Monday Prize Crossword / Mar 21, 2016
After a long absence, Crux returns to the Monday slot.
Mostly easy and what one may expect at the start of the week.
Definitions are underlined wherever possible and/or appropriate.
| Across | ||
| 1 | INTRUSIVE | Confuse virtue with sin like a nosey parker (9) |
| (VIRTUE + SIN)* [* = confuse] | ||
| 6 | ROBOT | Modern car manufacture, British in origin (5) |
| B (British) inside ROOT (origin) I think I would have gone for ‘manufacturer’. |
||
| 9 | HINDI | The bottom one is heard in India (5) |
| HIND (the bottom) + I (one) | ||
| 10 | GARIBALDI | US soldier captures a coarse Italian one (9) |
| GI (US soldier) around {A + RIBALD (coarse)} Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian patriot (1807-1882). |
||
| 11, 12 | REST ON ONE’S OARS | Calm down after a good row (4,2,4,4) |
| Definition embedded in a cryptic one | ||
| 14 | ABDOMEN | As a corporation its 22 would be well hidden! (7) |
| Not sure how to call this but the solution is clear enough I don’t like this clue (neither its partner at 22 ), I’m afraid.. |
||
| 15 | TIMPANI | Drums of paint need mixing – I’m involved (7) |
| I’M inside (PAINT)* [* = need mixing] | ||
| 17 | UNRATED | Not being valued, peacekeepers get reprimanded (7) |
| UN (peacekeepers) + RATED (reprimanded) | ||
| 19 | FIACRES | Carriages provided to go round extensive grounds (7) |
| FI (reversal, indicated by ‘to go round’, of IF (provided)) + ACRES (extensive grounds) New word to me but gettable from the wordplay. |
||
| 20 | PICT | Old Scotsman chose to speak (4) |
| Homophone, indicated by ‘to speak’, of: PICKED (chose) | ||
| 22 | ABDOMINALS | They may be well defined as a “six-pack” (10) |
| Definition no 2 in Chambers for ‘six-pack’ is: a set of well defined abdominal muscles | ||
| 25 | ABUNDANCE | A knees-up with cake eaten in plenty (9) |
| A + BUN (cake) + DANCE (knees-up) | ||
| 26 | NOISE | Kind of pollution one gets in respiratory tract (5) |
| I (one) inside NOSE (respiratory tract) | ||
| 27 | ETHER | Number three’s foreign variant (5) |
| (THREE)* [* = foreign variant] | ||
| 28 | SUSPECTED | December briefly upsets travelling it could be surmised (9) |
| (DEC[ember] + UPSETS)* [* travelling] | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | ICHOR | Classic horserace displaying the finest bloodstock? (5) |
| Hidden solution, indicated by ‘displaying’: [class]IC HOR[serace] | ||
| 2 | TYNESIDER | Extremely tasty drink, say, around north-east, appropriately for him (9) |
| T[ast]Y + SIDER (homophone, indicated by ‘say’, of CIDER (drink)), together around NE (north-east) What is underlined is not really the definition. It is only ‘him’ but that’s not enough for Tynesider – anyway, it’s clear what Crux does. |
||
| 3 | UNIFORMITY | Class one joins in harmony becomes monotony (10) |
| FORM (class) + I (one), together inside UNITY (harmony) | ||
| 4 | INGROWN | Like painful nails hammered in wrong (7) |
| (IN WRONG)* [* = hammered] | ||
| 5 | EARNEST | Grave article hidden by Hemingway (7) |
| A (article) inside ERNEST (Hemingway) | ||
| 6 | ROBE | Leader of investigation goes missing in dress (4) |
| PROBE (investigation) minus its first letter (‘leader’) | ||
| 7 | BALSA | Turn over a chunk of wood (5) |
| Reverdal, indicated by ‘turn over’, of: A SLAB (chunk) | ||
| 8 | TAILSPINS | Heads’ alternative fixes lead to spiralling downturns (9) |
| TAILS (heads’ alternative) + PINS (fixes) | ||
| 13 | IMPATIENCE | Animal’s heart associated with card game – not a virtue! (10) |
| [an]IM[al] + PATIENCE (card game) | ||
| 14 | AQUAPLANE | Water pressure on road causing skid (9) |
| AQUA (water) + P (pressure) + LANE (road) | ||
| 16 | AERIALIST | Perilous act, without a net, at Israeli resort (9) |
| (AT ISRAELI)* [* = resort] | ||
| 18 | DEBUNKS | Exposes pretensions of French twaddle on society (7) |
| DE (of, in French) + BUNK (twaddle) + S (society) | ||
| 19 | FLOWERS | Fine cows, perhaps, have a language all their own! (7) |
| F (fine) + LOWERS (cows, perhaps) The language of flowers. |
||
| 21 | CRUSH | A passion for jam (5) |
| Double definition | ||
| 23 | STEED | Horse runs away in desert storm (5) |
| (DESERT)* minus R (runs) [* = storm] | ||
| 24 | ODER | Poem, Schiller’s last, depicts his native river (4) |
| ODE (poem) + [schille]R | ||
*anagram
Thanks Sil and Crux.
I agree ith you Sil about 6ac.
Similarly, surely 16dn should have been “actor” rather than “act”.
ICHOR and FIACRES were new to me – now filed in the canyons of my mind for future reference.
Five that I couldn’t get here so not easy for me, I would never have got 19a or 16d ever .
Also missing were 11a,14a and 3d
Hamish, I thought about ‘act’ in 16d too.
I decided that the performer may be seen as an ‘act’.
Pop bands and singers are often called an act.
So why not our brave circus artist? Perhaps, even more.
I would like to give Dante the benefit of the doubt.
Thanks Crux and Sil
Even though the elapsed time to do this wasn’t that much different to a Dante puzzle, it did seem like a lot more work required to get there.
FIACRES was a word that had been stored away from previous times and was written in as soon as I’d made sense of ‘provided to go round’.
Finished in the NW corner (not uncommon for me) with REST ON ONES OARS (which was a new phrase), INTRUSIVE (just didn’t see the anagram for some reason earlier) and HINDI (obvious once it dropped, but blocked from me as well earlier).
I thought that AERIALIST was well disguised and agree with Sil’s take on ‘act’ – and so Crux should have the benefit of the doubt as well 🙂 ).