(Please post comments on ONLY the picture quiz hereinbelow. To post comments on the crossword puzzle, please click here.) Encountered a few speed bumps along the way, with a couple of new terms for me. Thanks to Paul. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 Fairy tale starts to unravel, lecherous animal showing a bit of leg (6)
FIBULA : FIB(a fairy tale;a lie) + the 1st letters, respectively, of(starts to) “unravel, lecherous animal “.
4 Finished attempt to get result (6)
UPSHOT : UP(finished;over, as in “your time is up”) + SHOT(an attempt at doing something).
9 Dig right inside capsule (4)
PROD : R(abbrev. for “right”) contained in(inside) POD(a capsule, eg. in a spacecraft).
10 Collective elements of a party elite fighting to infiltrate extremists in tribe (10)
TUPPERWARE : [ UPPER(the elite) + WAR(fighting) ] contained in(to infiltrate) the 1st and last letters of(extremists in) “tribe “.
Defn: Collectively, the items sold at “parties” described by the trademark brand.
11 Supporter of women once in ferment (6)
BUSTLE : Double defn: 1st: A cushion or frame to support and expand the back of skirts used by;of women in the 19th century, and 2nd: Energetic and noisy activity.
12 Last of shag filling inhaler adapted as smoking pipe (8)
NARGHILE : The last letter of(Last of) “shag ” contained in(filling) anagram of(… adapted) INHALER. An apt surface.
… I wonder what’s she’s smoking (shag maybe?).
13,27 Recently married man, outfit in black and white (9,6)
NEWCASTLE UNITED : NEW…UNITED(recently married) CASTLE(a man;a piece in a chess game).
Defn: Soccer team;outfit whose traditional kit consists of black and white striped shirts, black shorts and black socks.
15 Nip round back of boozer, showing some pace (4)
TROT : TOT(a nip;a small amount of liquor) containing(round) the last letter of(back of) “boozer “.
16 Colours fade (4)
FLAG : Double defn: 1st: …, of a military unit, say; and 2nd: To lose vigour and strength.
17 Is old, old tennis player (about a hundred) descriptive of some figure? (9)
ISOSCELES : IS + O(abbrev. for “old”) + SELES(Monica, former tennis player) containing(about) C(Roman numeral for a hundred).
Defn: …, viz. a triangle with 2 equal sides.
21 Trouble resting in mansion, I supposed (8)
INSOMNIA : Anagram of(… supposed) MANSION, I.
22 House in the shade (6)
ORANGE : Double defn: Royal house currently ruling the Netherlands; and 2nd: … of colour.
24 Where cheap goods sold, scrap metal and fake Rolexes, primarily? (4,6)
FLEA MARKET : Anagram of(scrap) [METAL plus(and) FAKE + the 1st letter of(…, primarily) “Rolexes “].
25 Mythical vessel written about in biography (4)
ARGO : Reversal of(about) and hidden in(in) “biography “.
26 Country welcoming first of slimy sycophants (3-3)
YES-MEN : YEMEN(the country in the south-western Arabian peninsula) containing(welcoming) the 1st letter of(first of) “slimy “.
27 See 13
Down
1 Sounds like one number plus another number is a lot (7)
FORTUNE : Homophone of(Sounds like) “four”(a number) plus TUNE(another type of number, a musical one).
2 On which a squatter may be counting back two from 6 June 1944, fancifully speaking? (5)
BIDET : Homophone of(… speaking) “B-Day”( fancifully, D-Day, 6th of June 1944, the day of the Normandy landings, counting back two letters in the English alphabet from “D”).
3 Learning Gaelic in Latvia? Not entirely! (7)
LETTERS : “Lett Erse”(cryptically, the Gaelic language spoken by a Lett of Latvia) minus its last letter (Not entirely).
Defn: … or knowledge, especially of literature, as in “a man of letters”.
5 US author has to hear literary work (6)
POETRY : POE(Edgar Allan, US author) plus(has) TRY(to hear;to conduct a case in court).
6 US author, another with heartless novel (9)
HAWTHORNE : Anagram of(… novel) [ANOTHER + “with” minus its inner letters(heartless) ].
7 Cook three times, real pastry (7)
TARTLET : Anagram of(Cook) [ T,T,T(three x abbrev. of “time”) + REAL].
8 Turn handles on the rack over King Stephen’s head – he’s tall and thin! (13)
SPINDLESHANKS : SPIN(to turn round an axis) + anagram of(… on the rack;tortured;tormented) HANDLES placed above(over, in a down clue) K(abbrev. for “king”) + the 1st letter of(…’s head) “Stephen“.
14 Fish oil as horrid for beef (9)
CHAROLAIS : CHAR(any of various troutlike fishes) + anagram of(… horrid) OIL AS.
Defn: A breed of beef cattle.
16 At last, a supporter of the steering mechanism? (7)
FINALLY : ALLY(a supporter, in a cause or conflict) of a FIN(the steering mechanism used by underwater swimmers, aircraft, and watercraft).
18 Shaved round fringes in tonsure, so cut (7)
SHORTEN : SHORN(shaved, eg. fleece from a sheep) containing(round) the 1st and last letters of(fringes in) “tonsure “.
19 In conclusion, crack cocaine ultimately taken (7)
ENGAGED : END(the conclusion) containing(In …, …) [GAG(a crack;a joke) + the last letter of(… ultimately) “cocaine ” ].
Defn: …, caught, or enmeshed as with mechanical gears.
20 If patient, batting is superior (2,4)
IN CASE : CASE(a patient in hospital) placed below(… is superior, in a down clue) IN(descriptive of the cricket side that is batting).
23 A bit to one side (5)
APART : A + PART(a bit, not the whole).
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The following pictures have unidentified links to the puzzle.
(Please post comments on ONLY the picture quiz hereinbelow. To post comments on the crossword puzzle, please click here.)
Cookie, sorry, something went awry with the blog, and I had to trash it, together with your comments, and put up this one instead. Sorry also to say that those were not the correct answers.
Thanks scchua! Just for the record I assume Pic 4 is not cotton plants.
Pic 3, that ‘face’ looks like an ISOSCELES triangle…
Pic4 are cotton plants, sort of.
Pic 4, some NARGHILEs have cotton filters…
Does #1 refer (by omission) to a FORTUNE cookie?
As I recall, safety pin in Latin is FIBULA (#5).
I am unlikely to guess anything to do with the cricket scoreboard.
Clothes would look baggy (#6) on a SPINDLESHANKS, or is it that zip-lock bags are airtight, like TUPPERWARE?(
Spindle shanks are used in cotton (#4) production
Correct! Ian SW3 – FORTUNE cookies are, well, cookies, and the ancestor of the safety pin is the FIBULA, a brooch for fastening clothes.
Pic 5, Nathaniel ‘Cotton’, poet, Nathaniel HAWTHORNE, author, but this is rather tenuous…
Pic 6, there are the ‘Baggies Soccer Centres’, NEWCASTLE UNITED…
Pic 5, perhaps Nathaniel Cotton goes better with POETRY…
and the Baggies @11 are of course West Bromwich Albion
Pic 2 is the Adelaide Oval 2006, where England managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. This was Paul Collingwood’s highest test score, and he hates Newcastle United, being a Sunderland fan.
Pic 6, West Bromwich Albion, the Baggies, seem to be often head-to-head with NEWCASTLE UNITED
#6 ‘I rather like the ghetto baggies that tangier comes in.’ Used for storing shisha?
#4 Agent ORANGE used as a defoliant on cotton plants
Pic 2: now this is a long shot. Port Adelaide is an Aussie rules football club, knowns as the Magpies, as are Newcastle United
pic 6 – Baggies= West Bromwich Albion – home ground the HAWTHORNs
Since Ian@6 and other have introduced cricket into the conversation, I’ll point out that Australian cricketers wear the “baggy green” for #6.
Pic 2, UPSHOT and ‘scoreboard’ are sometimes used in conjunction, for instance The UPSHOT at the moment is ‘scoreboard’ tracking the Republican candidates.
Right, Robi and Shirl – Agent ORANGE was a defoliant, perhaps not so much used on cotton plants as during the Vietnam War, and The HAWTHORNs is the ground of West Bromwich Albion, nicknamed the Baggies.
Just two to go. It’s just any cricket scoreboard that’ll do for Pic2.
The BBC programme Blue Peter is named after a FLAG and is, I believe, currently relegated to CBBC, a channel similar to CBeebies (#3) but for older children.
And finally, the game of cricket (#2) is a great cure for INSOMNIA.
Pic 2 – something to do with over arm bowling being introduced by women cricketers wearing BUSTLEs?
CBeebies is named from the LETTERS CBBC?
Jonathan TROTt is a cricketer?
Right again, Ian SW3, with FLAG.
(Flavia, Jonathan TROTt is a cricketer, but) It’s what on any cricket scoreboard that I was trying to point out: You’d want to score runs, but you wouldn’t want the runs, aka the TROTs.
The scoreboard has the teams FLAGs at the top corners
Wow! I was only joking about FLAGthe word and Blue Peter. That really seems a few too many very loose jumps from CBeebies to its neighbour CBBC (to which Blue Peter was moved only fairly recently in its long history) to one of its many programmes to flag. Cookie’s suggestion seems far more plausible.
Sorry — that became garbled. Should be —
Wow! I was only joking about FLAG and Blue Peter. That really seems a few too many very loose jumps from CBeebies to its neighbour CBBC (to which Blue Peter was moved only fairly recently in its long history) to one of its many programmes to the word flag. Cookie’s suggestion seems far more plausible.
By the way, I hope you don’t mind my giving you feedback. I know it’s your quiz and your word associations, but this is one solver’s impressions.
Pic 2 – well, there are LETTERS on the scoreboard, some in ORANGE
I had a more direct linkage: BBC children’s programmes to Blue Peter to FLAG.
I think you mean you had a more indirect linkage — surely the more jumps, the more indirect (and the more chances to go astray or end up not feeling very confident about an answer).
What I’m trying to say is that the more convoluted the linkages you allow, the greater the odds that solvers will come up with alternative solutions, which sometimes feel more “right” than the correct solutions when ultimately revealed.
Well, yes, that’s the nature of the beast. Whether I think I allow it or not, there’s always the possibility that the solver will go astray and end up far away, and it might not even be that convoluted a path. And sometimes the solver arrives at the right destination via a longer path, as you did (via the Cbeebies then the CBBC channel). The more I restrct the possibilities, the more obvious the answer becomes, and where is the fun in that? (I had thought of showing a montage of children’s programmes, but decided that what I showed conveyed just as well the idea of BBC children’s programmes.)
I realise that it’s a balancing act between challenge and clarity; I’m just saying that for me the links have often been too challenging of late, and I sometimes lack an “aha” moment even when the answer is explained.
“Runs” for “TROTs” is another example, even though it perhaps is less convoluted than FLAG. If the puzzle had had the word TROTS in it, fair enough, but to guess that a picture depicts (inter alia) a word with another sense that is a synonym of the word in the crossword with an S added is to me no more satisfying a solution than several of the others offered by solvers.
I liked the old film clues, though I suppose the problem was that they’re too easy to crack with Google.
Thanks scchua for the fun. My proposal of FLAG for the scoreboard pic. @27 was too obvious. I like clues that are on the nature/science side, not the film ones. Just stick to a good mixture scchua.
Noted Cookie, will strive for the ideal of pleasing all.
Scchua have you explained pic 2 yet?
Shirl, contaminated food could give you the runs (not your cricket score), also called the TROTs.