Very entertaining and a good level of difficulty, neither too easy nor too hard, just right.
There are lots of numbers in the clues and a nice mix, some were references to other clues and some were to be taken literally. There were also an unusual number of Ws turning up in the answers which for a while had me looking for some sort of a theme or Nina which in the end did not materialise. Thank you Io.
| Across | ||
| 1, 29 | DAMNING WITH FAINT PRAISE | Saying that you’ve seen worse might be, if grant-maintained whips get organised (7,4,5,6) |
| (IF GRANT MAINTAINED WHIPS)* organised=anagram | ||
| 7 | IFS | Conditions female to disrupt lives (3) |
| F (female) inside (disrupting) IS (lives, exists) | ||
| 9 | MADAM | Mother twice a formidable woman (5) |
| MA and DAM (two mothers) | ||
| 10 | ESCAPE KEY | One depressed on board, looking for a way out (6,3) |
| double/cryptic definition – a key on a computer keyboard | ||
| 11 | DOOLITTLE | Hugh’s doctor conceals love for fower girl in bet (9) |
| Doctor DOLITTLE (hero of books by Hugh Lofting) contains (conceals) O (love, zero) – Eliza Doolittle, flower girl and subject of bet by Professor Higgins in Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw | ||
| 12 | See 23 | |
| 13, 15 | WINDSOR KNOT | As tied by Charles and Camilla? (7,4) |
| double definition – style of knot for necktie and Camilla Cushess of Cornwall is wife of Charles Windsor, Prince of Wales | ||
| 18, 20 | KERB CRAWLER | One who sneakily employs sex-drive? (4-7) |
| cryptic definition | ||
| 23, 12 | ARROW ROOTS | Director gets saga from Haley about his tree and plants (10) |
| ARROW (director, sign) and ROOTS, novel by American writer Alex Haley about his roots (his family tree) – a plant (pluralised). |
||
| 24 | SKINNY DIP | Bravely go in with no cover (6-3) |
| cryptic definition | ||
| 26 | MULTITASK | To perform several jobs I must talk rubbish (9) |
| (I MUST TALK)* rubbish=anagram. Easy to solve but a very nice clue, probably my favourite. | ||
| 27 | VIOLA | One that’s played a character in Twelfth Night (5) |
| double definition – musical instrument and character in play | ||
| 28 | NIX | Ulster Times makes nothing (3) |
| NI (Northern Island, Ulster) X (times, multiplication) – definition is ‘nothing’. I remeber from a previous blog someone complaining that NI=Ulster is offensive as ‘Ulster’ is politically a devisive term (for those caught up in NI politics). | ||
| 29 | See 1 | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | DUMB DOWN | Have to be under doctor in failure to make things simpler (4,4) |
| OWN (have) following (to be under) MB (doctor) all in DUD (failure) | ||
| 2 | MID-POINT | Half-way house, establishment making money – new i-pod in stock (3-5) |
| MINT (establishment making money) containing (in stock) I-POD* anagram=new | ||
| 3 | IAMBI | Feet the setter swings both ways? (5) |
| I (the setter) AM BI (swings both ways) – metrical feet | ||
| 4 | GREATER | More on, going through Gate no 18? (7) |
| RE (on, regarding) in (going through) GATE and R (18th letter of the alphabet) – definition is ‘more’ | ||
| 5 | IN CHECK | Attacked writer describing Cech as “woeful” (2,5) |
| INK (writer) containing (describing, going round) CECH* anagram=as woeful – definition is ‘attacked’ | ||
| 6 | HYPERBOLA | Section One pushes a shot up (9) |
| HPYER (one who hypes, pushes) A LOB (shot) reversed (up) – a conic section | ||
| 7 | INKPOT | Topper-up for old writer, having drunk pint OK (6) |
| (PINT OK)* anagram=drunk | ||
| 8 | SHYISH | A little introvert’s kebab’s taken apart by Yard (6) |
| SHISH (type of kebab) icontains (is taken apart by) Y (yard) | ||
| 14 | SKEW WHIFF | South London bridge, a little awry (4-5) |
| S (south) KEW (bridge in London) WHIFF (a little) – definition is ‘awry’ | ||
| 16 | GLADIOLI | Happy setter gets 51 fowers (8) |
| GLAD (happy) IO (setter) get LI (51, Roman numerals) | ||
| 17 | CRAP GAME | Following rout, goalie had this opportunity to gamble (4,4) |
| double/cryptic definition – a gambling game with dice | ||
| 19 | BASMATI | Bootless 21 is ordering rice (7) |
| anagram (ordering) of BATMAn (21, bootless=no last letter) and IS – a variety of rice | ||
| 20 | CRICKET | Jumper that’s seen here from April to September . . . . (7) |
| double/cryptic definition – jumping insect and cricket is typically played in the UK (here) from April to September | ||
| 21 | BATMAN | . . . . player number 4’s out to get the Saviour of Gotham (6) |
| BATsMAN (cricket player) missing 4th letter – ‘Saviour of Gotham’ seemd a bit too obvious to me, but maybe not to other people? | ||
| 22 | PROLIX | Using many words for “59”? (6) |
| PRO (for) LIX (59, Roman numerals again) | ||
| 25 | NEVER | You don’t say when parallel lines meet (5) |
| double definition, “well I never” and parallel lines never meet (in a Euclidean geometry) | ||
*anagram
Thanks for the blog, PeeDee. I think 23,12 is parsed ‘the saga from Haley about his tree’ = ROOTS with his tree meaning his family (tree). A nice puzzle from Io.
Thanks for that eXternal. Having said I would keep looking I promptly forgot all about it.
A splendid return of the Lesser-Spotted Io. Lots of ‘dots’ by clues I liked and a big smile on my face for the rest of the morning. What more can you ask of a cryptic crossword?!
A big thank you to Io for the treat and to PeeDee for the explanations.
Very neat puzzle in the FT. I liked the hard words like SKEW WHIFF and the long aangram.
Rowls.
Thanks for the blog, PeeDee.
As you say, not Mr H at his most fiendish but full of clever cluing and most enjoyable. Many thanks to him.
Great crossword, which so engrossed me I was late for a deadline. Wasn’t too keen on 5dn, though: Cech/Czech/Check … not as creative as the other clues.
Thanks PeeDee and Io. Apparently (from a quick search) it’s 4 months since the last Io puzzle. Well worth waiting for!
Certainly not the hob nailed one I was expecting, most unlike JH. Perhaps 1/29 was the expected reaction.
Thanks PD and JH 18 made me smile.
It was quite tough though. And TOUGH is THOUGH but for the second ‘hard’.
That’s going to be the basis for my clue for VIAGRA, at any rate.
Well, Paul B, quite tough? My love/hate relationship with Mr H’s puzzles wasn’t too much tempted today.
In my opinion, this was a rather friendly puzzle.
That said, there were a lot of clues to underpin my quote “he’s clever, isn’t he?”.
On the other hand, I wasn’t particularly keen on some of the cryptic definitions (18/20, 24).
I found 17d (CRAP GAME) a bit of an odd clue.
The solution cried out for a more explicit example.
One could include Chelsea after tonight’s defeat, perhaps.
Of course, IO couldn’t at that stage – I know.
Nice touch at 16d: “Happy setter gets 51 flowers”.
Just wait and see John – perhaps, someone turns up with 51 minus one next month. 🙂
Hi Sil, I don’t think Paul B really found this tough, he just wants to show off his tough/though/Viagra idea, which I rather like!
Sil, Re CRAP GAME and Chelsea, I thought this goalie clue went some way to explaining the (Peter) Cech clue at 5 down. My first thought, like hornbeam@6, was that CECH was a rather contrived anagram and why did Io choose it? Perhaps Io has more knowledge of the future than we give him credit for!
I enjoyed this and was glad to see 2 keepers show up in the clues. A quibble with 17d, though: I don’t see how a goalie’s “crap game” follows a rout. Rather (and I can speak from personal experience), a rout is what can result if a goalie has a crap game.
I’m a little late to this party, but I feel I have to respond to PeeDee’s comment about “Ulster” being a divisive term. Far from being divisive, it is a highly respected name for the ancient province of Ireland that consists of its nine most northern counties. It is the use of “Ulster” as being synonymous with Northern Ireland that is divisive and rankles Republicans and people of the three counties of Ulster (Donegal, Cavan, and Monaghan) that are not part of NI.
Putting aside the political considerations, and focusing on a cruciverbal technicality, I have to ask whether it is acceptable to use a term for the whole to imply a part, without using an indicator such as “e.g.” or “say” or “perhaps” that might indicate a subset or specific instance. Would Io, or any other setter, use the term “Great Britain” to imply “England”, or “Europe” to imply “GB”, without qualification?
keeper @13 – you are quite right one does not follow the other, pedantry of the highest order, keep it up!
declanor@13 – quite right, I should have written that equating Ulster with NI is divisive, not the term itself.