Monday Prize Crossword / May 1, 2017
It doesn’t happen very often that we see a Dante on two consecutive Mondays.
Guardian readers are used to have one Rufus after the other, FT customers usually get only half the amount.
I think this puzzle was slightly harder than the previous one.
But maybe not, Dante is Dante, isn’t he?
Definitions are underlined wherever possible and/or appropriate.
| Across | ||
| 1 | REMAND | Send back into custody a chap in debt (6) |
| MAN (a chap) in the RED (in debt) | ||
| 4 | STRENGTH | Full complement of vigour (8) |
| Double definition The first definition as in ‘at full strength’. |
||
| 9 | UPDATE | Modernise at University by appointment (6) |
| UP (at university) + DATE (appointment) | ||
| 10 | GO TO SEED | Decline to visit daughter (2,2,4) |
| GO TO SEE (visit) + D (daughter) | ||
| 12 | HAIL | Frozen waterfall (4) |
| Cryptic definition And actually my first one in! |
||
| 13 | HAVOC | There’s chaos when one plays this (5) |
| To play HAVOC (with) = to cause chaos | ||
| 14 | ODER | Reported fragrance of European flower (4) |
| Homophone [reported] of ODOUR (fragrance) The over 900 km long river, flowing from the Czech Republic to the Baltic Sea, on its way forming part of the German-Polish border. |
||
| 17 | GRAVEDIGGER | Serious Australian sextons? (12) |
| GRAVE (serious) + DIGGER (Australian, esp. an Australian soldier) | ||
| 20 | COST OF LIVING | The death rate? Quite the opposite (4,2,6) |
| Cryptic definition Dante really has an antenna for these kind of things – nice. |
||
| 23 | APEX | Top primate takes the Times (4) |
| APE (primate) + X ((the) times, lower case) | ||
| 24 | USURY | A highly profitable practice (5) |
| (Not so) Cryptic definition – if at all | ||
| 25 | SOLO | But this game is not played by one alone (4) |
| Double definition | ||
| 28 | SHERATON | He produced furniture to another’s design (8) |
| (ANOTHER’S)* [* = design] Thomas Sheraton (1751-1806), English furniture maker. |
||
| 29 | VIENNA | Girl retires after six in foreign city (6) |
| VI (six) + a reversal [retires] of ANNE (girl) | ||
| 30 | TIDINESS | Order put out – I dissent (8) |
| (I DISSENT)* [* = put out] | ||
| 31 | PUNDIT | Learned person makes witticism, spoken in French (6) |
| PUN (witticism) + DIT (spoken, in French) So, Alan Shearer is a learned person? |
||
| Down | ||
| 1 | ROUGHAGE | Having a hard time with indigestible food (8) |
| ROUGH (hard) + AGE (time) | ||
| 2 | MADRIGAL | A mad girl breaks into song (8) |
| (A MAD GIRL)* [* = breaks] | ||
| 3 | NOTE | Any key but one (4) |
| Any ‘note’ but ‘no TE’ It took me ages to see this one. |
||
| 5 | THOROUGHFARE | Complete meals for the road (12) |
| THOROUGH (complete) + FARE (meals) | ||
| 6 | ETON | Where they teach only ten letters of the alphabet? (4) |
| From ‘E to N’, that’s indeed exactly 10 letters | ||
| 7 | GREEDY | Such a person is likely to have too much on his plate (6) |
| Cryptic definition | ||
| 8 | HEDERA | He had a great time with Ivy (6) |
| HE’D (he had) + ERA ((a great?) time) | ||
| 11 | VARIETY SHOWS | All the same, these certainly aren’t (7,5) |
| Cryptic definition I needed quite a few crossing letters before I could enter anything here. |
||
| 15 | BELOW | Live down under (5) |
| BE (live) + LOW (down) Great little clue. |
||
| 16 | GROIN | Part of the body that’s nothing to smile about? (5) |
| GRIN (smile) around O (nothing) | ||
| 18 | DISOWNED | Fed pig inside – refused to acknowledge it (8) |
| SOW (pig) inside DINED (fed) | ||
| 19 | IGNORANT | No rating at sea is lacking in knowledge (8) |
| (NO RATING)* [* = at sea] | ||
| 21 | BASSET | Take a chance, injecting dope in dog (6) |
| BET (take a chance) around ASS (dope) | ||
| 22 | BEHELD | Saw, only to become a prisoner (6) |
| BE HELD (become a prisoner) My last one in, ‘beheld’ as the past tense of the more familiar ‘behold’. |
||
| 26 | DAWN | It develops in the east and breaks round the west (4) |
| (AND)* around W (the west) [* = breaks] | ||
| 27 | LIEU | Place where economy of truth is fashionable (4) |
| LIE (economy of truth) + U (fashionable) If one’s ‘economical with the truth’, one is at least giving somewhat misleading information. Or indeed worse, one’s lying outright. |
||
*anagram
Thanks Dante and Sil
Didn’t find it harder than normal but did find it much more entertaining than his usual fare – and it does sound like we had a very different solving pattern to it.
REMAND was my first one in and I struggled more with the central part of the puzzle with HAVOC, VARIETY SHOWS and USURY the last few in.
I had NOT E as the word play part of 3d, but I think that NO TE is better.
Did notice that the grammar of 17a was not strictly correct – it clues as if there is only one GRAVEDIGGER.