This was hard work. No real complaints though, since it was all soundly clued so far as I could see, and some of the clues are very good. I particularly liked 7dn, 1ac and 23ac. And 5dn too, despite its reminder of that blemish on a game that is so much loved.
Definitions underlined and in maroon.
All I can see is the beginnings perhaps of an attempt at a pangram, with Z, V, X, Y there, but it soon peters out apparently.
| Across | ||
| 1 | EN MASSE | Legless amnesiacs knocked back bottles together (2,5) |
| Reversed hidden in LegLESS AMNEsiacs | ||
| 5 | DIE OFF | How to make Eid pass quickly? (3,3) |
| I could see that it was die something: but die off or die out, or something else that was not immediately obvious? Neither of them seems to carry the meaning of speed. Or is it something to do with quick as in the quick and the dead? Anyway it’s a reverse anagram: Eid is (die)* | ||
| 8 | LERMONTOV | He died like Pushkin having left more revolutionary verse, not originally accepted (9) |
| l ((more)* v) round (not)* — originally is the anagram indicator for not, perhaps a bit unusual but OK I think — Lermontov died in a duel, like Pushkin | ||
| 9 | PRIMP | Groom runs into bloke with girl (5) |
| p(r)imp | ||
| 11 | GRANT | Former president offers financial help (5) |
| 2 defs, one of them referring to Ulysses S. Grant | ||
| 12 | CURVATURE | Dog, very old, with head dropped and arching (9) |
| cur v {m}ature | ||
| 13 | TRAINERS | Teachers posing riddles, but not initially (8) |
| {s}trainers — posing is a link-word | ||
| 15 | HAVE TO | One type of bomb “will” get a ban? “Must” is what I mean (4,2) |
| H a veto — I can’t quite see why it’s “will” rather than just will | ||
| 17 | NUDITY | It’s the state to be in when there’s sun and fresh air, they say (6) |
| “new ditty” — but I must say that when the sun’s out I have no particular urge towards nudity | ||
| 19 | CAMELLIA | A shrub used in some cigarettes – almost everyone recoiled after inhaling one (8) |
| Camel [the brand] (al{l}) rev. round 1 | ||
| 22 | EXPOSITOR | Former model’s sorry about interpreter (9) |
| ex po(sit)or — I took a long time on this, trying to get poser in there somehow and thinking there might be an alternative spelling of expositor | ||
| 23 | GREEN | Description of alternative energy mostly (5) |
| A nice &lit.: the wordplay is (energ{y})* | ||
| 24 | TRIER | It’s Marx’s birthplace, one hears (5) |
| 2 defs: Karl Marx was born in Trier, and to hear is to try | ||
| 25 | CHOIR LOFT | Chaplain frequently drinks old Irish liquor, principally in church gallery (5,4) |
| (ch oft) round (o Ir l{iquor}) | ||
| 26 | TROPHY | Astrophysicist taking pot (6) |
| Hidden (indicated by ‘taking’ — another (after 8ac) unusual usage?) in AsTROPHYsicist | ||
| 27 | ARSENIC | Catherine’s replaced the missing element (7) |
| (Catherine’s – the)* | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | ENLIGHTENMENT | Thin gentlemen distilled the spirit of the 18th-century (13) |
| (Thin gentlemen)* | ||
| 2 | MARSALA | Italian port, sadly on strike, demanding rise (7) |
| (alas ram)rev. | ||
| 3 | STOUT | Portly porter (5) |
| 2 defs | ||
| 4 | ENTICERS | Sirens for example in Crete’s rocks (8) |
| (in Crete’s)* | ||
| 5 | DIVERS | Several footballers trying to get a free kick? (6) |
| 2 defs — yes they should be a lot harder on diving and harshly punish players retrospectively if they are shown on camera to have dived, harrumph harrumph | ||
| 6 | ESPLANADE | Paranormal activity detected on path bordering a deserted coastal area (9) |
| ESP lan(a d)e | ||
| 7 | FAILURE | A Bit of Fry and Laurie, broadcast in Turkey (7) |
| (F{ry} Laurie)* — another good clue — particularly young readers may be unaware that there was this series on television once | ||
| 10 | PIEZOMAGNETIC | Under pressure, attractive dish Tina Gomez works at top speed (13) |
| pie (Tina Gomez)* C — I had to cheat on this, since I’d never heard the word — also, the first letter alone seemed to be the pressure, with the definition at the other end of the clue — evidently Tina Gomez had to be anagrammed and whether or not she was well-known didn’t really matter — there is a female boxer by that name, but the rest of Google seems to send me to LinkedIn people, and a UCLA hottie | ||
| 14 | NOT A SCRAP | Nothing could be better (3,1,5) |
| not as crap — originally I got all mixed up thinking that ‘could be better’ was what he was saying: he’s not, as Lohengrin points out. ‘could be’ is a link, and not as crap = better | ||
| 16 | CATRIONA | RLS novel with every other character involved in scandal (including a threesome) (8) |
| {s}c{a}n{d}a{l} round (a trio) — this novel | ||
| 18 | DIPPIER | To decline support is more crazy (7) |
| dip pier | ||
| 20 | LIE-DOWN | Continued to tell story with breaks for short rest (3-4) |
| lied o(w)n | ||
| 21 | STOCKY | Sturdy farm animals at back of butchery (6) |
| stock {butcher}y | ||
| 23 | GIRLS | Soldier drills regularly in April, May, June, etc (5) |
| GI {d}r{i}l{l}s — April, May and June are girls’ names | ||
*anagram
Took a while to get going but eventually finished, though with a few unparsed, including the PIE bit of 19d. Can’t explain the quotation marks in 15 either. My favourites were DIVERS, FAILURE (the TV show is my vintage) and DIPPIER – one of those words I like for no good reason. Just a few typos – the def for 5a is ‘pass quickly’ and that for 10d (after looking at Wikipedia as I’d never heard of the word before) is ‘Under pressure, attractive’.
Thanks to Wiglaf and John
Some excellent clues here and a good lunchtime workout for me. Cheated on 10d I’m afraid.
Whilst I solved it, was faintly niggled by the definition in 12a being an adjective but the answer a noun. Also wondered at the ‘d’ for deserted in 6d, is this an accepted crossword convention?
On the whole big thanks to Wiglaf and John, particularly for the parsing of NUDITY which I shoved in but didn’t really get.
Thanks Wiglaf and john
Doofs @ 2: I think you can see ‘arching’ as a noun, eg “The arching of his back…”
I think the ‘could be’ in 14d is just a link, so ‘Nothing’ – Not a scrap and ‘Better’, not as crap
A nice challenge that ultimately got the better of me by 4 or 5 clues. My COD honours split between 7d and 14d, the latter of which I parsed in the Lohengrin stylee. Many thanks to Wiglaf for the work-out and to John for enlightment on the clueage wot escaped me.
Completed with effort, which is my kind of enjoyment. Also, no themes for me to fail to spot! Perfect, so many thanks to Wiglaf. Not sure, like Doofs@2 about “d” for deserted. Nelson’s navy would mark a deserter’s name with “R” for “ran”. (Thank you, Patrick O’Brian.) Also, final “c” of 10d. Is this 100mph?
H W Messenger
Chambers has ‘d’ as an abbreviation for “deserted” but not the context in which it is/was used. In 10dn, C is the speed of light.
HWM@6. C is the symbol for the speed of light. In theory nothing moves faster although my co-solver does pretty well when I say ” I ‘be had an idea …..”
Thanks to those who’ve pointed out little things that I got wrong. Blog amended.
re ‘d’, Gaufrid@7 I can’t see how Chambers has any context for the word: it just says that d is an abbreviation for deserted, and isn’t that simply what Wiglaf is using?
John
Yes, I agree that Wiglaf is just using the abbreviation. I only mentioned the lack of context because HWM mentioned Nelson’s navy using ‘R’ and I had a vague recollection that there had been a discussion a year or two ago about where D=deserted is/was used and by whom.
I cannot now remember whether the conclusion was by an army at the time of the American War of Independence or American Civil War or by cartographers when annotating their maps.
A few minutes later… After some research, I now find that the discussion was in October 2016 (no where near as long ago as I thought, my memory is getting worse) and there were two suggestions:
Drew offered “DMV is a fairly common acronym in archaeology … “deserted medieval village” and JuneG said “I took “d” to stand for “deserted” in service records & entered it confidently. Started to doubt myself when I read the posts so looked it up in Google. Sure enough it is listed as such, though in records for the American Civil War!”
Many thanks Wiglaf – a very enjoyable puzzle in which I learned a few things
10d felt like a physics test, and I’m happy I passed.
Ones I particularly liked were EN MASSE, NUDITY, ENLIGHTENMENT, STOUT, ENTICERS, DIVERS, FAILURE & GIRLS
I had to check but yep, the abbreviation for deserted is in Chambers
I wondered whether you’d considered ‘poison’ as a definition for 27d, which would give a whodunit kinda surface – perhaps you thought it would make it too easy.
Thanks also to John
funny thing is I got PRIMP by thinking 10d had to begin with a P (under pressure) – anyone else do that?