Even if time is short on the approach up to Christmas, we are enjoying having a regular puzzle (or two) to solve each day and were pleased to see that it was Raich today.
Several clues had us scratching our heads, but it all fell out very satisfactorily in the end, despite some minor qualms about 14a and 20d.
If you don’t normally read the blog all the way through but just search for the clue that you couldn’t solve or parse, please do have a look at 27ac and follow the link.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | Time you heard dry newspaperman expressed disapproval (6) | |
| TUTTED | T (Time) U (sounds like (‘heard’) ‘you’) TT (dry) ED (newspaperman) | |
| 4 | Contest convenient, say, and better (8) | |
| HANDICAP | HANDI (sounds like (‘say’) handy or convenient) CAP (better) | |
| 9 | Criticise name for land strip in US (9) | |
| PANHANDLE | PAN (criticise) HANDLE (name) | |
| 11 | You may see baby in this, quiet? Aye, wrapped lovingly at first (5) | |
| SHAWL | SH (quiet) first letters of Aye Wrapped Lovingly or ‘at first’ | |
| 12 | He stops worthless stuff about plays (7) | |
| THEATRE | HE inside or ‘stopping’ TAT (worthless stuff) RE (about) | |
| 13 | Missionary’s job drinking beer? On the contrary! (7) | |
| APOSTLE | Wordplay suggests that it is POST (job) around or ‘drinking’ ALE (beer) – but, ‘on the contrary’ indicates that ‘ale’ should be around ‘post’. | |
| 14 | Discovery of San Andreas feature? You’re wrong – yet again!? (5-7) | |
| FAULT- FINDING | We’re not really convinced about this one. The San Andreas feature is the FAULT and the discovery is the FINDING and ‘fault-finding’ is pointing out that something is wrong – presumably the ‘yet again’ suggests regular nit-picking – but is this really necessary? | |
| 18 | Disorientated feeling of lout at entrance surrounded by rough chuckers-out (7,5) | |
| CULTURE SHOCK | L (start or ‘entrance’ to ‘Lout’) ‘surrounded by an anagram of CHUCKERS OUT – anagrind is ‘rough’ | |
| 21 | Foodie’s saga, something tempting, not initially noticed (7) | |
| EPICURE | EPIC (saga) |
|
| 22 | Saw about getting a Northern seat? (7) | |
| OTTOMAN | MOTTO (saw) reversed or ‘about’ A N (northern) | |
| 24 | Exclusive hotel items some missed (5) | |
| ELITE | Hidden in (‘some missed’) hotEL ITEms | |
| 25 | One impressed by saint, formerly going around, doing as told? (9) | |
| OBEDIENCE | I (one) inside or ‘impressed’ by BEDE (saint) with ONCE (formerly) around the outside or ‘going around’ | |
| 26 | Get rid of article about bull, trivial, hollow? (8) | |
| THROTTLE | THE (article) around ROT (bull) T |
|
| 27 | Not much time for runner-up (6) | |
| SECOND | A SECOND is ‘not much time’. The clue reminded us of a very funny Jerry Seinfeld stand-up routine about coming second, winning silver or being a ‘runner up’. We couldn’t resist providing THIS link if you haven’t heard it. | |
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | Court official’s suggestion followed by workers (8) | |
| TIPSTAFF | TIP (suggestion) STAFF (workers) | |
| 2 | Curious date with punk having much drink taken (6,2) | |
| 3 | TANKED UP
EXACT |
An anagram of DATE and PUNK – anagrind is ‘curious’
Cut up over court showing no deviation AXE (cut) reversed or ‘up’ over CT (court) |
| 5 | Writer Ferguson, say, with heads of two churches (9,4) | |
| ALEXANDER POPE | ALEX (as in Alex Ferguson, ‘say’) AND (with) ER (head of the Church of England) and POPE (head of the Roman Catholic church) | |
| 6 | One’s dimes in circulation here (3,6) | |
| DES MOINES | An anagram of ONE’S DIMES – anagrind is ‘in circulation’. As Des Moines is in the USA, dimes would definitely be in circulation! | |
| 7 | Restrained cleric has tea boxes (6) | |
| CHASTE | Hidden or ‘boxed’ in the clue cleriC HAS TEa | |
| 8 | Crude bed getting everyone into sulk (6) | |
| PALLET | ALL (everyone) inside or ‘into’ PET (sulk) | |
| 10 | Yield? How? Extremely dismissive – not for change? (4-2-3-4) | |
| DYED-IN-THE-WOOL | It’s what we call a ‘cryptic definition’ whilst others may describe it as ‘&lit’ – An anagram of YIELD HOW, the first and last letters of D |
|
| 15 | Obstreperous, abrupt about university period before Easter (9) | |
| TRUCULENT | CURT (abrupt) reversed or ‘about’ + U (university) LENT (period before Easter) | |
| 16 | See trickster, using Mike for first name, cheat soldier (8) | |
| COMMANDO | CO |
|
| 17 | He’s kinda nasty maybe? (8) | |
| SKINHEAD | Another ‘cryptic definition’ (or ‘&lit’?). It’s an anagram of HE’S KINDA – anagrind is ‘nasty’ and/or ‘maybe’ | |
| 19 | Notice shortcoming as female becomes tense (6) | |
| DETECT | DE |
|
| 20 | Row about papers involving more money? (6) | |
| TIDIER | TIER (row) about ID (papers). We weren’t sure about the definition at first but you can say that you have ‘tidy sum’, so perhaps ‘tidier’ could fancifully mean ‘more money’. | |
| 23 | Wind up in the purely peripheral group (5) | |
| TRIBE | RIB (wind up) inside or ‘in’ T |
|
Some nice clues and not too hard. I share your reservations about 14 – to me ‘carping’ is more suggestive of repeated criticism for often minor shortcomings, but FAULT-FINDING is given as one of the defs. for ‘carping’ in Chambers, so perhaps it is OK. I don’t know what ‘See’ is doing in 16d – is it just a ‘filler’ or whatever the correct term is? My favourite was SKINHEAD which I think is an &lit – maybe.
Thanks to B&J (including for the very funny Seinfeld link – my thoughts exactly) and Raich
Couldn’t get any of the acrosses on first pass; 2dn was my first one in. Despite that it was a fairly quick solve though I was held up on 18ac by having initially put ‘turbulent’ instead of TRUCULENT in 15dn. Lots to like, so no CoD.
Thanks, Raich and B&J
This was one of those ‘why did I find this so hard’ puzzles. One of the reasons it took me longer than it should have is that I confidently entered DYED IN THE WOOD for 10d, and convinced myself that this was the correct expression. Stupidity? Certainly. Stubbornness? Absolutely.
Otherwise the usual carefully clued puzzle from our Irish Setter. THEATRE was my favourite, for no other reason than it was clued differently to how I’ve seen it before.
Well done, Raich, and thank you to B&J for the blog.
Many thanks for the excellent blog, B&J, and thanks also to those who commented. Glad there there was not too much 14…