An enjoyable challenge for a Tuesday from Radian this week.
Regulars will be aware that Tuesdays are often ‘Theme Day’ and this was no exception. We were looking for a nina at first when we saw the grid but it wasn’t until we solved 9d early on that we realised that we had an Alice in Wonderland theme – Joyce really enjoyed reading the story when she was younger.
We were both stumped for a while on the parsing for 5ac. We were looking for CRET as a synonym for ‘cellar’ until the penny dropped – DOH! Life was also made more difficult in writing up the blog when Joyce added an E in FLAMINGOS. It was solved by Bert originally and she was about to ask for help until another penny dropped.
It might be stretching it a bit but we found the following themed items:
DOORS (17ac) – In Chapter 1 after following the white RABBIT (6d) into a hole she fell down a well. As she fell, she saw a jar labelled Orange MARMALADE (15d). She then came into a curious hall with many locked DOORS. She also DRANK (3d) from a bottle which made her shrink.
GROWING (29ac) – After eating a cake, she wakes up in Chapter 2 to find that she keeps GROWING until her head hits the ceiling.
LIZARD ( 22d) – The gardener in Chapter 4 is called Bill the LIZARD who is ordered to go down the chimney by the RABBIT (6d) as Alice is still GROWING. At the end of the chapter she meets a caterpillar smoking a HOOKAH (12ac).
CROQUET – Alice was CHALLENGEd (10ac) to a game of croquet with the QUEEN OF HEARTS (9d) using FLAMINGOS (14ac) in Chapter 8.
LOBSTER (20d) QUADRILLE (7d) – This dance in Chapter 10 involves the GRYPHON (21d) and the Mock Turtle.
VERDICT (1ac) – Alice gave evidence at a trial in Chapter 12 before waking up from her SLEEP (16ac).
The book’s EPIGRAPH (13ac) begins :
All in the golden afternoon
Full leisurely we glide;
For both our oars, with little skill,
By little hands are plied,
While little hands make vain pretence
Our wanderings to guide.
Thanks Radian – Joyce really enjoyed checking out the themed items – We hope we haven’t missed any.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | Finding man who scored on court (7) | |
| VERDICT | VERDI (man who scored – music) CT (court) | |
| 5 | Game old queen confined in cellar (7) | |
| CROQUET | O (old) Q (queen) inside CRUET (cellar as in salt cellar) | |
| 10 | Vocal group‘s rhyming pattern? (4) | |
| ABBA | Double definition | |
| 11 | Album’s thin, customised for reduced images (10) | |
| THUMBNAILS | Anagram of ALBUM’S THIN – anagrind is ‘customised’ | |
| 12 | Player in front row picked up pipe (6) | |
| HOOKAH | Sounds like or ‘picked up’ HOOKER (player in front row in rugby) | |
| 13 | Record one German count read out inscription (8) | |
| EPIGRAPH | EP (record as in extended play) I (one) sounds like or ‘read out’ GRAF (German word for a count) | |
| 14 | Flyers China sent into fine neighbouring state (9) | |
| FLAMINGOS | MING (China) ‘sent’ inside F (fine) LAOS (neighbouring state) | |
| 16 | Doze in shelter without kids running round (5) | |
| SLEEP | LEE (shelter) with SP (sine prole – without issue) outside or ‘running round’ | |
| 17 | Cross about small means of access (5) | |
| DOORS | ROOD (cross) reversed or ‘about’ S (small) | |
| 19 | Dare everyone to enter cold old enclosure (9) | |
| CHALLENGE | ALL (everyone) inside or ‘entering’ C (cold) HENGE (old enclosure) | |
| 23 | Asiatic winds over Cape producing pain (8) | |
| SCIATICA | An anagram of ASIATIC – anagrind is ‘winds’ around or ‘over’ C (Cape) | |
| 24 | Cheers extras (3-3) | |
| BYE-BYE | BYE (extra) BYE (extra) | |
| 26 | Sound of gunfire artillery spread 5 times over 3 areas (3-1-3-3) | |
| RAT-A-TAT-TAT | RA (artillery) T (Time) repeated five times round three As (areas) | |
| 27 | Upset, fooled by Latin storyteller (4) | |
| DAHL | HAD (fooled) reversed or ‘upset’ L (Latin) | |
| 28 | After a couple of days finish a book’s appendices (7) | |
| ADDENDA | A DD ( a couple of days) END (finish) A | |
| 29 | Alice keeps this Greek in debt (7) | |
| GROWING | GR (Greek) OWING (in debt) | |
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | Mobile goes off crossing river and mire (7) | |
| EMBROIL | An anagram of MOBILE – anagrind is ‘goes off’ round or ‘crossing’ R (river) | |
| 3 | Democrat, lush, did what a lush does (5) | |
| DRANK | D (Democrat) RANK (we assume this must be ‘lush’ but we can’t really find any reference to this as a synonym) | |
| 4 | Become popular, so can’t be fired? (5,2) | |
| CATCH ON | With the CATCH ON a gun cannot be fired | |
| 6 | Start to read a little about black yak (6) | |
| RABBIT | R (first letter or ‘start’ to read) A BIT (little) about B (black) | |
| 7 | Old writer, English, hugs a medic in dance (9) | |
| QUADRILLE | QUILL (old writer) E (English) around or ‘hugging’ A DR (medic) | |
| 8 | Obscure bits of film stored in tablets (7) | |
| ECLIPSE | CLIPS (bits of film) inside E E (tablets) | |
| 9 | She plays 5 with 14 and often has queer bust (5,2,6) | |
| QUEEN OF HEARTS | An anagram of OFTEN HAS QUEER – anagrind is ‘bust’ | |
| 15 | Preserve weapon given to a boy in Middle East (9) | |
| MARMALADE | ARM (weapon) A LAD (boy) inside ME (Middle East) | |
| 18 | Where to pick fruit or vegetable (7) | |
| ORCHARD | OR CHARD (vegetable) | |
| 20 | Seafood failed to win over British monarch (7) | |
| LOBSTER | LOST (failed to win) over B (British) ER (monarch) | |
| 21 | Angry phone-in about heraldic cross (7) | |
| GRYPHON | Hidden in anGRY PHONe | |
| 22 | Perhaps monitor head in southwest (6) | |
| LIZARD | Double definition as in Monitor Lizard and the Lizard in Cornwall | |
| 25 | Found wooden bats Oscar abandoned (5) | |
| ENDOW | An anagram of WO |
|
Thanks for blogging, both.
I twigged the theme about half way through, which helped a bit with finishing (and with deciding whether it was HOOKAH or HOOKER – I do wish setters would avoid putting the homophone indicator in the middle of the two options). Overall good fun, and well done B&J for rooting out all the references.
The only one I’m not sure about is DRANK. RANK for ‘lush’ works for me (well, it’s in my Thesaurus, any road up) but surely the definition leads to DRINK, not DRANK?
Thanks to Radian for the puzzle. There’s far too much drug-related stuff in the Indy these days.
Didn’t know rank could mean lush but confirmed in Chambers. Definition says ‘did what …’, so leads to DRANK not DRINK to me. Don’t know lizard in Cornwall but googled ‘lizard head’ and saw this exists in SW Colorado, so thought it may refer to this, but didn’t like that explanation. Didn’t know GRAF was German count so thanks for the explanation.
Apart from D RANK this was a nice little theme puzzle.
I agree with Kathryn’s Dad about 12ac. It surely ought to be possible, theoretically at least, to solve a clue without recourse to crossers (or without having twigged the hidden theme). The construction of 12ac made that impossible.
Thanks for the comments everyone.
We had the crossing ‘H’ in Hookah so completely missed the possibility of entering HOOKER.
Can someone point us in the right direction for LUSH = RANK? We have Chambers and cannot find a synonym in either the Dictionary or Thesaurus. What are we missing?
HOOKER held me up with 4d, but I twigged when I got VERDICT. A nice puzzle, but spoiled for me yet again by the laggy interface for the puzzle site. I sometimes had 30 seconds between selecting a square and the cursor appearing there, or the typed letter appearing. So frustrating! I was vaguely aware of the theme, but as usual it didn’t surface into my consciousness until it was pointed out here. Nice puzzle. Thanks Radian and B&J.
BJ@5. If you look up RANK, rather than LUSH, in the thesaurus, at the end you find rank can mean lush as in overgrown.
Hi B&J. My Concise Oxford Thesaurus gives rank and lush as synonyms, under both entries. It has ‘dense’, ‘thick’, and ‘rampant’ as synonyms too, mainly referring to vegetation.
I agree about the homonym clue, which can lead to either answer, and I would say that the D/ RANK one is at best rather a difficult synonym to find, but in all a rather fine puzzle by Radian.
Thanks both.
Like the White Rabbit, we’re a bit late to the party – we’re still catching up after a long weekend away. An enjoyable solve, more so because we spotted the theme early on, although we didn’t spot all the thematic answers till we’d completed it. We agree with comments about the positioning of homophone indicators, although it’s only really a problem when the two words are the same length (as they are here). But we didn’t have any problems with 3dn, either in equating ‘lush’ with ‘rank’ or with the definition – ‘did’ is part of the definition.
Thanks, Radian and B&J