4,20 for a tough puzzle…
… this has made me leave a little late for work!
A fantastic, if tough, puzzle from Julius (the first time I’ve blogged a Julius).
Some absolute gems (22, 24 and 27 ac, and 8 and 13dn, for example).
Once you get the three central “down” columns in, the rest slots in fairly well, but parsing wasn’t always obvious. I think I got there in the end, though.
Thanks, Julius.
| Across | ||
| 1 | OVERHANG | Project completed for Chinese government (8) |
| OVER (completed) + HAN (Chinese) + G(overnment)
Han was a Chinese dynasty, so “Chinese” may be a little weak as an indicator for HAN? |
||
| 6 | ATTACK | Great tackle stifles goal attempt (6) |
| Hidden in “greAT TACKle” | ||
| 9 | TRIBAL | Representative of “The People’s Bishop” involved in court case (6) |
| B(ishop) “involved in” TRIAL (court case) | ||
| 10 | NATIONAL | News at Ten interrupts a Liberal citizen (8) |
| AT 10 “interrupts” NN (new x2, thus “news”) + A L(iberal), so N(AT 10)N A L | ||
| 11 | FIJI | Low-scoring draw between France and Japan briefly reported in The Nation (4) |
| F(rance) 1 J(apan) 1, so F1J1. 1-1 would be a low-scoring draw in most sports. | ||
| 12 | AIR HOSTESS | She answers a higher calling during turbulent times! (3,7) |
| Cryptic definition
(although I would expect an air hostess to be strapped in during turbulence for her safety, rather than answering calls?) |
||
| 14 | ASPHODEL | Lops head off plant (8) |
| *(lops head) | ||
| 16 | MACE | Blades come from this mighty club! (4) |
| Double definition – mace blades are a spice, and a mace is a large club. | ||
| 18 | AXLE | Rose Cottage finally gets drive connection (4) |
| AXL (Rose) + (cottag)E | ||
| 19 | UNTIMELY | The Spanish mutiny about working early (8) |
| *(mutiny) “about” EL (“the” in Spanish) | ||
| 21 | JUMPING RAT | Horrid giant rodent’s first seen after spring. Horrid giant rodent! (7,3) |
| *(giant r) “seen after” JUMP (spring) | ||
| 22 | CZAR | The last character to be chauffeured, like Julius in St. Petersburg? (4) |
| Z (last character) in CAR (“in car” = chauffeured)
(Julius) Caesar became CZAR in Russia. |
||
| 24 | BLACK EYE | Boycott, opener for England and Yorkshire, gutted to get injury (5,3) |
| BLACK (boycott) + E(ngland) + Y(orkshir)E |
||
| 26 | ORIGIN | Am I to be sacked from paper, folding in the spring? (6) |
| ORIG (am i) + IN | ||
| 27 | STREAK | Sci-fi series rejected pitch featuring a dash of nudity (6) |
| S(tar) TREK “featuring” A | ||
| 28 | SUSPENSE | Tense scenes! Dr. Seuss put in prison! (8) |
| *(seuss) with PEN (prison) “put in” | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | VERDI | Giuseppe burned, shedding skin (5) |
| (o)VERDI(d)
Referring to Giuseppe Verdi, the italian composer of operas such as Aida. |
||
| 3 | RUBBISH HEAP | Dump run down old banger (7,4) |
| RUBBISH (run down) + HEAP (old banger) | ||
| 4, 20 | ALL HANDS ON DECK | The ratings are bound to go up after this broadcast (3,5,2,4) |
| Cryptic definition | ||
| 5 | GENERAL QUARTERS | Quarrel with sergeant about battle order (7,8) |
| *(quarrel sergeant)
“General quarters” is an order on a warship to be ready for action |
||
| 6, 17 | ACTION STATIONS | I toast sanction-busting call to arms (6,8) |
| *(i toast sanction) | ||
| 7 | TWO | Take wickets of openers, getting a pair (3) |
| T(ake) W(ickets) O(f) | ||
| 8 | CLASSICAL | Faithfully recorded Callas performing outside broadcast on Radio Three (9) |
| *(callas) “outside” SIC (faithfully recorded) | ||
| 13 | TIME MACHINE | For the doctor’s travel magazine, a feature penned by Julius (4,7) |
| TIME (magazine) + A CHIN (a feature) “penned by” ME (Julius), so TIME M(A CHIN)E
Referring to the Tardis, Doctor Who’s time machine |
||
| 15 | SEXTUPLET | Randy (a bloke from Riga) picked up a bit of litter (9) |
| Homophone of SEXED UP LETT (as indicated by “picked up”)
I originally had a different (wrong!) parsing of this, so thanks Andrew@comment 1 for putting me straight. |
||
| 17 | See 6 | |
| 20 | See 4 | |
| 23 | ADIOS | Say goodbye to Fatty; take some exercise! (5) |
| ADI(p)OS(e) (fatty – P.E.) | ||
| 25 | CUE | McQueen regularly used a prompt (3) |
| (M)C(Q)U(e)E(n) | ||
*anagram
I think 15d is a homophone of ‘sexed-up lett’.
Andrew@1-absolutely-great clue’Re MACE-you can’t keep a Sheffield dad down!
And JUMPING RAT reminded me that I have just finished re-reading 1984.
Excellent all round. I liked VERDI too.
Glad to see I wasn’t the only one to find this tricky. Lots to enjoy so thank you to Julius and loonapick
Julius is to be twice lauded. Once for giving us this terrific puzzle, and once, given his Olympian status, for having the humility to consort daily with we groundlings in the Graun comment forum.
Another fine puzzle from Julius, and quite a tricky one in places. AXLE was last in after sexed up Lett – those were the only two I had left after doing most of it at lunchtime.
Yes, a tricky puzzle that was worth persevering with. I didn’t get the parsing of 15d until I came here – thank you loonapick and Andrew, and Julius.
Thanks Julius and loonapick
A tough puzzle (and a pangram) that I finished in the early hours of the morning after I started it on the weekend. Good challenging clues with a nice variety of devices used with the homophonic SEXTUPLET my favourite.
Think that you may have been a little harsh at 1a – taking the other definition:
HAN – A member of the largest ethnic group of China, especially as distinguished from Manchus, Mongols, Huis, and other minority nationalities. Also called Chinese.
A couple that I didn’t parse properly were CZAR (hadn’t realised that it was derived from the Roman ‘Caesar’, meaning emperor) and didn’t know of MACE BLADES were the membranes around the nutmeg.
Finished in the SW corner with that SEXTUPLET (after fixing up my Leaping rat to JUMPING RAT), AXLE (after digging into my Guns ‘n’ Roses knowledge) and CZAR (without really understanding the link back to Caesar at the time).
A great puzzle. For the first time ever, we spotted the pangram before completing, which helped us with Czar and Verdi.