Bert and Joyce are sharing the blog write up this week and we are slightly at odds with our feelings about the puzzle. The solve was thankfully fairly quick, for which we were very thankful as we are currently walking the Dales Way. During the solve we weren’t as impressed as usual on a Friday but as Joyce wrote up the clues she wondered whether that was just because we were under a time pressure this week! There were some lovely surface readings – 9d in particular!
Bert though felt that some of the definitions were somewhat obscure for a weekly puzzle. We will no doubt find that there is a hidden theme which will explain all but unfortunately we cannot find one and haven’t too much time to search.
There is still one that we cannot parse so any help with 2d would be much appreciated.
We will not be able to access the site for the rest of the day so we won’t be able to correct the blog or reply until much later.
| Across | ||
| 1 | Old stuff frequently kept in emptied larders or other storage areas | |
| CORNLOFTS | CORN (old stuff – as in corny humour, like Bert’s) + OFT (frequently) in LS (‘larders’ with the middle letters removed, or ‘emptied’) | |
| 6 | Feel bad after encountering hard stones | |
| HAIL | AIL (feel bad) after H (hard) | |
| 10 | Artist put on show, timeless, revolutionary | |
| DEGAS | S |
|
| 11 | What swimmer may do with hot sexy costume could make you say “Oi”! | |
| DIPHTHONG | DIP (what swimmer may do) + H (hot) + THONG (sexy costume). Joyce cannot help adding that this ‘sexy costume’ must have been designed by a man! | |
| 12 | Number, say, resident in Bury | |
| INTEGER | EG (for example, or ‘say’) in INTER (bury) | |
| 13 | Egyptian chancellor’s expression of current popularity provided by recording | |
| IMHOTEP | I’M HOT (a possible expression of current popularity) + EP (recording) | |
| 14 | The sort of order in which you’ll find Matins, Vespers and Compline? | |
| CHRONOLOGICAL | Matins, Vespers and Compline are apparently hours of the Divine Office, occurring respectively in the morning, the evening and last thing at night – hence appearing in the clue in CHRONOLOGICAL order. | |
| 17 | Describing essential component in rôle taken by writhing lap dancer | |
| PART AND PARCEL | PART (role) + an anagram of LAP DANCER (anagrind is ‘writhing’) | |
| 21 | Shower? Shiver, getting cold not hot | |
| SCATTER | S |
|
| 22 | Somewhat fishy crumpet? | |
| PIKELET | A PIKE-LET could possibly describe a small pike – ‘somewhat fishy’ | |
| 24 | Hooped skirt, nearly half crimped, with no wrinkle | |
| CRINOLINE | CRI (first three letters, or ‘nearly half’ of ‘crimped’ + NO LINE (wrinkle) | |
| 25 | Gutted film industry backed by one’s friends in Italy | |
| AMICI | CI |
|
| 26 | Urge closure of eatery, following description of omelettes? | |
| EGGY | EGG (urge) + last letter or ‘closure’ of eaterY | |
| 27 | Playful friends accepting game half-heartedly | |
| KITTENISH | KITH (friends) round or ‘accepting’ TEN |
|
| Down | ||
| 1 | Fish dish getting odd bits from chef as an enhancement | |
| CODPIECE | COD PIE (fish dish) + ChEf (odd letters or ‘bits’) | |
| 2 | Just the opposite of near? | |
| RIGHT | We’re stuck on this one – the definition must be ‘fair’, but we cannot come up with a sense in which the opposite of right can be ‘near’ (or vice versa) – can anyone help please? | |
| 3 | Disillusioned writers flaunted intolerant egos | |
| LOST GENERATION | An anagram of INTOLERANT EGOS – anagrind is ‘flaunted’ | |
| 4 | Wild about edition covering several states | |
| FEDERAL | FERAL (wild) around ED (edition) | |
| 5 | New growth, small and nasty (friend’s done for) | |
| SAPLING | S (small) + AP |
|
| 7 | A course of action all but blocked by holy man with love for preacher | |
| APOSTOLIC | A + POLIC |
|
| 8 | Assists cricket side to get trophies after opener’s dismissed | |
| LEG-UPS | LEG (cricket side) + |
|
| 9 | Laboriously teach and teach getting flak here? | |
| AT THE CHALK FACE | A cryptic definition – an anagram of TEACH and TEACH and FLAK – anagrind is ‘laboriously’ – the definition refers to being in the classroom. As a teacher however Joyce feels that actually teaching was the only part of the job that wasn’t laborious! | |
| 15 | Theatre food coming round again | |
| REPEATING | REP (theatre) + EATING (food) | |
| 16 | Bottom resident in apartment search? | |
| FLATFISH | FLAT (apartment) + FISH (search) | |
| 18 | Under the weather, but over it as well? | |
| AIRSICK | Cryptic definition – if you are AIRSICK, you would be ‘under the weather’, but in a plane, so possibly above the clouds | |
| 19 | Thickest portion in meat dishes? On the contrary | |
| DOPIEST | The clue wants us to put DOT (portion – we hadn’t come across this before – apparently it relates to a ‘marriage portion’) in PIES (meat dishes), but this wouldn’t make a word, whereas the ‘contrary’ puts PIES in DOT | |
| 20 | Psalms and church feeding the old soul | |
| PSYCHE | PS (psalms) + CH (church) in or ‘feeding’ YE (old version of ‘the’) | |
| 23 | Plumber’s brother, clumsy guy I found round Italy | |
| LUIGI | LUG (clumsy guy – another new one for us) + I round I (Italy) – Luigi was one of the Mario Brothers, whose brother was a plumber in the ‘classic’ video game. Joyce is quite concerned that Bert remembered this guy – she thought he had never played on our son’s Gameboy. | |
The near side is the left and fair is right.
I wasn’t as impressed as usual either, and I’m not walking the Dales Way. In fact I was struggling so much and was running out of time, so nearly gave up. Got there in the end, and agree with you that AT THE CHALKFACE is excellent. But keep words like IMHOTEP for the weekend barred puzzles, if you please. Plumber’s brother? Give me a break: I’m not 16 years old. Dot and lug? New on me too.
Can’t help with RIGHT.
Anyway, bon courage to B&J with the walking and thank you to Phi for the puzzle.
You are surely right, sidey. But for me the opposites are the NEARSIDE and the OFFSIDE. So the clue works, but not in a terribly elegant way.
NearSIDE isn’t used in the clue though and there’s a question mark.
KD @2, I would have thought you’d need to be much older than 16 to remember the Mario Brothers (I was 20 already when it was released in 1983), or does the game still exist?
Imhotep didn’t seem particularly obscure either. I couldn’t have conjured it out of my memory without the wordplay, but I found it readily recognisable. Altogether a fair solve all round.
Dot is a word I first met in a Dalziel & Pascoe novel by Reginald Hill.
And I actually knew Luigi was Mario’s brother. That is because I have the Mario Bros movie – starring Bob Hoskins (who always said making the movie was his worst career move) but which I like a lot.
I struggled with this one a little more than I usually do with Phi puzzles, but I think that was down to me and not the cluing, especially as I needed aids at the end to get CORNLOFTS and AMICI, neither of which should have been that difficult from the wordplay.
Maybe it’s because I have read a lot of US fiction but “lug” wasn’t a problem at all, and LUIGI rang more than a few bells as Mario’s brother. Similarly, IMHOTEP was very familiar as he’s probably the most well-known ancient Egyptian who wasn’t a Pharaoh.
Since Imhotep was the resurrected baddie in “The Mummy” maybe the theme is ‘rubbish 90s movies’
🙂
Surprised no one has spotted the obvious Muppets theme (“Oh no Nina, Nina, no Nina……?”)
Not quite the straight run-through one sometimes gets with Phi.
I thought there might be a slightly fishy theme (CODPIECE, PIKELET, FLATFISH) but nothing to get excited about.
Not sure about nearside, etc. In Britain and some British-influenced countries, e.g. NZ, Oz, etc, where one drives on the left, the nearside is the left so obviously opposite to the right – but does that apply in the rest of the world where one drives on the right? Or does it have a different origin that has nothing to do with which side of the road one drives on? Enlightenment welcome.
Anyway, thanks to Phi and B&J
Struggled in places for a while and right still feels wrong.
thanks b&j, till we meet again.
Putting in ‘mermaid’ for ‘Somewhat fishy crumpet’ didn’t help.
In my (unexpected) hurry earlier, neglected to thank B&J for great blog, as ever. I actually thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle (though, as with all this week seemingly, quick to solve); 9dn clever and I loved 14dn. Huge thanks and respect to Phi.
Apologies for earlier (childish?) quip but I’m sure it’s the Muppets theme……
Way too late for this comment but I’ve been ‘off the air’. Surely the reason we use nearside and offside for cars is to avoid the confusion that would arise with Left or Right because they depend on where one is looking from (e.g. if I stand in front of my bonnet to view the car the offside wheel is on my left).