I have blogged a couple of Wiglaf’s EV puzzles, but I think this is the first of his/her ‘straight’ cryptics I have had the pleasure of covering…
And all fairly straightforward to begin with…a nice steady solve until I hit 19A, 16D and 19D.
16D took me a whole to spot the VG in the middle of ‘noVGorod’ – very good!
19D – eventually, once I realised 1A wasn’t a reference to 1A but IA – very good!
19A was my LOI – not helped by STEELIE (large marble, taw, or alley) not being in any of my paper or electronic versions of Chambers (I have just received the latest hardback version for a recent ‘significant’ birthday, but it is still in its cellophane wrapper…obviously time to rip that off and see if this marble is in there!…)
No particular theme or Nina that I can see – I enjoyed the three clues mentioned above, and 10A with its ‘treatment’ for ‘piles’!…
All good fun – thanks to Wiglaf…and grateful for any comments/corrections on the below…
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 1A | TOSH | Pants for mum (4) | Pants (rubbish) / TO (for) + SH (mum, silent) |
|
| 3A | GOINGS-ON | Working boy’s suspicious behaviour (6-2) | suspicious behaviour / GOING (working) + SON (boy) |
|
| 10A | NUCLEAR REACTORS | Rear view of a Parisian with carrots and cereal for treating piles (7,8) | piles / NU (un, a, French, or Parisian, viewed in reverse) + CLEAR REACTOR (anag, i.e. treating, of CARROTS & CEREAL) |
|
| 11A | CLOTH EARS | Dimwit pays heed? Not this one (5,4) | not this one/&lit-ish CD? / CLOT (dimwit) + HEARS (pays heed) |
|
| 12A | OWNS | Maintaining wife, supported by special grants (4) | grants / O_N (supported by) around (maintaining) W (wife) + S (special) |
|
| 13A | TARNISH | Rock star in hot spot (7) | spot / TARNIS (anag, i.e. rock, of STAR IN) + H (hot) |
|
| 15A | ENTIRE | Whole collection of books discovered in Ireland (6) | whole / E_IRE (Ireland) around NT (New Testament, collection of books) |
|
| 17A | SPRAWL | Superman will occasionally sit in an ungainly manner (6) | sit in an ungainly manner / alternate letters, i.e. occasionally, of ‘SuPeRmAn WiLl’ |
|
| 19A | STEELIE | The sound of Take That is coming from this alley (7) | alley (marble) / STEEL (homophone, sounds like steal, or take) + IE (that is) |
|
| 20A | DELI | Type of shop that made lipsmacking sandwiches (4) | CD? / type of shop / hidden word in, i.e. sandwiched by, ‘maDE LIpsmacking ‘ |
|
| 21A | NECROLOGY | Rolls Royce with long death announcement (9) | death announcement / anag, i.e. rolls, of ROYCE + LONG |
|
| 24A | LUIGI PIRANDELLO | Writer’s guild negotiated with April O’Neil (5,10) | writer / anag, i.e. negotiated, of GUILD + APRIL O’NEIL |
|
| 25A | KINGSTON | Man accompanies boy round the northern capital (8) | capital (of Jamaica) / KING (chess piece, man) + S_ON (boy) around T (contraction of ‘the’ in the North) |
|
| 26A | BRED | Raised money during speech (4) | raised / homophone, i.e. during speech – BRED (raised) sounds like BREAD (money) |
|
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 1D | TENACITY | Doggedness shown by number one team from Manchester (8) | doggedness / TEN (number) + A (one) + CITY (football team from Manchester – other football teams can be called ‘city’ as well!) |
|
| 2D | SICKO | Oscar-winning Kevin Costner for starters is backing Michael Moore film (5) | Michael Moore film / OKC (staritng letters of Oscar-winning Kevin Costner) + IS – all reversed, or backing |
|
| 4D | OVERSEE | What supervisor has to do during the main broadcast (7) | what supervisor has to do / OVER (during) + SEE (homophone, i.e. Broadcast, of SEA, or the main) |
|
| 5D | NECK OF THE WOODS | Make out sylvan area (4,2,3,5) | area / NECK (make out, kiss) + OF THE WOODS (sylvan) |
|
| 6D | SCOUNDREL | Rogue caught cracking safe’s about to face term in jail (9) | rogue / S_OUND (safe) around (cracked by) C (caught), plus RE (about) + L (terminal letter of jaiL) |
|
| 7D | NOSY | Curious numbers close to infinity (4) | curious / NOS (no., number, in plural) + Y (closing letter of inifinitY) |
|
| 8D | TECHNICALITIES | Time to visit Chilean cities after working out minor details (14) | minor details / TECHNICALI_IES (anag, i.e. working out, of CHILEAN CITIES), around (visited by) T (time) |
|
| 9D | BREATH | The last thing Picasso drew? (6) | &lit-ish CD charade? / Just before he died, Picasso must have drawn his last BREATH! |
|
| 14D | REPLETION | Dicky let one rip in overabundant fullness (9) | fullness / anag, i.e. dicky, of LET ONE RIP |
|
| 16D | VERY GOOD | Wizard briefly seen in Novgorod (4,4) | wizard (excellent!) / hidden abbreviation! noVGorod contains VG – an abbreviation of VERY GOOD |
|
| 18D | LENTIGO | Funny tingle round freckle (7) | freckle / LENTIG (anag, i.e. funny, of TINGLE) + O (round) |
|
| 19D | SOCIAL | Do 16d and 1a in class (6) | do (party, gathering) / SO (very good, see 16D) + C_L (class) around IA (1A, not a reference to 1 across!) |
|
| 22D | OGLER | One eyes untidy glory hole overlooking holy ground (5) | one eyes (lecherously!) / subtractive double anagram! OGLER is an anagram (i.e. untidy) of GLOR(Y HOL)E minus YHOL (anag, i.e. ground, of HOLY) |
|
| 23D | FLAK | Eccentric earl dispensed with stick (4) | stick (when given, as ‘a bit of stick’) / FLAK(E) – eccentric (American informal), minus (dispensing with) E (earl) |
|
Sorry.This didnt float my boat
I thought this was great stuff. Medium level for me, but accessible at first and engaging until it finally beat me by the two 19s. Loads of fun and clever clues make it difficult to pick a COD so my honours go to the puzzle in its totality. Cheers to Wiglaf for a super crossie and to the man spitting on the mike for the blog.
Sheesh, that was tough. I guessed Steelie from the cryptic part then resorted to google to find it was a marble and so is alley. I remember seeing ‘term’ used for the last letter, as in 6d, awhile back, which I think is archaic. ‘T’ for ‘the northern’ in 25a took me some time to spot. Favourites were 9d and 14d.
Quite a few that needed teasing out, and I was held up for ages having put – albeit tentatively – ‘dumb’ for 1ac (taking ‘pants’ to mean ‘stupid’ and ‘mum’ to mean ‘silent’). A real aha moment when I twigged that I needed to ‘lift and separate’ Take That, then knowing that an alley could be a marble I guessed STEELIE. I knew ‘the northern’ as quite an old crossword device, although I haven’t come across it for ages – maybe on the principle of buses it’ll crop up two or three times in the next week or so?
Several that I couldn’t parse, so thanks, mc_rapper67 – and thanks, too, to Wiglaf.
Thanks for the comments/feedback – a mixture of responses, 3 to 1 in favour!…