Quick and painless from Crux this morning, though not without some wit and style.
Unforced surfaces and a couple of wry smiles, 9a a favourite. Thanks to him.
| Across | ||
| 1 | BEWILDER | Show more excitement, as a setter might (8) |
| BE WILDER (‘show more excitement’). It is Crux’s intention to ‘bewilder’ us. Not quite this time. | ||
| 5 | OCCULT | Cryptic clue almost solved in a month (6) |
| Anagram (‘solved’) of CLUe, shortened, in OCT[ober]. | ||
| 9 | HALF PINT | Pi possibly used in measurement of capacity (4-4) |
| PI is half of PINT. Neat. | ||
| 10, 16 | BEETLE CRUSHER | Compact car and what makes it even more so – a big boot! (6,7) |
| BEETLE (‘compact car’) and CRUSHER, which would certainly reduce its volume. | ||
| 12 | NOMAD | Rover barking after devious doctor (5) |
| MAD (‘barking’) after Dr. NO, the Bond villain. | ||
| 13 | BOHEMIANS | Braque’s first maison he converted for the Bloomsbury Group, say (9) |
| B[raque] then anag. (‘converted’) of MAISON HE, for the literary circle known for its, ahem, lack of strict conformity with Edwardian moral convention. | ||
| 14 | PAROLE | Word of honour given by pleb about article (6) |
| PROLE around A. | ||
| 16 | See 10 | |
| 19 | HATCHET | The object of a postwar internment (7) |
| Crytic def. After a conflict, one might ‘bury the hatchet’. (Crux clearly means ‘interment’: ‘burial’ rather than ‘imprisonment’. Doubtless a transcription error.) | ||
| 21 | BOFORS | AA gun force captured by peasants (6) |
| BOORS (South Arican farmers, ‘peasants’, same root as ‘Boer’) holds F[orce]. Bofors was originally a Swedish company, though the gun was German-designed. | ||
| 23 | TURN ROUND | Make revolutionary move to rescue from bankruptcy? (4,5) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 25 | FIBRE | Lie about one’s dietary requirement (5) |
| FIB (‘lie’) + RE[garding], or ‘about’. | ||
| 26 | MAMMAL | Cricket isn’t one but bat is (6) |
| Cryptic def from the animal (not sporting) world. | ||
| 27 | CORRECTS | Uses white fluid (or red ink, traditionally) (8) |
| Sort-of D.D., depending on whether you’re ‘correcting’ with Tipp-Ex or marking homework. | ||
| 28 | STAFFS | Bodies of teachers found in the Midlands (6) |
| Rather gruesome double def (inc. abbr. of ‘Staffordshire’). | ||
| 29 | IMMERSED | I would take in a r-river briefly, getting soaked (8) |
| I’D (‘I would’) includes a stuttering River M-MERSEy, curtailed. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1, 18 | BEHIND THE TIMES | Old-fashioned, like Murdoch is, proprietorially (6,3,5) |
| Double def, 2nd part cryptic. | ||
| 2 | WELL-MEANT | Spring’s average temperature can be kind, hopefully (4-5) |
| WELL (‘spring’) + MEAN (‘average’) + T[emperature]. | ||
| 3 | LOPED | Moved quickly, and also spread evenly (5) |
| Alternate letters (‘evenly’) of ‘aLsO sPrEaD’. | ||
| 4 | ENNOBLE | Make someone count, for example (7) |
| CD. | ||
| 6 | CREAM PUFF | Yellowish smoke made by pastry cook (5,4) |
| CREAM (‘yellowish’) + PUFF (‘smoke’). | ||
| 7 | ULTRA | A cult rarely admits its extremist element (5) |
| Inclusion (‘admits’) in ‘a cULT RArely’). | ||
| 8 | TREASURE | Exchange rate guaranteed to yield a fortune (8) |
| Anag. (‘exchange’) of RATE + SURE (‘guaranteed’). | ||
| 11 | CHIC | With it a bird lacks perception (4) |
| CHICKEN (‘a bird’) without KEN (‘perception’). | ||
| 15 | OTHER HALF | Husband or wife has the rest of 9, maybe (5,4) |
| Double def of two informal phrases. | ||
| 17 | HARDBACKS | Tough players on the team’s books (9) |
| HARD (‘tough’) + BACKS (‘players on the team’). | ||
| 18 | See 1 | |
| 20 | TOUT | He may sell tickets for everything French (4) |
| Double def, French ‘tout’ = all (‘everything’ in borrowed phrases such as tout de suite). | ||
| 21, 25 | BEDROOM FARCE | Strangely cambered roof required for this comedy (7,5) |
| Anag. (‘strangely’) of ‘cambered roof’. Sad to hear of Brian Rix’s recent demise, seemed like a decent chap. | ||
| 22 | LEASED | Let out, is glad to go topless (6) |
| pLEASED (‘glad’) without its top letter in this Down clue. | ||
| 24 | RUMBA | Unusual airline is Latin- American (5) |
| Example of music rhythm, given by RUM (‘unusual’) + BA, the ‘airline’. | ||
| 25 | See 21 | |
*anagram
At 3D, I’ve never before equated “lope” with moving quickly, although I suppose it’s faster than walking, either for a horse or a human. For that reason until I worked out wordplay of 3D and 9A after taking a short break, the NW corner had taken me half as long as the rest of the grid. I didn’t get 19A right off either because of the misprint. A nice puzzle, though. Thanks for keeping up the Tuesday blog.
Ignorance has its rewards – I didn’t know the difference between ‘internment’ and ‘interment’ (I do now) so I thought I was pretty clever in being able to work out 19, typo and all. Enjoyable and not too hard with BEWILDER, HALF PINT and the surface of 21,25 being my picks. Never heard of BEETLE CRUSHER but I like the term, if not the image it conjures up!
Thanks to Grant and Crux.
I had ‘stiffs’ for the longest time at 28ac, until I sussed ‘rumba’! An enjoyable solve. Thanks to Crux and Go.
Thanks Crux and Grant
Nice puzzle and a spot on blog. All went in pretty smoothly until I got to BOFORS which took nearly as long as the rest of the puzzle. Hadn’t heard of that gun and had to work back from the word play to get it in the end – initially looking to see if there was a BOFERS gun.
Didn’t pick up on the wording for BURY and thought that the clue was the pick of a good bunch.
I had all the solutions but came here with 19a, 21a and 29a unparsed. I didn’t get the wit of HALF PINT at the time so the blog meant I reappraised my view of the clue. My favourite was BEETLE CRUSHER – I spent some time convinced it was LITTLE something until I gave up trying to come up with a pastry C_I_M and went for the more obvious CREAM! Really nice misdirection with car and boot.
I’m not a daily FT solver so this is the first Crux I’ve come across – thank you for
a fun puzzle and to you for the blog Grant.