Punk today with a fairly gentle, I thought, start to the week.
Nothing too outrageous, good job too as I’m still rather sleepy this morning.
Punk rarely does Ninas and I can’t see any themes/ghost themes. Definitions underlined as appropriate.
| Across | ||
| 1 | DYSTOPIA | Dismal day about to end with one in dismal situation (8) |
| STOP end & 1 in DAY* (dismal as anag indicator) | ||
| 6 | OSSIFY | Leader taken out in defeat, provided ending in victory, gets to toughen up (6) |
| (l)OSS defeat without its head & IF providing & end of (victor)Y. It means to turn to bone. | ||
| 9 | ORNATE | Speak about new baroque (6) |
| N(ew) in ORATE | ||
| 10 | APERITIF | Did you say two canines drink before eating? (8) |
| Dodgy homophone/pun, sounds a bit like A PAIR OF TEETH | ||
| 11 | CHICKEN-AND-EGG | Puzzling situation changed with pecking order (pullet’s first out?) (7-3-3) |
| P(ullet) removed from [(p)ECKING CHANGED]* | ||
| 13 | HAIRLESS | Rear of eunuch still smooth (8) |
| (eunuc)H & AIRLESS (still) | ||
| 14 | PIGEON | Bird has good information about duck (6) |
| PI (good) & 0 (duck) in GEN (information) | ||
| 17,5,15 | WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART | Barman quick to conceal measure of weight behind pack (?) produced in gold (8,7,6) |
| A bit convoluted this one. WOLF GANG (ie a pack of wolves); MADE (produced) in AU (gold); OZ (ounce) in SMART (quick) | ||
| 15 | MOZART | See 17 across |
| See 17 | ||
| 19 | PERAMBULATION | Walking to Lima (Peru), ban cycling (13) |
| [TO LIMA PERU BAN]* cycling as an anagram indicator. | ||
| 22 | FECKLESS | Lazy couturier’s first thousand non-iron dresses? (8) |
| C(outurier)’s first letter & K(thousand) in FE-LESS (without Iron) | ||
| 23 | BURGER | Fast food craving, British Rail sandwiches (6) |
| URGE (craving) in (sandwiched by) B.R. Whether the food or anything is better after the privatisation fiasco is left to the reader to decide. | ||
| 24 | STONED | Drunk put to death (6) |
| Double definition | ||
| 25 | THERMALS | More than one current article right to criticise after a U-turn (8) |
| THE (article) & R(ight) & SLAM reversed, after a U-turn | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | YARD | On board, ultimately, beam raised – a few feet? (4) |
| (boar)D & RAY (beam) all reversed | ||
| 3 | TEACHER | Coffee Sonny? Certainly not for the coach! (7) |
| Not Coffee Sonny but TEA CHER | ||
| 4 | PRESCIENT | 101 gift boxes, foreseeing events (9) |
| CI (101 in Roman numerals) in PRESENT (gift) | ||
| 5 | AMADEUS | See 17 across |
| See 17 | ||
| 6 | OMEGA | Last of 24, nothing huge (5) |
| Last of the 24 letter Greek alphabet, nothing to do with STONED (24a). 0 (nothing) & MEGA (huge) | ||
| 7 | SHINDIG | Kick like in knees-up (7) |
| SHIN kick & DIG like | ||
| 8 | FAIRGROUND | Place of entertainment just reduced to dust (10) |
| FAIR (just) & GROUND (turned to dust) | ||
| 12 | CAJOLEMENT | Persuasion: a shocking blow detailed – something binding about it (10) |
| A JOL(t) in de-tailed i.e. last letter removed in CEMENT (binding agent) | ||
| 14 | PALATABLE | Delicious chum on a menu (9) |
| PAL (chum) & A & TABLE (menu) | ||
| 16 | ALASKAN | Sugar-coated question for statesman? (7) |
| ASK (question) in ALAN (sugar). Sir Alan Sugar is a British businessman and TV presenter | ||
| 17 | WELL-SET | Firmly established source of water faded away (4-3) |
| WELL (source of water) & SET (faded away as in the Sun setting) | ||
| 18 | GROGRAM | Group wiping up a metric unit in coarse material (7) |
| GRO(up) wiping away the UP bit and GRAM (metric unit) | ||
| 20 | BREAD | Lolly that’s brown or white? (5) |
| Cryptic def | ||
| 21 | VEAL | Meat above all limits (4) |
| Hidden, limited by aboVE ALl | ||
*anagram
Get to bed early when you know you’re blogging the next day, flashling.
I did like this one, but I struggled until I finally saw WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART, and said a bad word. Three, in fact; the first two start with F and the third one rhymes with a fish.
After that, all went in smoothly, except in the SW, where I put in WASTED for 24ac. It works.
GROGRAM? If you must. ALASKAN was my favourite today.
Bravo Punk and thanks to our sleepy blogger.
10ac – A pair of teeth? Dodgy isn’t the word 🙂
Didn’t know Grogram either
A very enjoyable Monday puzzle IMHO. I thought the dodgy homophone for APERITIF was pretty amusing, and it kind of works in certain regional accents. I was another one held up slightly in the SW by having confidently entered “wasted” at 24ac and I only revisited it after I couldn’t make 12dn and 16dn work, and CAJOLEMENT was my LOI.
The composer clue was good but I saw the “barman” definition straight away and once a few checkers were in place the answer went in unparsed.
I got most of today’s which I don’t usually do with Punk. I love puzzles that equally demand knowledge and wit. I enjoyed 19a best of all and 10a was easy (for me) as ‘Aperitif’ is (?was) the name for Glasgow University’s Dental Students’ club and portrayed on many posters in my youth. Thanks to both.
I was a bit slow spotting that barman could mean a composer, so this probably took longer than it should have done. I thought stoned as DD with other words that fitted was possibly a bit weak and you’d have to be fairly drunk to make aperitif sound much like “a pair of teeth”. Maybe “a pair o’ teeth” comes a bit closer, but you still have an O rather than an I in the middle.
Thanks to Punk and flashling,
I thought this was a pretty good work out for a start to the week. I liked the MOZART clue but my favourite was 3d – a reference to my era of popular culture and the ‘certainly not’ was a nice little trick in the wordplay . I was trying to fit “buckram” for 18d as an early answer until the memory of some otherwise long forgotten cryptic surfaced. I imagine a fabric not even a ‘lazy couturier’ would use for the catwalk!
Thanks again.
An enjoyable start to the week, thanks to Punk and Flashling. I quite liked the ‘pair of teeth’. Does anyone use that material any more apart from setters of crosswords?
Took me ages to get 17/5/15. I quickly guessed it was a composer but I just couldn’t see it. (He’s not one of my favourites. Give me Birtwistle any day.)
@KsD if only, actually had quite an early night, this moving and house clearing and fumigating is tiring stuff.
Agree the Stoned dd is poor but I had the crossers so other valid answers didn’t occur.
I love bad puns so let’s see who and what I get in the morning at another place.
I do wonder how disheartened setters get knowing that they create a clue like Wolfgang today and the only person who uses the wordplay is the editor and the blogger here.
Thanks Punk and flashling
I failed to solve 16d and needed help with the parsing of 17//5/15 and 22a.
New word was GROGRAM.
I liked 3d, 10a, 12a.
Can anyone explain why my newspaper has, in clue for 22ac, “Good-for-nothing” whereas the blog has “Lazy”?
@William FP, my newspaper has Good-for-nothing must admit I didn’t notice the change when I wrote it up.
Eimi or Punk must have gone for a late change and it didn’t make it to either the paper or on-line version.
Many thanks, Flashling, for your swift reply.
Personally, I don’t think ‘lazy’ has the same meaning as ‘feckless’ though ‘good-for-nothing’ is closer.
This gives me an opportunity to thank you for all your fine efforts with your blogs – and to wish you renewed vigour for your moving chores!
….though your reasoning beats me as “good-for-nothing” must be the improvement surely?
Head-scratchingly….