It’s Wednesday, so unsurprisingly Dac-day today, and we have a set of Dac’s customary well-honed clues with smooth surfaces.
Overall, I found this to be a medium-difficulty puzzle, which I plugged away at without struggling in any particular part of the grid.
For my own peace of mind, I would be interested to hear what other solvers think of my parsing of 4, 6 and 24.
As for my clues of the day, they are 7 and 18, as always for their smooth surfaces.
*(…) indicates an anagram; definitions are italicised; // separates definitions in multiple-definition clues
| Across | ||
| 01 | HOWARDS END | Home Office linked to closure of part of hospital? That’s novel
HO (=Home Office) + WARD’S END (=closure of part of hospital); the reference is to the 1910 novel by E M Forster |
| 07 | BACK | Former newspaper proprietor lacks Liberal support
B<l>ACK (=newspaper proprietor, i.e. Conrad Black); “lacks Liberal (=L)” means letter “l” is dropped |
| 09 | TIGER NUT | Edible tuber rotting in gutter
*(IN GUTTER); “rotting” is anagram indicator |
| 10 | COOLER | Prison’s // not so hot
Double definition |
| 11 | NEW ZEALANDER | Antipodean shows enthusiasm, joining in Northumbrian ramble?
ZEAL (=enthusiasm) in [NE (=Northumbrian, i.e. in NE England) + WANDER (=ramble)] |
| 14 | LATENT | Accommodation near US city not easy to find?
LA (=US city) + TENT (=accommodation) |
| 15 | TRASHING | Destroying tree in Herts town
ASH (=tree) in TRING (=Herts town) |
| 17 | HILLSIDE | Incline to conceal problems internally
ILLS (=problems) in HIDE (=conceal) |
| 19 | CHEQUE | Means of payment European talked of
Homophone (“talked of”) of “Czech” (=European) |
| 20 | INSTRUCTRESS | Teacher, in short, flips when overwhelmed by pressure
IN + [TRUC (CURT=short, as adjective; “flips” indicates reversal) in STRESS (=pressure)] |
| 23 | FIJIAN | I’ll take brief moment to go round with an islander
FIJI (I + JIF (=brief moment); “to go round” indicates reversal) + AN |
| 24 | PLAYSUIT | Outfit with fake diamonds, perhaps
PLAY (=fake, as in e.g. play-act) + SUIT (=diamonds, perhaps, i.e. in cards) |
| 26 | SNUG | Part of pub in which magnum’s passed round?
GUN’S (=magnum’s); “passed round” indicates reversal |
| 27 | SPRING ROLL | Do two gymnastic feats for food
SPRING (and) ROLL (=do two gymnastic feats) |
| Down | ||
| 02 | OVID | Up-and-coming Italian male singer and poet
DIVO (=Italian male singer); “up-and-coming” indicates vertical reversal; the reference is to the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC-17/18 AD) |
| 03 | APE | Copy a recording of old, after rewinding
A + PE (EP=recording of old; “after rewinding” indicates reversal) |
| 04 | DONIZETTI | Teacher is painter, we’re told, and composer
Homophone (“we’re told”) of “don (=teacher) is Etty (=painter, i.e. William Etty)”; the reference is to Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) |
| 05 | EXTRACT | Passage from old booklet
EX (=old) + TRACT (=booklet) |
| 06 | DACCA | Your compiler takes cycle to a city out east
DAC (=your compiler, i.e. of this puzzle) + C (=cycle, as in c/s) + A |
| 07 | BROADSHEETS | Except for our sister paper, editor bashes different newspapers
*(ED<i>TOR BASHES); “except for our sister paper (i)” means letter “i” dropped”; “different” is anagram indicator |
| 08 | CHEERING UP | Encouraging tweet almost, on phone
CHEE<p> (=tweet; “almost” means last letter dropped) + RING UP (=phone) |
| 12 | EVERLASTING | Reveal criminal scam is unstoppableREVEAL) + STING (=scam); “criminal” is anagram indicator |
| 13 | MAXIMILIAN | Archduke I saw at first with collar turned up
MAXIM (=saw, saying) + I + LIAN (NAIL=collar; “turned up” indicates vertical reversal); the reference is to Maximilian III, Archduke of Austria (1558-1618) |
| 16 | ASCERTAIN | Find out a canister is faulty
*(A CANISTER); “is faulty” is anagram indicator |
| 18 | ESCAPER | Oddly easy lark for Houdini?
E<a>S<y> (“oddly” means odd letters only) + CAPER (=lark); the reference is to the Hungarian-American escapologist Harry Houdini (1874-1926) |
| 21 | RANKS | Groups of soldiers run to replace top of armoured vehicles
T-ANKS (=armoured vehicles); “run (=R) to replace top of” means first letter is replaced by letter “r” |
| 22 | RILL | Current report of N Wales resort?
Homophone (“report”) of “Rhyl” (=N Wales resort) |
| 25 | SIR | Title used by some teachers, I reckon
Hidden (“some”) in “teacherS, I, Reckon”; & lit. |
Thanks RatkojaRiku (and Dac). 22ac is RILL (sounds like Rhyl).Typo?
Good morning, RatkojaRiku.
I agree your parsing of 4d and 24a ,but don’t understand c= cycle as in c/s, in 6d.
Incidentally, the puzzle appears to be a pangram.
Thanks, RR. Another fine puzzle from Dac, although I didn’t like INSTRUCTRESS much. Bit intricate; bit of an outdated definition. But Dac knows by now that I love him, in a cruciverbal way, so he’ll get over that criticism.
I thought your parsing of the ones you were unsure of was fine. And well done for parsing DONIZETTI, because I couldn’t.
Since pedantry seems to be accepted here, I will point out that the novel by E M Forster at 1ac is HOWARDS END and not HOWARD’S END. It’s referring to a place and not a person, so there’s no need for the apostrophe. Apostrophe rant over.
Thanks for pointing out the typo at 22, Uncle Ada – there wasn’t time this morning for careful re-reading, alas.
As for the apostrophe issue, I have to plead total ignorance – indeed, it never even occurred to me to check the spelling! We live and learn. Thanks, Kathryn’s Dad!
I agree that this was another fine Dac puzzle, and I parsed 24ac, 4dn and 6dn the same way as RR. I got badly held up at the end by the MAXIMILIAN/FIJIAN crossers.
Does the Donizetti homophone actually work? Which is to say, how do people pronounce the name of the composer nowadays, as I can’t say that I’ve heard him discussed much down the local crack den? I vaguely remember some judge playing up to his reputation for being out of it by pretending not to know who Gazza was and making a reference to Rossini’s opera La Gazza Ladra, but the pronunciation may have been equally affected; cf. also Churchill and Nazi. But I thought we’re less proud to be uncircumcised philistines in these days of globalisation.
I too laud the fact that pedantry, or a desire for exactitude, is the norm here. I was impressed by Dac again, he’s consistently exact, and neat! And I’m all right with Donizetti. To be totally precise, DON isn’t part of the homophone, it’s just IZETTI = is Etty.
As I think about it, ‘it’s Etty’ works as well, so scratch all that.
That was nice. I hadn’t come across DIVO (not a giant leap from diva of course), ETTY OR TIGER NUT, wasn’t sure if I’d heard of DACCA; all irrelevant as they dropped in perfectly from the clues – which is what seems to be the case with Dac’s puzzles, the solution is never that far out of reach. Last in were the crossing 24 and 22; I’d spotted the pangram minus Y at that point, and nearly convinced myself that 22d must be RHYL until I considered the only other possible position for the Y and PLAYSUIT dropped out, which I think was my favourite clue.
Thanks to Dac and RR (and the pedants of course!)
On the whole not too much of a problem, but I couldn’t get 13dn and 24ac without word searches, and I’d not only not heard of Archduke Maximilian, I couldn’t parse it when I had got it, so thanks for that.
Re 22 dn rill/rhyl homophone: with the homophone indicator “report” being in the middle, then how can you tell which is correct without crossing letters?
19ac Cheque/check is clear as the homophone indicator “talked of” apears at the end of the clue.
A good week so far. Did about 75% of Tyrus on Monday, a nice Hieroglyph yesterday and Dac today.
I agree with Quaiteaux on the correct pronunciation of Donizetti, rather than RR or hedgehoggy (the latter seemingly hoisted by his own “exactitude” petard)
On second thoughts, Quaiteaux may be wrong as there is only one ‘z’ in Donizetti……
Who knows, who cares?!
Nice enough puzzle – thanks Dac!
Whoopee, I finished this one. It must be getting onto the same wavelength of the compiler.