Whatchamacallit was a lovely one, wasn’t it?
Thanks to eXternal and flashling for a good blog.
I don’t think we need to get too picky about me/mi. Chambers gives the former as an anglicised spelling of mi.
Yes, WHATCHAMACALLIT was great, and I particularly enjoyed YONKS and TREE OF KNOWLEDGE.
Apologies PB @7, although you can find all sorts of spellings on the InterWeb e.g. this one.
Quite a challenge but I got there in the end; once again I needed the blog for some of the parsings. WHATCHAMACALLIT needed most of the crossing letters but then it was a facepalm moment when I got it. It’s not in Collins and not spelt like that in Chambers (or at least in the editions I have).
Thanks, eXternal and flashling.
allan_c @15; it is spelt as in the answer in Collins.
As spelt or is it spelled or that what whiches do? 🙂 Alas a luxury of a dictionary is something I don’t have on the train or the office computer. Getting two blogs off before my my 9.30 start was quite a feat as it was. This eXternal blog took three times longer to blog. Better than typing cryptic/double def for every clue though. Thanks eX.
Thanks flashling & eXternal for another fine puzzle.
This setter is surely one of the better newcomers (in my opinion).
20ac was indeed very nice but isn’t it a full homophone?
Of ‘wotcha’ (or ‘wotcher’) + Mrs McCall?
Quite right Sil. WHATCHA is not a greeting.
I can find ‘what-you-might-call-it’ and similar things in my dictionaries, but I’m stuffed for a spelling as used by eXternal. Anyone know where it is?
I enjoyed this puzzle, by the way, especially the Eden clue.
I’m relaxed about the spelling of WHATCHAMACALLIT, since it’s pretty much a made up word and I’m not going to get exercised about it not being in one dictionary or another.
But Paul B (as he often is) is on the money: if I had to, I’d always spell it WOTCHER. And I’m not sure where exactly it comes from, but in my native North-East ‘What cheer, bonny lad?’ can be heard, so I’d put my money on that being the derivation.
Welcome from flashling towers after work today, I won’t go into flowery twats anagrams, well ok I’m home. OK I meant to say the whatcha bit was meant to heard as wotcha but even then the spelling is dubious but everyone seems to have got it.
Thanks Robi @14 for the link, although, as I think you are hinting, it is not the most authoritative of sources. michelle (and possibly others), I have already said that I have no quarrel with anyone who is happy to make the stretch across different spelling systems. I respect your right to be completely happy with the clue. Please respect my right to find it slightly unsatisfactory.
On the other hand, there appears to be no stretching at all necessary in 19dn: A-Z is a very well known brand of street maps and atlases for many parts of the UK. Further, their logo omits the hyphen, so there is not even any need to resort to conventions about ignoring punctuation.
20ac: I put this in as WATCHAMOCALLIT, because I had MAJORCAN at 16dn. This requires MAJOR to be clued as “top”. The best I can find in Chambers 2011 is major a kind of wig (obs). I am not going to claim this as a valid alternative answer.
Robi @16 – thanks for that; I only looked in my 2006 dead tree edition of Collins.
K’sD @21 – the aforesaid Collins gives the derivation you suggest for ‘Wotcher’, and indicates it as Cockney in origin.
Soft southerners, Allan; always claiming the credit for everything …
Congrats, flashling on the ton.
The WHATCHAMACALLIT came up in Crossword Compiler and I took the same view as K’s D, it is more used in speech than written down. It’s not as if it has some Latin root, so I didn’t bother too much about looking it up. There must be so many variations. Under thingamy Chambers gives about ten alternatives encompassing thingummybob and thingamyjig. It was just a fun clue for a fun word. Perhaps a homophone clue wasn’t the best treatment for it, as it didn’t nail the exact letter combo.
I am more concerned with the note thingummy that PB brought up. I think he is right, it was a little imprecise.
Pleased with the comments overall and glad the TREE clue hit the mark, it’s one of those serendipitous moments for a setter when we see that.
Hope to see some of you at the old geezer’s bash
‘What cheer’ definitely becomes WOTCHER. Collins seems to think it’s Cockney.
We checked the spelling for 20ac in Chambers Thesaurus and were amazed that it wasn’t in the dictionary.
Thanks for parsing 22ac.
An enjoyable start to the week so thanks to eXternal. Congrats to flashling – what a way to celebrate with two blogs on one day!
All fine with REISSUE now after it stumped me at first. Except for one thing that nobody has mentioned and which perhaps is perfectly obvious: what is ‘fetching’ doing? Is it just a juxtaposition indicator? If so, it seems a bit odd.
Thanks flashling & eXternal. I’ll forgive the latter for 10a (so overused) because of clues like 7d. I also liked 24a, which brought a smile to my face (and a certain image to my mind). 🙂 Happy to see something different for WORST (vs. some variation of “Most awful defeat”).
Wil @29: I just came across one definition of fetch as “to utter (a sigh, groan, etc.).” So perhaps “fetching” actually serves as a homophone indicator (“me” sounds like “mi”). This would resolve the concerns raised by PB @7.
New to this Yank were YONKS, Davina McCall, AZ Maps, and chunter (but not CHUNDER, which, like michelle @9, I know from the Men at Work song).