It’s always a pleasure to open the paper and see Anax’s name at the top of the puzzle.
That’s no less true on blogging day, of course, though you do fear you might be put through the wringer a little. In this case I seemed to make quite a brisk start, filling the top half of the grid relatively promptly.
The lower half was quite another matter, with things like AGROINDUSTRY, TERMAGANT and DOESKIN proving particularly stubborn. Of course, they all look perfectly clear in retrospect, don’t they. TUTELARY was a new term for me and solved from wordplay, though I did have to check the dictionary before being confident enough to pen it in.
There seems to be a kind of a theme lurking there, with several references to various types of material. I wonder if there’s something more to it than that though, and no doubt readers will be able to help out if there is.
Anyway, an excellent puzzle, obviously, and packed with Anax’s characteristic painstakingly-crafted surfaces which contribute so much to the enjoyment of solving. Thanks, Anax.
| Across | ||
| 1 | BAHAMAS | Country‘s airline taken by Palestinian group (7) |
| BA + HAMAS. | ||
| 5 | GYMNAST | Tangy M&S shakes in tumbler? (7) |
| (TANGY + M + S)*. | ||
| 9 | CABER | Lie in vehicle’s trunk (5) |
| BE in CAR. | ||
| 10 | THORNIEST | Most awkward deity one found in home (9) |
| THOR + (I in NEST). | ||
| 11 | PERCHANCE | Fish ‘n’ chips starter to feed A&E maybe (9) |
| PERCH + (C[hips] in A N’ Ea). | ||
| 12 | CORAL | Sort of pink and black stuff across river (5) |
| R in COAL. | ||
| 13 | FLOOR CLEANER | A detergent, fresh one for cellar (5,7) |
| (ONE FOR CELLAR)*. | ||
| 17 | AGROINDUSTRY | A railway crossing sensitive area, soil used in heavy farming (12) |
| (GROIN + DUST) in A RY. | ||
| 20 | BEFOG | Obscure iron wheels buried in swamp (5) |
| Fe< in BOG. | ||
| 21 | FORESTAGE | How old trees are used to make platform over pit (9) |
| FOREST AGE. | ||
| 22 | TERMAGANT | Battle-axe given name again? It never needs one (9) |
| TERM + AGA[i]N + [i]T. | ||
| 23 | IMAGO | Setter’s past, for example? (5) |
| I‘M + AGO. | ||
| 24 | SWADDLE | Land outside with blanket (7) |
| W in SADDLE. | ||
| 25 | DOESKIN | Produces one’s own cloth (7) |
| DOES + KIN. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | BICEPS | Oil company’s bottling stuff to freeze muscle (6) |
| ICE in BP‘S. | ||
| 2 | HOBART | Keen to drink local port (6) |
| BAR in HOT. | ||
| 3 | MARSHALLING YARD | Part of railway damage – signal hardly bent (11,4) |
| MAR + (SIGNAL HARDLY)*. | ||
| 4 | SATINWOOD | Smooth material can be seductive in blue (9) |
| (TIN + WOO) in SAD. | ||
| 5 | GROPE | Scrabble game’s front runner? (5) |
| G[ame] + ROPE. | ||
| 6 | MANIC-DEPRESSIVE | One having severe dips apparently (5-10) |
| Reverse anagram, whereby (SEVERE DIPS)* becomes DEPRESSIVE, and it’s &lit too. Excellent clue. | ||
| 7 | ABERRANT | 9 won’t start crying, which is odd (8) |
| [c]ABER + RANT. | ||
| 8 | TUTELARY | Protecting area, utterly stupid guards (8) |
| A in UTTERLY*. | ||
| 14 | CASTRATED | Play review may have this done (9) |
| CAST RATED. | ||
| 15 | SABBATHS | Soldiers welcoming hesitant wash Saturdays/Sundays? (8) |
| B–BATH in SAS. | ||
| 16 | PRO FORMA | Boat loads produce paid for before dispatch (3,5) |
| FORM in PROA. | ||
| 18 | DAMASK | Yes, that’s Russian camouflage material (6) |
| DA + MASK. | ||
| 19 | HEROIN | I’ll save part of junk (6) |
| HERO + IN. | ||
| 21 | FLAME | Fine material for singer? (5) |
| F + LAMÉ. Well-hidden definition: “Singer” as in something which singes. | ||
* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; underlined = definition; Hover to expand abbreviations
Thanks for the blog. There’s a Christian rapper called Flame but thats hardly singing, is it?
It’s not a vocalist copmus, it is a thing that singes.
I did consider FLAME for 21dn, but couldn’t see how it fitted the clue so that was still blank in my grid. Thanks for the explanation.
Sorry, what’s the definition for ‘castrated’ in 14 down? I get the ‘cast rated’ bit.
John Peters @4, people sometimes ask “Has your cat been done?” meaning castrated.
This was a strange puzzle that seemed to go from trivially easy in the top left to fiendishly difficult in the bottom right.
I had a few questions remaining – I did eventually work out that ‘singer’ was something that singes in 21D, but I wasn’t certain about 5D. Although it fitted for me, scrabble doesn’t seem to by synonymous with GROPE in my copy of Chambers. I was also unsure, and still am, about the intended parsing of FORESTAGE at 21A. Presumably the ‘platform over pit’ is a fore-stage (the front part of a stage in a theater, but again this isn’t in Chambers that I can see), but does ‘how old trees are used’ refer to forestage, the ancient rights of forester, or is ‘how old trees are’ forest age? Or both? Is it an overlapping three part clue?
The cryptic is ‘how old trees are’ ie forest age. The answer is in Collins.
This took some cracking (with e-help) but was a cracking puzzle. Took a while to get MARSHALLING YARD as such yards have disappeared from the railway in Britain.
Collins gives one meaning of SCRABBLE as “to scrape (at) or grope (for), as with hands or claws”.
FORESTAGE, meaning “the part of a stage in front of the curtain” is in Collins online, though not in my print version. I took “how old trees are” to mean the age of the trees, i.e the forest. Reminds me of the story of a well-known actor who was very cagey about his private life. A newspaper editor wanted to run a feature about him and cabled his agent, “how old X_____ Y_____?”. Back came the reply “Old X_____ Y_____ fine. How you?”
Thanks to Anax and Simon
Sorry, Sidey. I was still typing (with interruptions) when you posted.
Love the anecdote allan_c, thanks.
Apologies to readers for not explaining FORESTAGE particularly well.
A late reply on Sunday afternoon. After a few write-ins early on, this took me hours of wondering “what on earth” until all but 2 clues (IMAGO and HEROIN) very slowly yielded. I liked the ‘singer’ in 21d and there were plenty of other excellent clues, namely 4, 6d, 17, 16 and 25. CASTRATED and FORESTAGE were the stand-outs for me.
Thank you to blogger and Anax for an (eventually!) satisfying puzzle.