[If you’re attending York S&B please see comments 32&33] - here
Klingsor seems to be lumbered with me rather often nowadays. Not that this worries me. I’d be happy to blog his puzzles every time (apart from the odd holiday with some of the other setters) because he’s one of the best around. There is always the right level of difficulty for me: not too easy, but the surfaces are nice and everything is clear and sound; one can eventually solve his most intractable clues. I think.
Definitions underlined.
I don’t think Klingsor does Ninas, although perhaps there is something glaringly obvious. Nothing that I can see here, anyway.
| Across | ||
| 1 | ANVIL | Forgers use this very penetrating dye (5) |
| an(v)il | ||
| 4 | LAMPLIGHT | It helps you see and escape predicament (9) |
| lam plight — had never heard of lam = escape (American according to Chambers) | ||
| 9 | ANTITOXIN | On vacation taipan in taxi somehow bites Oscar? He’ll need one! (9) |
| (t{aipa}n) in (taxi)* round O — semi-&lit? | ||
| 10 | NIECE | One related delightful, entertaining tale finally (5) |
| ni({tal}e)ce | ||
| 11 | SQUASH RACKETS | They’re involved in court action to suppress dodgy businesses (6,7) |
| squash [= suppress] rackets [= dodgy businesses] | ||
| 14 | PITH | Husband’s upset about weight (4) |
| (h tip)rev. | ||
| 15 | MARASCHINO | Liqueur is to damage cloth when absorbed (10) |
| as [= when] in (mar chino) | ||
| 18 | LITERATURE | A volume from America, not the first of adult books? (10) |
| liter {m}ature — liter is the US spelling of litre | ||
| 19 | LAIC | Non-professional swimmer lacks training (4) |
| {P}laic{E} | ||
| 21 | EIGHTSOME REEL | One’s included in e.g. the Melrose dancing? (9,4) |
| 1 in (e.g. the Melrose)* — &lit. | ||
| 24 | UNITY | Being at one university’s extremely trendy (5) |
| uni t{rend}y | ||
| 25 | AUTOPILOT | George wants gold given to religious group (9) |
| au to pi lot — the religious group is a pi lot | ||
| 27 | HIT THE HAY | Turn in those people importing heroin, acting on nameless tip (3,3,3) |
| hi{n}t the(h a)y | ||
| 28 | ROGUE | Irish accent gives away British villain (5) |
| {B}rogue | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | ADAMS APPLE | Desperate appeals to protect mother producing a lump in your throat (5,5) |
| dam in (appeals)* | ||
| 2 | VET | Energy’s put into mounting television screen (3) |
| e in (TV)rev. | ||
| 3 | LATISH | Prince keeping model up quite long into the night (6) |
| (H(sit)al)rev. | ||
| 4 | LUXURIANT | Abundant laughing follows some light fun, with sides splitting (9) |
| lux {f}u{n} riant | ||
| 5 | MANIC | Frantic bloke with ultimate responsibility? (5) |
| man i/c [in charge] | ||
| 6 | LENIENCE | Revolutionary embraces English church, showing forbearance (8) |
| Leni(E)n CE | ||
| 7 | GUESSTIMATE | Resident picked up single friend, creating uninformed speculation (11) |
| “guessed” 1 mate | ||
| 8 | TIER | Rank outsiders in race idiot backed (4) |
| (r{ac}e i{dio}t)rev. | ||
| 12 | UP TO THE HILT | Completely engaged in joust outside hotel, what? (2,2,3,4) |
| (up to [= engaged in] tilt [= joust]) round (h eh) — it took me a while to parse this properly: initially I had the first three words as the definition and joust = up to tilt, which is a bit strained | ||
| 13 | DOLCELATTE | Presidential candidate consuming cold coffee and cheese (10) |
| Dol(c)e latte — the presidential candidate is Bob Dole | ||
| 16 | AIRWORTHY | I worry that endlessly flying planes must be this (9) |
| (I worry tha{t})* | ||
| 17 | TRIGLYPH | App at last rightly designed for tablet (8) |
| ({Ap}p rightly)* | ||
| 20 | TEMPER | Moderate politician brought in to support Right (6) |
| MP in (tee R) — moder-ayt not moder-it | ||
| 22 | TRASH | Section of orchestra should refuse (5) |
| Hidden in orchesTRA SHould | ||
| 23 | MUSH | No room for lawyer’s wig? Rubbish! (4) |
| mush{room} — a lawyer’s wig is a rather obscure mushroom — I had TUSH (pish and tush)initially, writing it in first and worrying later, and only Googling led me to the mushroom | ||
| 26 | LEG | Support on stage (3) |
| Three defs, not two as it originally seemed to be | ||
*anagram
Had similar experience to John, got to the end then had to google for 23D, after thinking TUSH not quite right. Obviously LAIC from wordplay and crossers but could not think of the fish. I thought this was not quite so taxing as many a previous Klingsor.
I think 9A is (t{aipa}n in taxi)* round O.
Thanks to Klingsor and John.
Nice puzzle and neat blog: thanks to both. I too was a bit grumpy about the ‘on’ in the clue for LEG. John’s blog restored the faith. There are some clever people in charge. I don’t think I’d have got the George def. without crossers if I hadn’t seen it before. Excellent fun.
I thought this was quite gentle for Klingsor, although there were a few answers I had to confirm by googling and some I couldn’t parse. I wondered, with the early appearance of V, X, Q and K, if we might be getting a pangram but it wasn’t to be. Nice to note that ‘model’ in 3dn and ‘George’ in 25ac didn’t indicate T (as in Ford) and G (as in the NATO alphabet). In fact 25ac would qualify for my CoD if there weren’t other contenders making it difficult to pick just one.
Thanks, Klingsor and John.
Enjoyable and not as difficult as some Thursday offerings. Missed out on some of the parsing eg 12, and a few unfamiliar words / terms eg a ‘lawyer’s wig’ as a sort of MUSHROOM, TRIGLYPH and EIGHTSOME REEL. I could have sworn it was a ‘gorcelatte’ that I was nibbling on yesterday – must be a local variant of DOLCELATTE.
Thank you to Klingsor and to John for a v. helpful blog.
Thanks for the blog. I am probably being a bit dim here but I don’t fully get 4d. I see the lux and the u but raint. Where does that come from?
Sprouthater
From Chambers “riant adjective 1. Laughing 2. Merry”.
Thank you Gaufrid
In the end it was the short answers that defeated me. Needed a word search to get 19ac. 14ac, a word search turned up PITH but I couldn’t quite put the pieces together. As for 23dn, I didn’t even think of MUSH to mean rubbish, although I see it’s in Chambers. However, I can’t see mushroom for a wig in Chambers at all. Thanks for the explanations.
I too struggled with the short answers – it took me ages to get pith and mush required a flash of inspiration, but I was also unable to verify the meaning of mushroom in any dictionaries. Also struggled with Dolcelatte – thought the candidate must be one of the current crop, of which there seem to be dozens (at least on the Republican side).
Dormouse @8 & NealH @9: I didn’t know either and also tried Chambers to no avail, but a lawyer’s wig is a type of mushroom, rather than a mushroom being another name for a lawyer’s wig, which is how I initially read it. In case you haven’t already found it yourselves, here’s the relevant Wikipedia page.
OK, I get it now. Misread the parsing. A bit too obscure for me.