We always look forward to solving and blogging an Anax, so it was with great anticipation that we sat down to tackle this one.
Unfortunately, however, we felt it didn’t quite live up to expectations for a Prize puzzle. We still enjoyed it, and there was some inventive clueing, but it just didn’t seem to be as good a challenge as we were hoping. It was good to see the venue for one of Nimrod’s birthday celebrations (and Bert’s university city) feature at 17ac, and we liked the crafty misdirections in the definitions in 3ac, 11ac, 4d and 16d. We’re still a bit puzzled by the construction of the clue for 9d – does anyone out there have an explanation?
| Across | ||
| 1 | Desolate place for swing? | |
| GOBI | A play on ‘GO BI’ (swing) | |
| 3 | Seeing help given freely, accept less | |
| SPECTACLES | An anagram of ACCEPT LESS – anagrind is ‘given freely’ | |
| 10 | Essentially simple idea that Rome ripped into everyone | |
| A LA MAITRE D’HOTEL | An anagram of IDEA THAT ROME (anagrind is ‘ripped’) in ALL (everyone) – we’d not come across this phrase before, and we needed all the checking letters – the apostrophe fooled us for quite some while! | |
| 11 | Study where Minotaur was a setter? | |
| CONCRETE | CON (study) + CRETE (where the Minotaur was) | |
| 12 | A Russian river, one to the east of a lake | |
| ALEXEI | EXE (river) + I (one) after, or ‘to the east of’ A L (lake) | |
| 14 | Left room, returning for long speech? | |
| DRAWL | L (left) WARD (room) reversed or ‘returning’ | |
| 15 | Pass round back overly conventional | |
| POOTERISH | PERISH (pass) round TOO (overly) reversed or ‘back’ | |
| 17 | City guard about to swear | |
| SHEFFIELD | SHIELD (guard) around EFF (swear, as in ‘eff and blind’) | |
| 18 | Taken from back, a single snapped bone | |
| TIBIA | A + I (single) + BIT (snapped) all reversed, or ‘taken from back’ | |
| 20 | A toll on telephone call | |
| APPEAL | Sound like (‘on telephone’) A PEAL (toll, as of bells) | |
| 22 | Upright runner may have no fat on him | |
| BEANPOLE | Double definition – a) an upright for a runner bean to climb and b) a tall thin person | |
| 24 | Stays cross, so laughter is silly | |
| HOURGLASS CORSET | An anagram of CROSS SO LAUGHTER – anagrind is ‘silly’ | |
| 25 | Writes ‘laxative’ after doctor’s surgery | |
| DROPS A LINE | SALINE (laxative) after DR (doctor) OP (surgery) | |
| 26 | Monarchy, half of it corrupt | |
| OMAN | Cryptic definition – An anagram of MONA (half of ‘monarchy’) – anagrind is ‘corrupt’. We weren’t at all sure that Oman was a monarchy, but apparently the Sultan can be described as a monarch. | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | Outside church, organ, barely touched | |
| GLANCED | CE (church) with GLAND (organ) outside | |
| 2 | Good idea, in endless conflict, to face shelters | |
| BRAINWAVE | IN WA |
|
| 4 | Jacket material in pocket and on slipper? | |
| POTATO PEEL | POT (pocket, as in snooker) + ATOP (on) + EEL (‘slipper’) | |
| 5 | Band was far from modest | |
| CREW | Double definition – a) a band of people b) past tense of ‘crow’ – to boast | |
| 6 | Part of leg crook found in a box, attached after death | |
| ACHILLES TENDON | ILL (crook) in A CHEST (box) + ON (attached) after END (death) | |
| 7 | Rubbery stuff of recent times | |
| LATEX | LATE (recent) + X (times, as in ‘multiply by’) | |
| 8 | Mean troublemaker is sitting in silence….. | |
| SELFISH | ELF (troublemaker) IS ‘sitting’ in SH (silence) | |
| 9 | …..but you might hear a scream? | |
| BARREL OF LAUGHS | We needed the checking letters to convince ourselves that this must be right – the clue seems rather vague – a BARREL OF LAUGHS can be a ‘scream’, but why the connection to the previous clue? We must be missing something! | |
| 13 | Rabbit eating rubbish adores solid ground | |
| GOOD REASON | GO ON (rabbit, as in ‘talk a lot’) around or ‘eating’ an anagram of ADORES (anagrind is ‘rubbish’) | |
| 16 | Man pens note before passing out | |
| IN BLOSSOM | IOM (Isle of Man) around or ‘penning’ NB (note) LOSS (passing) | |
| 17 | Bombed? Slough will welcome missile going over | |
| SMASHED | SHED (slough) round or ‘welcoming’ SAM (surface-to-air missile) reversed or ‘going over’ | |
| 19 | Prayers function in ancient language | |
| AVESTAN | AVES (prayers) + TAN (function – tangent) | |
| 21 | Remote orbiter’s power line knocked out | |
| PLUTO | P (power) + L (line) + an anagram of OUT (anagrind is ‘knocked’) | |
| 23 | Erection? Wife wants the lot | |
| WALL | W (wife) + ALL (the lot) | |
Surprising “easy” for an Anax, but 9d did leave me head scratching for a reason why and hoping this week’s blogger might have seen more, oh well. 23d was straight out of the Paul school of setting…
Thanks Anax and B&J
Sorry B&J, I can’t help you with the parsing of 9dn either. I’d entered what turned out to be the correct answer with fingers crossed.
Although I finished this puzzle without resort to aids in a reasonable time it didn’t feel easy while I was solving it. I needed all but one of the checkers before I was confident enough to enter A LA MAITRE D’HOTEL from the wordplay, and HOURGLASS CORSET only came to mind when I remembered “hourglass figure”. I had the most trouble in the SE, and OMAN was my LOI after AVESTAN.
Although there was much to enjoy here, as always with Anax, I was uneasy about both GOBI – a homophone is one thing, a visual play on words quite another, in my book (in the end I plumped for GYBE despite being unable to connect it with ‘desolate place’) – and the definition of AVES on its own as prayers, ‘ave’ being simply a Latin salutation.
I loved 10 across: it took me a long time to crack, during which I grew less and less convinced that I had the right anagram fodder, but I was delighted to find that I had.
Thanks, B and J, for the blog, and Anax for another enjoyable puzzle.
Unless we’re all missing something very clever, 9dn does seem to be a bit weak – especially for Anax. The rest of the clues are excellent, as usual.
I liked the reference in 17dn to Betjeman’s ‘Slough’ [‘Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough …’]
Many thanks for a great blog, B&J. 9d is a slightly odd one but I hesitate to give the game away too soon (I’m out gigging from about 2:30 and will probably be too tired to respond again later). For those who want to unravel it independently, PLEASE DON’T READ THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH!
The clue started life as “The butt of many jokes?” and it was OK, but there are some clues which end up in my ‘tweak if something else comes to mind’ list – in this case the repeated ‘of’ in clue and answer grated ever so slightly, so it joined the list. As far as I can remember I’ve never ever ever ever used a reversed homophone, ie the homophone is for a word in the clue, but it’s been done by others so I went for it. The synonymous barrel/butt has been groanfully exploited by the first word in the clue. Since we’re always told we can never start a sentence with a preposition (and in this case it would have read very unnaturally anyway) the ellipsis was a red herring to allow a smoother flow from the preceding clue.
Duh! I’ve belatedly got the ‘swing’ reference in 1 across: I read it as ‘go by’, as in to swing by someone’s place. No wonder this puzzle seemed a bit short on Anaxian suggestiveness…
9d …but sounds like butt and a butt that you could hear could be… No connection with the previous clue I think.
I think this is only the fifth or sixth Anax puzzle I have solved and I thought it was superb. I’m surprised to read comments describing it as on the easy side – particularly from solvers who can’t see the but=butt=barrel=scream=laughs parsing. The Betjeman allusion, Minotaur/Crete, jacket/potato and the general plausibility and smoothness of the surfaces made for a well-constructed, varied puzzle.
Perhaps the grid is a bit solver-friendly and the puzzle lacks obscurity (one of its strengths, in my view), and of course perhaps Anax addicts have largely started to read his handwriting.
I shall certainly try and dig up a few more if this is anything to go by.
Happy Easter all