It’s a while since we blogged a Scorpion puzzle although they appear once a month. We normally prefer ghost themes but there were some enjoyable moments during the solve today.
We were familiar with all the food items mentioned although we don’t think we ate any of them when we visited Pisa a few years ago! Scorpion obviously had to work hard to come up with 12 different ways of saying ‘Italian food’.
We hope that a particular commenter is reading the blog today – Joyce will still curtsey to him if he ever makes it to a S&B event in Derby!
| Across | ||
| 8 | Assistant circulating cannot reserve table in 24? | |
| PANNA COTTA | PA (assistant) + an anagram of CANNOT anagrind is ‘circulating’ + TA (reserve as in Territorial Army). We’re not quite sure about the use of ‘table’ here though. Chambers has it as a ‘supply of food’ which just about works! | |
| 9 | See 26 | |
| 10 | Certainly Spanish stores affected what are consumed in 24? | |
| SCAMPI | SI (Spanish for yes or ‘certainly’) around, or ‘storing’ CAMP (affected) | |
| 11 | Calorie-free mixer added to port that’s on menu in 24? | |
| RIGATONI | TONI |
|
| 12 | When rambling, spit out corn to avoid unknown grub in 24? | |
PROSCIUTTO |
An anagram of SPIT OUT COR |
|
| 13 | Sit back disheartened with current book | |
| ACTS | S |
|
| 15 | European, occasionally tasting, rejected food in 24? | |
| POLENTA | POLE (European) + alternate (‘occasional’) letters of tAsTiNg reversed or ‘rejected’ | |
| 17 | Standing and texting you are in New York maybe | |
| STATURE | UR (text speak for ‘you are’) inside STATE (New York maybe) | |
| 20 | Taunt son falling in stream | |
| JEST | S (son) inside or ‘falling in’ JET (stream) | |
| 21 | Beatle repeatedly the old drumming, initially out of touch | |
| STARRY EYED | STARR (Ringo – the Beatles’ drummer) + YE YE (old-fashioned way of saying ‘the’) twice, or ‘repeatedly’ + D first letter of Drumming or ‘intitially’ | |
| 23 | Bacteria making Irish poorly in resort | |
| SPIRILLA | IR (Irish) + ILL (poorly) inside or ‘in’ SPA (resort). We were misdirected for a while thinking that ‘resort’ was the anagrind! | |
| 25 | Stinger, with drop of malt used as new spirit | |
| METTLE | ||
| 26/9 | Copper, having supremo put inside, rings about what’s dished out in 24? | |
| OSSO BUCO | CU (copper) + BOSS (supremo) inside OO (rings) reversed or ‘about’. Joyce was convinced that this had double ‘C’ in it! | |
| 27 | Settle in spacecraft, one needing fuel in 24? | |
| MINESTRONE | NEST (settle) in MIR (spacecraft) + ONE | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | Same cooks keeping fish on plate in 24? | |
| MASCARPONE | An anagram of SAME (anagrind is ‘cooks’) around or ‘keeping’ CARP (fish) ON | |
| 2 | Having empty garden, some arranged ornamentation | |
| GNOMES | GN (first and last letter of GardeN or ‘empty’)+ an anagram of SOME (anagrind is ‘arranged’). We’re not sure about ‘gnomes’ being described as ornamentation! WE do like THIS story about travelling gnomes though! | |
| 3 | Troublemaker, when play opens, cut off view | |
| ACTIVIST | ACT I (when play opens) + VIST |
|
| 4 | First driving range includes grass to do again | |
| ITERATE | I TEE (as in first driving range on a golf course) around or ‘including’ RAT (grass) | |
| 5 | Sat perhaps removing half of hand warmers, radiant | |
| DAY-GLO | DAY (Sat as in Saturday perhaps) + GLO |
|
| 6 | Compress muscles, as vehicle’s overturned in race | |
| ABSTRACT | ABS (muscles) + CAR reversed or ‘overturned’ in TT (race) | |
| 7 | Somebody venerated self-proclaimed criminal | |
| ICON | A play on the fact that a criminal may proclaim I CON | |
| 14 | Nothing allowed to deteriorate when serving up one course in 24? | |
| TORTELLINI | NIL (nothing) + LET (allowed) + ROT (to deteriorate) all reversed, or ‘served up’ + I (one) | |
| 16 | Overseas Test cricketer once dismissing opener on ten runs | |
| EXTERIOR | ||
| 18 | Scruffy suit’s full of butter, one portion in 24? | |
| TIRAMISU | An anagram of SUIT (anagrind is ‘scruffy’) around RAM (butter) + I (one) | |
| 19 | Fuel’s back in channel, getting cheer in 24? | |
| LASAGNE | GAS (fuel) reversed or ‘back’ in LANE (channel) | |
| 21 | Some claim Alaskans put up fare in 24? | |
| SALAMI | Hidden and reversed or ‘up’ in the clue claIM ALASkans | |
| 22 | Seat her by completely topless place for meal | |
| EATERY | ||
| 24 | City’s positive with investment | |
| PISA | P (positive) + ISA (investment) | |
Phew, that was a good work out for me! Very much enjoyed it. Stared at ‘iterate’ for ages before getting it, in fact I rejected it several times!
FOI was ‘salami’ which put me on the right track early, but still took me longer than usual to tease out the rest.
Very good, so thanks all!
Just adding I failed the captcha twice. Here goes number 3!
I found this very much on the tricky side despite seeing the Italian food theme fairly quickly. I’m of the opinion that Scorpion sometimes makes his clues unnecessarily obtuse. My LOI, JEST, is a case in point. “Falling” could indicate taking a letter away if “stream” was the definition, so there were a few possibilities, and I don’t think taunt and jest are exact synonyms. I see a jest as something good-natured and a taunt as something ill-natured. I also thought “as” as a replacement indicator in 25ac rather than “for” made the clue more difficult than it needed to be, because even with “for” it would have been easy. I would class this solve as a good mental exercise rather than fun.
Hi Andy B – We took ‘used as’ to be the replacement indicator in 25ac.
JEST was our LOI too and we weren’t sure about them being synonyms. Having checked it in Chambers – ‘jest’ can be a ‘taunt or jeer’.
I normally enjoy a Scorpion, but I didn’t much enjoy this, I’m afraid. I got the gateway clue reasonably quickly, but when it became clear that it was just a list of Italian dishes with a variety of ways of indicating that they were food, my interest began to wane. To be fair to the setter, they are all pretty well known, and the fact that being Italian words they’d be pretty certain to all end in a vowel was a help. But not my cup of tea today.
And despite what Chambers says – and there was discussion recently about the fact that it’s not infallible – for most careful English speakers ‘jest’ and ‘taunt’ are entirely different things, in modern usage at least.
Thanks all three.
Why can’t I ever spell or pronounce in my head 12a? Without a list I found this hard and tiresome tbh.
Thanks B&J
We can pronounce 12ac flashling but without the anagram, we would have struggled!
It is Prosciutto.
OH DEAR! We have it correct in our copy of the puzzle and NOT in the blog! Thanks Muffyword – Joyce hangs her head in shame!
Another load of irreverent rubbish, did not get any, from an ex average daily telegraph reader
I liked it (as usual)