Alchemi stands in for Dac this week.
We found this slightly trickier than the average Wednesday fare. We were somewhat held up by the entry at 17d, which does not appear in Chambers, but was eventually clear enough from the anagram fodder and a quick check on Google. We also took some time to figure out the parsing of 5d, due to our lack of knowledge of bridge terms.
We were also puzzled by the rather odd clue at 21d – does anyone have any idea why Alchemi chose ‘Q’ as opposed to any of the other 25 letters?
We’re on our way back to the UK today, hopefully not affected by the French Air Traffic Controllers’ strike, and only have internet access during the morning – we’ll make any necessary revisions to the blog tomorrow.
| Across | ||
| 1 | Work out what bad things fly! (3,3,3,5) | |
| RUN FOR THE HILLS | RUN (work) FORTH (out) EH (what) ILLS (bad things) | |
| 10 | Gizmo stripped down at Irish port (5) | |
| IZMIR | ||
| 11 | Building material beginning to split with weight (9) | |
| SANDSTONE | S (first letter or ‘beginning’ of ‘split’) AND (with) STONE (weight) | |
| 12 | Instrument bishop’s playing in the near future (7) | |
| BASSOON | B (Bishop) AS (‘playing’, as in ‘taking the role of’) SOON (in the near future) | |
| 13 | Notable setter’s positioned in space and time (7) | |
| EMINENT | MINE (setter’s) in EN (space) T (time) | |
| 14 | Sound of drain changes direction (5) | |
| TACKS | A homophone (‘sound’) of TAX (drain) | |
| 16 | South American writer, reportedly late, not in office right now (9) | |
| SUSPENDED | S (south) US (American) PEN (writer) DED (a homophone – ‘reportedly’ – of dead – ‘late’) | |
| 19 | Battle proposal a man carefully hides (9) | |
| SALAMANCA | Hidden in ‘propoSAL A MAN Carefully’ | |
| 20 | Business end of Stinger is aluminium fibre (5) | |
| SISAL | S (first letter or ‘business end’ of ‘stinger’) IS AL (aluminium) | |
| 22 | Gets book about mushroom (7) | |
| ACCEPTS | ACTS (‘book’, in the Bible) around CEP (mushroom) | |
| 25 | Yield when her VAT’s collected (7) | |
| HARVEST | An anagram of HER VAT’S – anagrind is ‘collected’ | |
| 27 | Look after gnome and child to get over current collapse (9) | |
| IMPLOSION | LO (look) after IMP (gnome) SON (child) round or ‘getting over’ I (current) | |
| 28 | Tree in quiet street (5) | |
| PLANE | P (quiet) LANE (street) | |
| 29 | Crash a very old Danish two-wheeler (6-8) | |
| HARLEY-DAVIDSON | An anagram of A VERY OLD DANISH – anagrind is ‘crash’ | |
| Down | ||
| 2 | Cats possibly seen under a French grating (9) | |
| UNMUSICAL | MUSICAL (‘Cats’ possibly) after or under UN (French for ‘a’) | |
| 3 | Do without instead of work (5) | |
| FORGO | FOR (instead of) GO (work) | |
| 4 | Daily event one celebrates, interrupting trip (6,3) | |
| RISING SUN | I (one) SINGS (celebrates) in or ‘interrupting’ RUN (trip) | |
| 5 | Layer cake missing top honours from here (5) | |
| HENCE | HEN (‘layer’) C |
|
| 6 | Impetuosity is like a fork – sensible at first (9) | |
| HASTINESS | HAS TINES (is like a fork) + S (first letter of ‘sensible’) | |
| 7 | Look and see – neither finish at large (5) | |
| LOOSE | LOO |
|
| 8 | Gently cooked vegetable mostly consumed inside (7) | |
| SWEATED | SWED |
|
| 9 | 16 people here pick up large risk (6) | |
| GIBBET | BIG (large) reversed or ‘picked up’ BET (risk) – ‘suspended’ (16ac) people would hang here | |
| 15 | Signals from coast include electronic chart (9) | |
| SEMAPHORE | SHORE (coast) round or ‘including’ E (electronic) MAP (chart) | |
| 17 | Soviet worker has tank with over half missing repaired (9) | |
| STAKHANOV | An anagram of HAS TANK and OV |
|
| 18 | Outlaw‘s daughter replacing books in Dutch language (9) | |
| DESPERADO | D (daughter) replacing ‘nt’ (books – New Testament) in D (Dutch) ESPERA |
|
| 19 | Inventing nothing is ultimately generous (7) | |
| SLAVISH | ||
| 21 | Message Q? (6) | |
| LETTER | A (rather vague) double definition – why Q? | |
| 23 | One leaving prison, avoiding French art heist (5) | |
| CAPER | ||
| 24 | Threw one in outhouse (5) | |
| SHIED | I (one) in SHED (outhouse) | |
| 26 | Played around, leaving Mark tied up (5) | |
| ROPED | RO |
|
I enjoyed this – many nice things, such as ‘is like a fork’ at 6d.
21 was tricky but I didn’t see it as vague: in a definition by example, one could always ask why the setter didn’t choose a different example. The choice of Q is probably a wink to Alchemi’s fellow IT professionals (‘message queue’) as well as a pleasingly puzzling letter.
I wasn’t quite convinced by the definition at 16a though. And why is the ‘business end’ the beginning rather than the end? If anything, I would think of a gun, say, as beginning with the trigger and ending with the barrel, rather than the other way round.
Thanks B&J. Mr A Writinghawk is probably right that the computing “message queue” influenced my choice subconsciously, although my conscious reason was his other one – that it’s pleasingly puzzling, so why not Q?
Plenty of good fun, HASTINESS, HARLEY DAVIDSON, FORGO among the best. Lukewarm about the fodder for 1A; perhaps a minority opinion.
Final “A” missing from the parsing of 19A.
Thanks to Alchemi and Bertandjoyce.
I found this enjoyable, but pretty tricky and didn’t quite complete (headache whilst solving didn’t help). Lots of nice stuff here so many thanks to Alchemi for the puzzle and cheers to the homeward-bound B&J for the blog.
Never heard of stakhanov but apart from that really enjoyed it. 6d was hilarious. Thanks to everyone
I’d heard of STAKHANOV, just couldn’t remember how to spell the name. 19dn defeated me. I thought of SLAVISH but wasn’t convinced it fitted with the definition, nor the word play. Several other the answer was obvious, the parsing less so.