An enjoyable puzzle with some nice surfaces. There is one explanaion that has defeated me. Thank you Chalmie.
| Across | ||
| 1 | CASTANETS | Try and catch fish with special instrument (9) |
| CAST A NET (try and catch fish) with S (special) | ||
| 6 | QUAIL | Shrink bird (5) |
| double definition | ||
| 9 | OUNCE | Cat club official takes off clothes (5) |
| bOUNCEr (club official) missing outer letters (taking off clothes) – a snow leopard, cat | ||
| 10 | TOOK A REST | Heading for Oklahoma, war god’s chariot finally broke (4,1,4) |
| TO (heading for) O (Oaklahoma) ARES (war god) and charioT (final letter of). I get the feeling that “took a rest” is included here only so that it helps the pangram. It feels to me a bit of a non-phrase, like “ate a biscuit” or “had a drink”. Correct English certainly, but not really an expression in its own right. | ||
| 11 | DISPATCHED | Slain director yearned to go round resort (10) |
| D (director) ITCHED(yearned) containing SPA (resort) | ||
| 12 | GHEE | Cooking medium gas found in Georgia (4) |
| HE (Helium, a gas) found in GE (Georgia, IVR code) | ||
| 14 | MATADOR | Animal killer a bit overwhelmed by recovered memory (7) |
| A TAD (bit) inside (overwhelmed by) ROM (computer memory) reversed (recovered) | ||
| 15 | SNOW JOB | Attempt to deceive ski instructor? (4,3) |
| double/cryptic definition | ||
| 17 | KISSING | Just touching American statesman once gets rid of I don’t know what (7) |
| KISSINGer (American statesman) missing ER (I don’t know what) | ||
| 19 | SPANDEX | Congress holds on to power with elastic fibre (7) |
| SEX (congress) contains (holds on to) P (power) AND (with). A nice clue. | ||
| 20 | WENT | Left in the middle of this (4) |
| found in the middle of tWENTy (20, the clue number) | ||
| 22 | GROUND ZERO | Empty gasometer under zoo damaged where the bomb went off (6,4) |
| GasometeR (empty, no middle letters) than anagram (damaged) of UNDER ZOO | ||
| 25 | VERY LIGHT | Flare less than one 9? (4,5) |
| VERY LIGHT (less tha one ounce perhaps) | ||
| 26 | INEPT | Fancy tiepin I lost being clumsy (5) |
| anagram (fancy) of TiE PIN missing I | ||
| 27 | STEED | Avenger’s way to get river flowing backwards (5) |
| ST (street, a way) with DEE (river) reversed (flowing backwards) – John Steed, character fro The Avengers TV series | ||
| 28 | SURFEITED | Scattered fruit seed filled to bursting (9) |
| anagram (scattered) of FRUIT SEED | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | CROWD | Recording includes noise of gate (5) |
| CD (recording) contains ROW (noise) | ||
| 2 | SINUSITIS | Complaint that wrong American protest is cut short and rejected (9) |
| SIN (wrong) US (American) SIT In (protest, cut short) reversed (and rejected) | ||
| 3 | ALEXANDRIA | London palace covers current library site (10) |
| ALEXANDRA (Alexandra Palace, London) contains I (current, electrical symbol) – site of famous ancient library, in Egypt | ||
| 4 | ENTICER | Building in Crete a dubious attraction (7) |
| anagram (building) of IN CRETE | ||
| 5 | SHOWERS | Exhibitors’ point accepted by blacksmiths (7) |
| W (west, point of compass) inside SHOERS (blacksmiths) | ||
| 6 | QUAD | Four-footer throws away fruit, stoned in courtyard (4) |
| I don’t understand this one. Something to do with QUADruped missing RUPED? QUAdrupeD missing DRUPE (botanical term for fleshy fruit containing a central stone, e.g peaches or plums) | ||
| 7 | ALEPH | Hebrew character’s beer bar (5) |
| ALE (beer) and PH (public house, bar) | ||
| 8 | LETTER BOX | Post office facility gets improved security from Spooner (6,3) |
| Spoonerism of “better locks”, improved security. Nice to see a proper Spoonerism that actually means something. | ||
| 13 | ROD AND LINE | Put pressure on about handling uncovered fishing equipment (3,3,4) |
| RODE (put pressure on) containing (about) hANDLINg (uncovered) | ||
| 14 | MAKE WAVES | Cause trouble for mother with garden birds (4,5) |
| MA (mother) with KEW (botanical garden in London) AVES (birds) | ||
| 16 | JUDGEMENT | Bench-warmer people ultimately exhibit good sense (9) |
| JUDGE (bench warmer, someone who sits on The Bench) MEN (people) and exhibiT (ultimately, last letter of) | ||
| 18 | GARAGES | Mechanics here a long time after fish (7) |
| AGES (a long time) following GAR (fish) | ||
| 19 | SPUTTER | Drops come out of second golf club (7) |
| S (second) and PUTTER (golf club). I’m a bit hazy on the definition, I take it as a noun – drops (that have) come out (of something). | ||
| 21 | NURSE | Shark runs around on earth (5) |
| anagram (around) of RUNS then E (Earth) – a type of shark. I like the apparently contradictory definition. | ||
| 23 | OUTED | Youth body journalist exposed (5) |
| yOUTh (body, inside letters of) than ED (editor, journalist) | ||
| 24 | FLED | Missed target as sloth escaped and ran away (4) |
| FaiLED (missed target) missing AI (a sloth) | ||
definitions are underlined
I write these posts to help people get started with cryptic crosswords. If there is something here you do not understand ask a question; there are probably others wondering the same thing.
6d is QUAdrupeD, a drupe being a stoned fruit such as a peach.
A fantastic solve, I thought. I am not aware that ‘enticer’ is dubious as in 4d but am willing to accept it. Lots of clues that took some thinking, such as F(AI)LED, with that sloth much loved by scrabble players, and WENT, which was my LOI. Also liked ‘judge’ as ‘bench-warmer’. Many thanks to Chalmie for the challenge and PeeDee for the blog.
I enjoyed this pangram from Chalmie. Thanks also to PeeDee for the blog.
6d is ‘quadruped’ minus ‘drupe’ ie. ‘fruit, stoned’ so leaving quad as the definition of courtyard.
Thanks PeeDee and commenters.
I’ll suggest that “take a rest” is an expression, and that it’s therefore reasonable to change the tense. I’d also say that “have(/had) a drink” is more of a well-known phrase than “ate a biscuit”; I’d agree that the hypothetical biscuit entry would be rather off – unless it was the answer to a literary allusion or some general knowledge question.
But it’s a matter of taste, I reckon.
Thanks for that Chalmie. I was just wondering if you would have picked this if you were not needing the pangram, or if you would have passed it over and chosen some other combination for that corner. Not intended as a criticism, just a comment.
Without wishing to seem rude, it’s quite easy to get rid of that phrase whilst retaining the pangram, with TESTAMENT and SISTERS/ SYSTEMS/ SESTETS.
@PeeDee Since there’s a K elsewhere in the puzzle, that was not a consideration. As I implied, the phrase didn’t cause me even a second’s thought (except on how to clue it).
Why is AI a sloth and why is Flare “very light”, please?
Magdalena
From Chambers:
ai
noun
The three-toed sloth
Very light or Verey light
noun
A signalling or illuminating coloured flare fired from a pistol (Very pistol)
Hello Magdalena
The Ai is a three-toed sloth sloth that lives in Brazil, also called the maned sloth. A Very Light was a type of flare fired from a hand-held gun, used for distress flares or wartime battlefield illumination.
Gaufrid beat me to it.
Thanks Chalmie and PeeDee
Did this one on the day but haven’t had the chance to check it off until now. Found it a fun puzzle that didn’t take me as long as it usually does for this setter, although there were a couple of clues that did give some trouble with the parsing – WENT (just didn’t see the connection to the clue number – usually do with these sort of clues) and ALEXANDRIA (it just had to be – but didn’t know the palace nor the ancient library in Alexandra). Did find the ‘drupe’ in 6d which pleased.
SPANDEX was the other unknown word but it was easy enough to get from the wordplay after remembering that definition of ‘congress’ . Missed the pangram (again) !