Well I never, I’ve actually finished an Anax puzzle!
It isn’t actually the first time, to be entirely honest, but it’s rare enough that it’s still a bit of a thrill. And this was a very enjoyable and of course challenging puzzle, much as one tends to expect from Anax.
It was also excellent company on the train to and from Essex last weekend. The puzzle kept me busy through both legs of the journey, with the final answer falling into place as we pulled into the dark of Liverpool Street. Almost as if Anax had designed it that way.
Very long answers can sometimes be a little controversial. Often the puzzle is painfully hard until you get them, then far too easy once you have, but that wasn’t the case here, at least for me. Both long ones teased themselves out steadily as solving progressed.
All in all a very pleasing solve, and so many thanks to Anax yet again.
| Across | ||
| 1 | DAR ES SALAAM | Graduate, a girl, sees return on venture capital once (3,2,6) |
| DARE + (MA + A LASS)<. Former capital of Tanzania, since replaced by Dodoba. | ||
| 7 | SOP | Lover’s concession (3) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 10 | LEG-PULL | Lack of noise surrounding European F1 race is a joke (3-4) |
| (E + GP) in LULL. | ||
| 11 | MOURINHO | The special one from our in-house hosts (8) |
| [fro]M OUR IN-HO[use]. José of that ilk, obviously. There’ll always be at least one complaint that football clues are too obscure, but nonsense: if you tolerate any form of contact with the outside world, you know of this guy. | ||
| 12 | DIVERS | Some birds (6) |
| Double definition. Think of “diverse”. | ||
| 14 | FRIENDLY MATCH | Wrong sort of fire lighter? It’s pointless! (8,5) |
| Hm, I’m not entirely sure here. Presumably a double definition, but I don’t really understand the “wrong sort” reference. Enlightenment welcome. | ||
| 17/4/9 | CLOSE YOUR EYES AND THINK OF ENGLAND | Don’t take it personally (5,4,4,3,5,2,7) |
| I guess just a cryptic definition, as there’s no wordplay there. I guess “it” refers to, er, hanky panky in this case. | ||
| 19 | OCULAR | Old and oddly cruel pair of eyes (6) |
| O + C[r]U[e]L [p]A[i]R. | ||
| 23 | TODDIES | Empty thermos filled with bird-watcher’s hot drinks (7) |
| Bill ODDIE in T[hermo]S. | ||
| 24 | ICED BUN | Bakery product cubed bananas in sandwiches (4,3) |
| CUBED* in IN. | ||
| 25 | CAR | Wheels roughly round to begin with (3) |
| CA + R[ound]. | ||
| 26 | NIEDERMEYER | Composer’s reminder about collecting organ (11) |
| EYE in REMINDER*. Despite the GCSE in Music, I hadn’t heard of Louis Niedermeyer, and so was pleased to solve this from wordplay. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | DREAMY | Mostly awful? Well, that’s fantastic (6) |
| DREA[d] + MY. | ||
| 3 | SWAMI | Teacher possibly stroked one (5) |
| SWAM + I. A Hindu religious teacher. | ||
| 5 | AXLE | Fire enveloping top of lift shaft (4) |
| L[ift] in AXE. | ||
| 6 | MAGGIE MAY | Number 1 hit – Hello, say – one my age gets excited about (6,3) |
| MAG + (I + MY AGE)*. A major hit for Rod Stewart, of course. | ||
| 7 | STUDENT ASSEMBLY | Academic body and subtle system for training? (7,8) |
| (AND SUBTLE SYSTEM)*. | ||
| 8/2/20 | PULLS THE RUG OUT FROM UNDER ONE’S FEET | Refuses long-term help, to undo future, potentially (5,3,3,3,4,5,4,4) |
| (REFUSES LONG-TERM HELP TO UNDO FUTURE)* &lit. Goodness me. | ||
| 13 | FLORENTINE | See what may be peppercorn filling ground with spinach (10) |
| (LO + RENT) in FINE. “Fine” and “ground” can both mean something along the lines of “to make fine or finer, especially by refining or pulverizing”. | ||
| 15 | ITERATION | Tie in knots with allowance for loop (9) |
| TIE* + RATION. | ||
| 16 | ACROSTIC | Puzzle – it’s turned into a mostly useless article (8) |
| ITS< in A CROC[k]. | ||
| 18 | STONER | I’m High Street expert (6) |
| ST + ONER. | ||
| 21 | STEAM | Energy flow, including amperes (5) |
| A in STEM. | ||
| 22 | ISLE | This could be key passage read out (4) |
| Homophone of “aisle”. | ||
* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; underlined = definition
RE 14 across: Friendly as in “friendly fire” – definitely the wrong sort! Very enjoyable, Anax at his most entertaining rather than most testing. Thanks for the blog Simon.
I did like the long clues, though the ‘think of England’ one seemed a little sparse. But whilst I solved the puzzle I was also unsure of the FRIENDLY MATCH definition and this left a niggling feeling of incompleteness. I’m not convinced that friendly fire is noticeably more the wrong sort than unfriendly fire. NIEDERMEYER also seemed quite obscure, but I’m definitely no expert in this area.
Thanks Anax and Simon.
14ac: I am basically agreeing with jmac@1: as I understand it, friendly fire is when it comes from your own side, which is not the risk you signed up for when you joined the military. No-one has yet commented explicitly on the main definition in this clue: presumably this refers to the fact that a friendly match will not earn any points in a league table.
An enjoyable Anax puzzle. I thought I was really going to struggle with this one, but once I had a few checkers I got the long answers and the rest was relatively straightforward. FRIENDLY FIRE was my LOI, although you can count me as another who didn’t bother to parse it.
I obviously meant FRIENDLY MATCH. Distracted by the comments above ……….
@2OPatrick, one must be prudent with one’s explanation, but I thought the wordplay for the answer “CLOSE YOUR EYES … ” pretty funny, encompassing the fact that if one one has to lie back and think of England, rather then the joys of willing consummation with a soulmate, when “having” or “taking” it, then one is not “taking it” personally, as one’s thoughts (of England) are an attempt to distract the mind from one’s personal involvement with “it”.
Had a quick pass through every clue and ended up with nothing. Gradually got it together, I thought it was difficult enough for an Anax and was pleased to finish it; a thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable puzzle. Made my day.
Thanks to Anax and Simon Harris.
In line 2, that’s “one has to”, not “one one has to”, or in other words, only one “one”.
On a table drinking with Anax. Flew through this. I enjoyed it but he says it wasn’t meant to a prize.
I actually emailed a friend and said that this was the easiest Anax puzzle ever. Enjoyable solve so thank you to him and Simon
At 1dn Simon you have drea[d]. Does dread = awful? I can’t think how. I had drea{r}, which I still don’t know is correct.
Wil – fair point, and I initially had this as DREA[r] too.
But think of “dread pirates” and the like. Chambers has it in an adjectival form meaning “Inspiring great fear or awe”, so I think “awful” works well.
Many thanks for blog Simon, and to all for your comments.
I was sitting with Flash on Saturday and my comment about the prize puzzle must have been a tad misleading. Just to clarify, at the time of submitting I didn’t know it would be a prize puzzle.
Thanks to all who attended the S&B in Derby. A glorious day and lots of new faces among old friends. The hardiest among us – basically, those staying overnight – rounded off the evening with a meal at Everest, a Ghurka restaurant 5 minutes’ walk from the pub. For ‘Ghurka’ read ‘curry’, but the quality is astonishing; very highly recommended for future Derby S&B-ers who fancy a late meal to soak up the alcohol.