An unusual occurence for me to blog on a Tuesday. Thanks to Hamilton for a fun puzzle that had me galloping for 90% of the solve time and coming unstuck for the remainder. 🙂
FF: 8 DD: 8
| Across | ||
| 1, 5 | JOBS FOR THE BOYS | Sexism in the workplace? (4,3,3,4) |
| cryptic clue | ||
| 9 | DETER | Make your mind up; mine is not to intimidate (5) |
| DETERmine (make your mind up, without ‘mine’) | ||
| 10 | SOUBRETTE | Abigail’s mixing stout and beer (9) |
| Anagram of STOUT BEER | ||
| 11 | TOOTHACHE | Furthermore, facial hair disguises husband’s affliction (9) |
| TOO (furthermore) [TACHE (facial hair, ~mous) containing H (husband)] | ||
| 12 | LICHI | Fruit that gives a large number life force (5) |
| Â L (large) I (number?) CHI (life force) | ||
| 13 | ENSUE | Follow directions around university (5) |
| ENSE (directions, East, North, South East) around U (university) | ||
| 15 | RARE EARTH | Element that’s literally thin on the ground! (4,5) |
| RARE (thin) EARTH (ground) | ||
| 18 | OPPRESSED | Work is forced upon subject (9) |
| OP (work) PRESSED (force upon) | ||
| 19 | THRUM | This half weird humming sound (5) |
| TH (half of THis) RUM (weird) | ||
| 21 | SLANG | IT set-up in the outskirts of Spalding generating gobbledegook (5) |
| LAN (IT set-up, Local Area Network) in SG (outskirts of SpaldinG) | ||
| 23 | MONOLITHS | I’m no sloth when travelling to Stonehenge, say (9) |
| Anagram of IM NO SLOTH | ||
| 25 | URBAN AREA | Town centre is an almost civilised neighbourhood (5,4) |
| URBANe (civilised, almost) AREA (neighborhood) | ||
| 26 | TONGA | Where one might go from Southampton Gateway (5) |
| Hidden in “..southampTON GAteway” | ||
| 27, 28 | ENEMY AT THE GATE | Caller who may be about to provoke a siege mentality? (5,2,3,4) |
| cryptic clue; I was mislead by trying to solve the anagram “SIEGE MENTALITY” (both the words ‘enemy’ and ‘gate’ are contained and led me astray). | ||
| Down | ||
| 1, 18 | JUDE THE OBSCURE | Book two boys who got the British Standard remedy (4,3,7) |
| Charade of JUDE THEO (two boys) B (british) S (standard) CURE (remedy) | ||
| 2 | BOTTOMS UP | Cheers dance that involves utmost movement (7,2) |
| BOP (dance) containing anagram of UTMOST | ||
| 3 | FORTH | Out after the first three, we’re told (5) |
| sounds like FOURTH (after the first three) | ||
| 4 | REST CURES | Others seek treatments offered by sanatoriums (4,5) |
| REST (others) CURES (treatments) – semi &lit? | ||
| 5 | TRUCE | Respite from endless traffic with chief engineer (5) |
| TRUC (traffic = TRUCK, endless) E (chief Engineer) | ||
| 6 | ENROLMENT | Contrariwise, teaching brings in new workers to start joining up (9) |
| [ Reverse (contrariwise) of LORE containing N (new) ] MEN (workers) T (To, start) | ||
| 7 | OPTIC | No taste in petticoats that are made to measure (5) |
| Anagram of PetTICOats (without letters of ‘TASTE’ – apparently a device used for measuring out liquor. | ||
| 8, 20 | SWEDISH MASSAGE | Was a mess: sighed “please formulate an exercise regime” (7,7) |
| Anagram of WAS A MESS SIGHED | ||
| 14 | EMERGENCY | Come out with Charlie in US city in crisis (9) |
| EMERGE (come out) [ C (charlie) in NY (US city) ] | ||
| 16 | REDUNDANT | Laid off and turned out (9) |
| Anagram of TURNED OUT. I did stop to think if “laid off” more accurately translates into “made redundant” .. | ||
| 17 | RURITANIA | Imaginary place where girl goes after sport and bible class (9) |
| TANIA (girl) after [ RU (sport, Rugby Union) RI (bible class, Religious Instruction) ] | ||
| 18 | Â | See 1 down |
| 20 | Â | See 8 |
| 22 | AMBLE | Walk with Mark in part of Italy, heading north (5) |
| M (mark) in reverse (heading north, in a down clue) of ELBA (part of Italy) | ||
| 23 | MERIT | Credit La Manche, say, for having it (5) |
| MER (french for SEA, La Manche is French for the English Channel) IT | ||
| 24 | LATHE | Told to put down the machine (5) |
| sounds like LAYÂ (out down) THE | ||
*anagram
Thanks Turbolegs – needed help on a couple. I am late to this so you may not see the comment but I had 12A as being LI, Roman numerals for 51 as being the “large number”. I was querying it though as not being particularly large.
Thanks Hamilton and Turbolegs
Pretty tough assignment here that took a few sessions to finally get it out. Forgot to go back and properly parse JUDE THE OBSCURE and had gone with TRU(ck) and CE (but prefer the blogged option) and went with LI – an old Chinese measure of length, about 500 yards – (but again prefer the L and I option).
RURITANIA was nearly a write-in, courtesy of stumbling on “The Prisoner of Zenda” many years ago and it sticking in memory for some reason.
Finished down in the SW with LATHE (which I’d guessed earlier but didn’t see the homophone until later), REDUNDANT (which was a very simple anagram in retrospect – dunno why it took so long) and the cd ENEMY AT THE GATE as the last one in.
Testing!
That’s better after yesterday’s hiatus in service. Thanks to Gaufrid for sorting out the IT issues.
And thanks to Hamilton for an enjoyable puzzle and to Turbolegs for the blog.
I often find that Hamilton’s puzzles deserve a second reading after completion – there’s often more to the clues that the surface might indicate.
And that was the case here too. I raced through 95% and the got held up on the last 2.
RURITANIA had to be 17dn but I was fixated on RITA for ages without being able to fathom why NIA could be a bible class – and then I saw TANIA and it all made sense.
Similarly, URBAN AREA looked like a rather weak cryptic definition till I twigged URBAN(E).
Overall, not a difficult puzzle but thoroughly well clues so thanks again.