Monday Prize Crossword / Oct 23, 2017
Enjoyable Falcon puzzle (in his familiar, very accessible style) to enliven my Monday breakfast.
Mostly undemanding but 15ac (which I thought was very good), the greasy spoon part of 13d and the expression at 3d held me up in the end.
I sometimes like simple clues the most: good examples being 18ac, 2d and the very apt 6ac.
I always appreciate Falcon throwing in some cinematography, and he did once more!
Definitions are underlined wherever possible and/or appropriate.
| Across | ||
| 1 | PENTATHLON | Writer, 50, on about that cracking athletics competition (10) |
| PEN (writer) + L (50) + ON, together around (THAT)* [* = cracking] | ||
| 6 | GRAF | Wimbledon champion’s good service (4) |
| G (good) + RAF (service, Royal Air Force) Between 1987 and 1999 Steffi Graf won 22 Grand Slam titles, 7 of which at Wimbledon. |
||
| 9 | RINGLEADER | Mastermind: circle editor’s article (10) |
| RING (circle) + LEADER (editor’s article) | ||
| 10 | AGRA | Runs into commander in Indian city (4) |
| R (runs) inside AGA (commander, usually Turkish) | ||
| 12 | IN THE BALANCE | At a critical stage then, Cain and Abel tangled (2,3,7) |
| (THEN + CAIN + ABEL)* [* = tangled] | ||
| 15 | CLEPSYDRA | Dry places, not right for this to work (9) |
| (DRY PLACES)* [* = not right] This was my LOI. Had to look it up as I had never heard of this word. But it’s a clever anagram clue. A clepsydra is a water-clock, and therefore the clue as a whole should be seen as the definition (but it’s not an &lit). |
||
| 17 | CABIN | Taxi home leaving simple dwelling (5) |
| CAB (taxi) + IN (home) | ||
| 18 | FELON | Some lifelong criminal (5) |
| Hidden answer [some]: lifelong | ||
| 19 | RED MULLET | Radical hairstyle for swimmer? (3,6) |
| RED (radical) + MULLET (hairstyle) A fish. |
||
| 20 | ONE-TRACK MIND | Obsession of individual recording soul (3-5,4) |
| ONE (individual) + TRACK (recording) + MIND (soul) | ||
| 24 | DONE | Accomplished daughter, single (4) |
| D (daughter) + ONE (single) | ||
| 25 | MONTPELIER | Rent limo travelling round outskirts of Providence, state capital (10) |
| (RENT LIMO)* around P[rovidenc]E [* = travelling] Montpelier (with only one L …) is the state capital of Vermont. Not even 10,000 people live there! |
||
| 26 | ROSE | Flower sprang up (4) |
| Double definition | ||
| 27 | CYBERSPACE | Scrape by somehow, cocooned by church and artificial environment? (10) |
| (SCRAPE BY)* inside CE (church) [* = somehow] | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | PARE | The old man, extremely rude, is cut off (4) |
| PA (the old man) + R[ud]E | ||
| 2 | NON-U | Improper noun, not socially acceptable (3-1) |
| (NOUN)* [* = improper] I can appreciate a simple find like ‘improper noun’. |
||
| 3 | ALL AND SUNDRY | Everyone duly ran off across docks (3,3,6) |
| (DULY RAN)* around LANDS (docks, as a verb) [* = off] | ||
| 4 | HEATH | Former PM having pressure put on hospital (5) |
| HEAT (pressure) + H (hospital) Sir Edward Heath (1916-2005), Conservative PM in the first half of the seventies. |
||
| 5 | OVERBOARD | Like company chairman in need of a lifeline? (9) |
| A company chairman stands above (OVER) the group of directors (BOARD) | ||
| 7 | RAGING BULL | Film first of refugees getting on, well-built man (6,4) |
| R[efugees] + AGING (getting on) + BULL (well-built man) Martin Scorsese film featuring Robert de Niro: Raging Bull . |
||
| 8 | FRATERNITY | Angry quarrel about it after rent crippled social club (10) |
| FRAY (angry quarrel) around {IT positioned under (RENT)*} [* = crippled] I had all the crossers and then decided that it could only be FRATERNITY. The parsing took a few more seconds as I was somewhat thrown by the fact that all the letters of ‘after’ are in there as well. |
||
| 11 | ALEC GUINNESS | Actor could be genuine class, if trained (4,8) |
| (GENUINE CLASS)* [* = trained] | ||
| 13 | SCAFFOLDER | Rigger in small greasy spoon, not so young (10) |
| S (small) + CAFF (greasy spoon, a cheap and often shabby café) + OLDER (not so young) | ||
| 14 | REAL TENNIS | Actual number above son in climbing game (4,6) |
| REAL (actual) + TEN (number) + reversal [climbing] of {S (son) + IN} | ||
| 16 | DIRECTORY | Register serious complaint, primarily over Conservative (9) |
| DIRE (serious) + C[omplaint] + TORY (Conservative) | ||
| 21 | MITRE | Starts to moan, injuring the right elbow joint (5) |
| Starting letters [starts] of: moan injuring the right elbow | ||
| 22 | VISA | Head of security getting in by way of official pass (4) |
| S[ecurity] inside VIA (by way of) | ||
| 23 | BRIE | Using few words, female rejected cheese (4) |
| BRIEF (using few words) minus F (female) | ||
*anagram
Thanks Falcon and Sil
An enjoyable puzzle that didn’t actually take all that long to finish, but felt that it did !!
CLEPSYDRA is one of those words that I sort of know – after it falls out! I know that it is a water based time piece, but I can never remember the exact word for it.
MONTPELIER is one of those lesser known US state capitals – personally don’t know all that much about Vermont at all.
Hadn’t come across the game of REAL TENNIS before and it was the last one in.