When I know I am going to blog a puzzle I try to make some notes as I solve it, roughing out the wordplay etc. So it might take a bit longer than usual. This time I even noted the time – so I can tell you it took just over a hour to finish and have the heart of the blog prepared.
I don’t know if that is fast or slow as I’ve never taken that much care before. It seemed to go swimmingly and I was only significantly stuck at one point with 5 left to do all in the bottom left quadrant. That was resolved when I realised I had put in 19A wrong – it looks embarrassing now but I had written in WAX-LEATHER using the supposed wordplay W[ife] A XL (a Large) LEATHER (skin) – I guess I was thinking of a waxed jacket. Trouble is these days when thinking about size “Large” I automatically choose XL (or even XXXL if truth be told).
I am getting used to Nestor’s style now, and am always happy when I see I have drawn a Nestor to blog – so Cheers!
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 4 | PORTRAIT | Left with artist, the object being someone’s picture (8) PORT (left) RA (artist) IT (the object) |
| 9 | BUYOUT | Change of ownership still retaining those being addressed (6) YOU (those being addressed) inside BUT (still) |
| 10 | EAST SUSSEX | Society in Texas uses rejigged county (4,6) S[ociety] inside (TEXAS USES)* AInd: rejigged. I liked this clue |
| 11 | VECTOR | Bully turning head to see flight path (6) HECTOR (bully) with 1st letter changed. A flight path is an example of a vector |
| 12 | DEMONIAC | Evil murderer returns after protest (8) DEMO CAIN< First answer entered |
| 13 | QUIETUS | Death dispatching son, who is in France with our side (7) QUI E[s]T (who is (in French) – S[on]) US (our side) |
| 16 | MISOGYNIST | Casually toying with miss, I’ll treat her unfairly (10) (TOYING + MISS)* AInd: Casually |
| 19 | ALL-WEATHER | Wife wearing a large skin, dressed to suit any conditions (3-7) W[ife] inside A L[arge] LEATHER (skin) My bug-bear clue |
| 21 | SAME-SEX | Cat wanting one kiss, like some marriages (4-3) S[i]AMESE X (kiss) |
| 24 | ASTERISK | Star threatened to tour south-east in two parts (8) AT RISK (threatened) around S and E separately (in two parts) |
| 25 | WOBURN | Location of an abbey without fire damage (6) WO (without) BURN (fire damage) |
| 26 | TABLE KNIFE | One cuts food margin setting rat back in shelter (5,5) TAB (margin) FINK< (rat back) inside LEE (shelter) |
| 27 | EULOGY | Reverse last of copy and paste, inserting old words of praise (6) [cop]Y O[ld] inside GLUE |
| 28 | ABERDEEN | River, Scottish one, separating a Scottish peak and a Scottish city (8) R[iver] DEE (Scottish river) inside A BEN (A Scottish peak) |
| Down | ||
| 1 | BUREAU | When tweeting, you are infiltrating boyfriend’s office (6) UR (you are, in shortform for tweet/text) inside BEAU (boyfriend) |
| 2 | JOSTLE | Push judge over heartless manner (6) J[udge] O[ver] ST[y]LE (heartless manner) |
| 3 | STERNUM | Problem swallowing bird’s bone (7) TERN (bird) inside SUM (problem) |
| 5 | ON THE ROPES | Stormont hero, pestered somewhat, facing defeat (2,3,5) Hidden in stormONT HERO PEStered |
| 6 | TAUTONYM | Gazella gazella is one possible signature for A. Minghella on letter from Greece (8) TONY M (Anthony Minghella’s (possible) signature) on TAU (letter from Greece) Gazella gazella, the Mountain Gazelle, isn’t really tautologous. For these scientific names the order counts, it is simply the archetypal gazelle of the gazelle family. This also extends to subspecies, so the primary of the two subspecies of the Western Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla), the Western Lowland Gorilla, is Gorilla gorilla gorilla |
| 7 | AUSPICIOUS | An American movie promises to pay hopeful (10) A US PIC (An American movie) IOUS (promises to pay) |
| 8 | TOXICITY | Team enters in an urban direction, damaging nature (8) XI (team – eleven) inside TO CITY (in an urban direction) |
| 14 | INFLATABLE | Blow-up of final working on cells of data (10) (FINAL)* AInd: working TABLE (cells of data) |
| 15 | SIXTH SENSE | In sexts he’s shown off uncanny ability (5,5) (IN SEXTS HE’S)* AInd: shown off |
| 17 | SAMANTHA | Woman was in position to trap chap with triumphant cry (8) MAN (chap) inside SAT (was in position) HA (Triumphant cry). Last to go in, and probably the second clue I read. |
| 18 | BEFRIEND | Get close to happen a day before completion (8) BE (happen) FRI (day) END (completion) |
| 20 | RAG WEEK | Stink about anthropogenic global warming when students seek funds (3,4) REEK (stink) about AGW (anthropogenic global warming) |
| 22 | EMBALM | Preserve business degree with wood framing (6) MBA (business degree) inside ELM (wood, framing) |
| 23 | ENRAGE | Incense smoke’s ending near antique (6) [smok]E NR (near) AGE (antique) |
You lot are lucky to get a blog out of me this week. My life has been taken over. By a silly little addictive computer game. I will call it 2^11 (in the same way this site might be called 225). Who can say why these things are so addictive – this one must have a mathematical limit but it doesn’t stop me trying to get near it.
An enjoyable puzzle that I screwed up by not reading the clue for 11ac properly, and it was only when I didn’t get the congratulatory message at the end that I realised the answer was VECTOR rather than “Hector”. The replacement indicator in the clue is clear enough so it was my fault and not ambiguous cluing. Of the answers I didn’t get wrong SAMANTHA was my LOI after TABLE KNIFE and ASTERISK.
Thanks Nestor and beermagnet
11ac: I did not get this one at all, but I agree with AndyB@1 that the clue is unambiguous. Presumably the “turning” represents a change from H(orizontal) to V(ertical).
Pelham Barton re 11ac: I assumed “v” from “see”, replacing the first letter (maybe “h” for “head”?)
Eric @3 re 11ac: Yes, that looks more likely.
Oh yes Eric @ #3 I like that “v” from “see” idea
Having failed to see the pangram last week, which I’m sure (?) would have got me the last two missing entries, I was convinced there was going to be one here again. It was only after about 15 minutes of puzzling over what word fitted _U_O_T at 9A and contained the missing Z that I finally considered it wasn’t a pangram – and almost instantly finished it off.