Another pleasantly satisfying puzzle from Hamilton, with one very minor quibble.
I wouldn’t say it was unfair but do others agree that the hidden anagram in 8 down is un-conventional? Or is it just me being picky? It didn’t spoil a pretty enjoyable solve, with 23 a favourite for leading me up the garden path for a bit. Thanks to Hamilton.
| Across | ||
| 1 | PHARMACY | Army chap hurt but help may be at hand (8) |
| Anagram (‘hurt’) of ARMY CHAP, with cryptic definition of what a wounded soldier might need. | ||
| 5 | SCORCH | Put paid to time out, assuming river will dry up (6) |
| SCOtCH (‘put paid to’), with T[ime] out), but including (‘assuming’) R[iver]. | ||
| 9 | KNITTING | Coming together for handicraft (8) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 10, 16 | FLYING FORTRESS | Hurried defence of airborne transport (6,8) |
| FLYING (‘hurried’, as in ‘a flying visit’) + FORTRESS (‘defence’). | ||
| 11 | RHETORIC | Eloquence of mutinous choirmasters missing Mass (8) |
| Anagram (‘mutinous’) of ‘CHOIRmasTERs’ with letters of ‘mass’ removed. | ||
| 12 | WISDOM | Prudence and Norman (6) |
| Double def., Norman WISDOM being the English comedian and actor of the ’40s & ’50s and sometime prospective president of Albania. | ||
| 14 | PEPPERCORN | Attack on old-fashioned stuff of little value (10) |
| PEPPER ‘(attack’) and CORN (‘old-fashioned stuff’) to give the nominal consideration which makes a gift valid in contract law. | ||
| 18 | PROVIDENCE | Foresight of US vice-president welcoming first Roman poet (10) |
| Mike PENCE, current U.S. Veep surrounds R[oman] OVID (‘poet’). | ||
| 22 | RETAKE | Shoot again at alien found during search (6) |
| ET (‘alien’) in RAKE (to ‘search’). | ||
| 23 | FAIR GAME | Ping pong fish bowls – a legitimate target? (4,4) |
| Sort-of double def.: throwing ping-pong balls into fishbowls is one game played at a fair. | ||
| 24 | TEEPEE | Spooner’s exercises set up on the reservation (6) |
| P[hysical] T[raining] might be pronounced ‘Tee Pee’ by his Reverence. | ||
| 25 | DISCRETE | Separate from backward lad on Mediterranean island (8) |
| SID[ney], a ‘lad’, reversed, + CRETE. | ||
| 26 | DESIST | Stop tree being uprooted from shadowy side street (6) |
| Anagram (‘shadowy’) of SIDE StreeT, ‘tree’ having been removed. | ||
| 27 | IMPROPER | Hamilton’s right out of place (8) |
| I’M (i.e., Hamilton our setter is) + PROPER (‘right’). | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | PAKORA | Said group has suggestion for Indian food (6) |
| Homophones (‘said’) of PACK (‘group’) and AURA (‘suggestion’). | ||
| 2 | ARISEN | Got up in Paris, enlivened (6) |
| Inclusion in ‘pARIS ENlivened’. | ||
| 3, 17 | MOTION SICKNESS | Throwing up proposal to disgusted head (6,8) |
| MOTION (‘proposal’) + SICK (‘disgusted’) + NESS (‘head’). | ||
| 4 | CANTILEVER | Question – “aren’t I able to use force?” – needs support (10) |
| Cryptically, first 7 words = CAN’T I LEVER? | ||
| 6 | COLLIERY | The dog on the track is mine (8) |
| COLLIE (‘dog’) + R[ailwa]Y (‘track’). | ||
| 7 | RAINDROP | One may herald the approach of cats and dogs! (8) |
| Jocular cryptic def. | ||
| 8 | HEGEMONY | Moved home, for example, to US state dominance (8) |
| Anagram (‘moved’) of HOME & EG (‘for example’), then N[ew] Y[ork]. Not that this was at all hard, but I thought that ‘remote’ anagrams were uncanonical. Here, the EG is not before our eyes to be re-arranged with HOME, which is. Just saying. | ||
| 13 | SPECIALISM | CIA slips me new material on my pet subject (10) |
| Anagram (‘new’) of CIA SLIPS ME. | ||
| 15 | SPIRITED | Determined to encourage journalist (8) |
| SPIRIT (to ‘encourage’ as verb, Chambers confirms) + ED[itor]. | ||
| 16 | See 10 | |
| 17 | See 3 | |
| 19 | GROCER | Reported excessively offensive dealer (6) |
| Homophone (‘reported’) of GROSSER (‘excessively offensive’). | ||
| 20 | MADE UP | Imagined being over the moon (4,2) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 21 | VENEER | Scenes 3-5 in version of Camouflage (6) |
| Letters 3, 4 & 5 of scENEs in VER[sion], tho’ Chambers doesn’t have the abbreviation. | ||
*anagram
No problem with HEGEMONY.
Found this harder than normal for Hamilton but all the more enjoyable to complete. Thought TEEPEE was a great clue once I got it – my LOI. Wasn’t convinced that MADE UP, rather than just UP, could mean ‘over the moon’. Also no issue with HEGEMONY.
Thanks Hamilton & GB
No problem with HEGEMONY here either, as strictly NY isn’t part of the fodder.
Hovis @ 2: MADE UP in the sense of ‘excited’ was certainly common currency in the North West when I was living there.
No problem with hegemony, but 14, 19, 20, 21, & 23 were utterly dreadful.
To Phil @4
Nope, had no probs with any o’ them.
But, to the rest of yez, I will rise to the bait re EG as anagram-fodder in 8d HEGEMONY (otherwise what’s a blogger for?).
1. It was an easy clue but that’s not the point.
2. The fodder was for the letters EG and the indicators were ‘for instance’. So it’s a ‘remote’ anagram, an anagram of letters which aren’t in the clue. I’ll say again: it couldn’t have been easier but:
3. Let’s say the letters sought were not EG but LEG, one letter different. And let’s say that the indicator was ‘limb’. We’d all have been up in arms!
4. Where’s Sil when you need him…?
I take your point GB but I do think EG being an abbreviation is a long way from LIMB as a ‘synonym’ – obviously not a synonym but here but you get my point. It’s not a lot different than points of the compass being used as anagram fodder imho but written in full in the clue. As a side note, I sometimes wonder about the letter O being clued by the number 0 as this is not a Roman numeral unlike I,C,D etc.
Phil @ 4
Per the site policy, “The reason for any dissatisfaction should be clearly indicated.”
Yours are?
After another sunny day of walking in the countryside, I printed off this puzzle and spent some 30+ minutes on it (before Liverpool took the stage).
So, where am I when someone apparently needs me?
(my private life could do with something like that 🙂 )
I wasn’t too bothered about 8d and what we might call an ‘indirect anagram’.
Only last Friday, we had a minor discussion about it at this place.
It is there where I made clear where I stand.
These kind of anagram fodders are only acceptable if the ‘indirect’ part is completely obvious.
I think it is here (as it was in Wanderer’s puzzle, at least in the clue we discussed).
En principe, as the French say, indirect anagrams are not on as the very knowledgable crypticsue explained last week.
But if we do not allow what Hamilton did today, we should trash quite a lot of clues from e.g. Alberich – one of the most Ximenean setters around.
What worries me more is ‘first Roman’ for R (18ac) – this alone makes Hamilton drop out of my Top-Whatever.
And what is the word ‘Question’ doing in 4d?
I am not sure whether I liked TEEPEE (24ac) or not, mainly because I do not like (vague) ‘half definitions’ like set up on the reservation.
While I got 1d (PAKORA) I wondered about the ORA bit.
‘Aura’ = ‘suggestion’ is only given by the Chambers and Collins thesauri in position 5+.
Fair enough, perhaps, though.
I couldn’t finish sub-puzzle #4 (the SE) and I am not sure 21d is brilliant.
Does ‘Scenes 3-5’ really mean ENE?
My real objection, however, is ‘version’ = Ver.’.
It is only supported by Collins, and only in compound abbreviations like ‘Auth.Ver.’ (= ‘Authorized Version’).
Unlike Simon S @7 I am not annoyed by Phil’s comment @4.
What kind of silly clue is 23ac?
Really gettable when you have only the first A as a crosser?
Hmmm.
Thanks Grant for finishing (and blogging) a crossword that I couldn’t.
And, despite my minuses, thanks to Hamilton.
An anagram of ‘home for example’ does not produce HEGEMO. And then there’s the ‘to’ hanging around doing nothing.
I like Sil’s post too, so not a great day at the FT.
Thanks Hamilton and Grant
Did this one the day after and unlike some here, thought that it was hard, enjoyable and imminently gettable. Skipped straight through HEGEMONY without a second thought about whether it was EG spelled out for me or that I had to derive it from ‘for example’.
Similarly, not sure about the criticism with FAIR GAME, which I got very early in the first half dozen or so, without knowing the carnival game of throwing ping pong balls into fish bowls. Does it really matter whether you can get it with just one crossing letter or that you need all of them before being able to fully solve it. Was lucky with it being a term used quite often here.
I had most trouble with TEEPEE where I had initially written in TEPEES and causing trouble with getting the FORTRESS part of 10,16.