After drawing a long run of Sunday Hypnos puzzles, I thought I must have got my calendar in a twist when I opened the paper to find a puzzle from our old friend Raich.
I’ve typically found Raich’s puzzles to be at the more solvable end of the spectrum, but must admit to finding this one something of a challenge, taking two sittings to almost complete, with two clues remaining unsolved until the answers were available online.
At 22ac I was successfully fooled by Raich’s misdirection, and while I grasped the parsing of 18dn, I simply didn’t know enough words to solve it.
Never mind, this was a very enjoyable puzzle all the same, with some very smooth surface readings, and a handful nice long charade clues, which I find are always fun to work through.
| Across | ||
| 1 | MILL | Philosopher‘s workplace (4) |
| double definition, with the philosopher in question being John Stuart Mill | ||
| 3 | SPECIMEN | Rodents back in enclosure after start of summer – it’s typical! (8) |
| S[ummer] + (MICE< in PEN) | ||
| 8 | SCRUPLE | Doctor cures extremely personal moral doubt (7) |
| (CURES + P[ersona]L)* | ||
| 9 | ENSUITE | Make certain exactly what’s needed is installed for rector as adjoining facility (2,5) |
| from ENSURE, but with IT in place of R | ||
| 11 | INEXACT | Lacking company, icon’s previously assumed attitude is out (7) |
| I[co]N + EX + ACT | ||
| 12 | GO DUTCH | Adored one aggressively masculine woman not born to share? (2,5) |
| GOD + [b]UTCH | ||
| 13 | REAPPEARANCE | Second Coming – gain reward, fruit, associated with one Church? (12) |
| REAP + PEAR + AN + CE | ||
| 17 | REASSURANCES | Trained nurses care as they restore confidence (12) |
| (NURSES CARE AS)* | ||
| 20 | PERSONA | Character of a descendant at end of drama (7) |
| PER + SON + [dram]A | ||
| 21 | MOLIERE | French writer‘s position embraced by English statesman (7) |
| LIE in Sir Thomas MORE | ||
| 22 | SHAWNEE | North American playwright’s indication of name change (7) |
| George Bernard SHAW + NÉE. I failed to parse “North American” and “playwright” as separate units here, which I suspect was exactly Raich’s intention! | ||
| 23 | SUNRISE | Rue sins – unfortunately a daily event (7) |
| (RUE SINS)* | ||
| 24 | SECRETLY | Unusually ready to use outsiders only, select privately (8) |
| (R[ead]Y + SELECT)* | ||
| 25 | FLAT | Lacking interest like some races (4) |
| double definition | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | MASHIE | Academics welcome English in old club (6) |
| MAS + HI + E. An old golf club, nowadays seemingly more popular with crossword setters than with golfers | ||
| 2 | LARDER | Somewhat popular Derby store (6) |
| hidden in [popu]LAR DER[by] | ||
| 3 | SHEET | One of pair tucked in in film (female on top)? (5) |
| SHE + ET | ||
| 4 | EVERGREEN | Like 2, accepting work for scientists about shrub (9) |
| (ERG + RE) in EVEN | ||
| 5 | INSIDER DEALING | Spin on road overlooking part of London after pub reportedly leads to crime (7,7) |
| homophone of “inn” + SIDE (as in cricket spin) + RD + EALING | ||
| 6 | EXISTENT | Living area is secured (8) |
| IS in EXTENT | ||
| 7 | SPEAKERS’ CORNER | Son’s career perk unexpectedly subject to comment here? (8,6) |
| (SONS CAREER PERK)* | ||
| 10 | ECHOES | Foot in mire, Charlie works at soil bringing repercussions (6) |
| [mir]E + C + HOES | ||
| 14 | PERMANENT | Quietly, with little sign of hesitation, staff part of hospital full-time (9) |
| P + ER + MAN + ENT | ||
| 15 | GRAPHS | Heard about tennis stars charts (6) |
| homophone of (Steffi) “Graf’s” | ||
| 16 | MARRIAGE | Grim area transformed by Union (8) |
| (GRIM AREA)* | ||
| 18 | VENIAL | Mercenary one nursed easily forgiven (6) |
| I in VENAL | ||
| 19 | DECENT | Adequately covered month in French department finally (6) |
| DEC + EN + [departmen]T | ||
| 21 | MESSY | Needing order? Yes, sergeant-major! (5) |
| (YES + SM)* | ||
* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; underlined = definition
I found this relatively straightforward for a Raich puzzle. At 22ac I wasn’t fooled by the “North American playwright” possibility and I knew the tribe, so SHAWNEE went in quickly.
MESSY was my LOI and I’m not sure how one would categorise this clue. “Needing order?” is the definition and “order” is the anagrind, but I wouldn’t classify the clue as an &lit. If Rowly wasn’t away at an ashram somewhere he might be able to tell us.
Like simon harris I also found this a little more taxing than usual from Raich.
Nice touch in 3D that Rider Haggard’s novel “She” was also filmed (1935, 1965). Can’t be too many five-letter words that contain two film titles.
Thanks to Raich and simon harris.
Two “f”s in Steffi (Graf).
Yes, I found this tough, too. I think I got less than half done on Sunday night and looked at it again later in the week and struggled and left most of the bottom right corner blank.
Thanks for the explanations, Simon, but is “16dn” a typo in your introduction? I thought that was straight-forward. 18dn, on the other hand…
Well spotted, DM. I did indeed mean 18dn. Apologies also to Ms. Graf. Both typos have been corrected now.
Thank you, Simon.
Must have been in the zone with this one, because it fell out reasonably quickly.
VENIAL was a write-in if you had a Catholic upbringing. Mortal sins on the other hand …
Thanks to Raich too for an enjoyable puzzle.
Many thanks for the excellent blog, Simon, and to all for their comments. Yes, other feedback also suggested this puzzle was a little on the tricky side. This was not intentional – it just seems to have worked out that way. Re inclusion of VENIAL, it is in all the dicts so I hope 1t will be regarded as pardonable…