Sorry, rather late again. I spent too much time in the small hours listening to the cricket and as a result it was suddenly 8.25.
The usual nice crossword from Phi. Uncontroversial I think, and all seemed to be easy enough, at any rate in retrospect (although I realised afterwards that I’d forgotten to do that nine holes answer, which is what it almost certainly was although I’d never heard of it). But this is not to say that at the time of solving it wasn’t as much of a challenge as it always is.
My cursory look at the unches reveals nothing, as you’d expect.
| Across | ||
| 1 | SKATEBOARDING | Recreational activity seeing fish coming on to boat (13) |
| skate boarding | ||
| 10 | EDITRIX | Newspaper worker recalled time with farceur (7) |
| (tide)rev. Rix — Brian Rix, the Whitehall farces man who was also a famous disability campaigner | ||
| 11 | REFINER | One works to improve official popular with the Queen (7) |
| ref [= official] in ER | ||
| 12 | THESAURUS | Reference authors use freely, nothing less (9) |
| (authors use – o)* | ||
| 13 | AD HOC | A medic coming round hospital when required (2,3) |
| a d(H)oc | ||
| 14 | EMBLEMATIC | Be calm, taking time at work as representative (10) |
| (Be calm time)* | ||
| 17 | GLOW | Evidence of health good when encountering depression (4) |
| g low | ||
| 19 | SAVE | Second Avenue bar (4) |
| s. ave. | ||
| 20 | AT ALL COSTS | A big bed’s required to hold son, no expense spared (2,3,5) |
| a tall co(s)t’s | ||
| 23 | LARGO | Substantial cut beginning to obscure piece of music (5) |
| larg{e} o{bscure} | ||
| 24 | PENSIONER | Old guy, individual captured by writer fellow (9) |
| (pen si(one)r) — sir = fellow | ||
| 27 | MADNESS | Frenzy to stop returning when enthralled by religious ceremony (7) |
| ma(dne)ss, the dne being (end)rev. | ||
| 28 | GLENCOE | Junior officer interrupting delight in scene of massacre (7) |
| gle(NCO)e — the Massacre of Glencoe | ||
| 29 | TELEPORTATION | What moves trio to planet with energy? (13) |
| (trio to planet e)*, &lit. | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | KNIFE | Blade composed of three metals? (5) |
| K Ni Fe — Potassium, Nickel, Iron — I wasn’t sure about Potassium being a metal but apparently it is an ‘alkali metal’, whatever that is | ||
| 3 | TERRACES | Without hesitation, finds where supporters stand (8) |
| t(er)races — do they still? All-seater stadiums? I don’t know enough about this, but did all teams alter their stadiums after the Taylor report? | ||
| 4 | BOXER | Way of describing crater? Rocky, say (5) |
| box-er — a crate is a box — ref. Rocky Marciano or Rocky Balboa | ||
| 5 | AGRESTIAL | Gate with rails rebuilt in the country (9) |
| (Gate rails)* — not a word I was very familiar with, but easy wordplay helped | ||
| 6 | DEFEAT | Handy being able to accommodate each loss (6) |
| def(ea.)t | ||
| 7 | NINEHOLES | Historic game, one of two halves of course (9) |
| One of the two halves of a golf course consists of nine holes — I’d never heard of the historic game, but it seems to exist, although whether Phi is referring to the card game or to the one mentioned here I don’t know | ||
| 8 | BEETLE | Insect – an insect I shooed from part of roof (6) |
| bee t{i}le | ||
| 9 | CRACOW | Vehicle going uphill running into animal in European city (6) |
| c(rac)ow, the rac being (car)rev. | ||
| 15 | BEVERIDGE | Welfare advocate: “Support should be around the day before” (9) |
| b(eve)ridge — Lord Beveridge | ||
| 16 | ANTIPASTO | Soldier, one getting over swallowing ancient appetiser (9) |
| ant 1 (past) o [= over] | ||
| 18 | ACCIDENT | Such a mishap, with papers being lost, would produce stress (8) |
| If ID was missing from accident you’d have accent = stress | ||
| 19 | SOLEMN | Only chap to avoid a grave (6) |
| sole m{a}n | ||
| 21 | SORBET | Ice ball about to become solid? On the contrary (6) |
| s(orb)et — it’s the contrary of orb being around set | ||
| 22 | COHERE | Fit together sides of house in central area (6) |
| co(h{ous}e)re | ||
| 25 | NIGHT | Dark piece, not king (5) |
| {k}night | ||
| 26 | NACHO | Part of Mexican dish? Some mention a chorizo (5) |
| Hidden in mentioN A CHOrizo | ||
*anagram
Medium-hard Phiday for me. Enjoyed it. Also unclear on 7d. 4d got a proper groan when the penny dropped.
Thanks to John for the blog and the Greek Character for the puzzle!
Farceur? I first thought of Feydeau and Molière-nah-it was (“where are my trousers?” Brian RIX)-what a let-down.
Thought this was a great puzzle-I was very slow.
Thanks Phi and John.
Good fun. I couldn’t get past Moliere and it obviously wasn’t him, so EDITRIX was very satisfying to eventually nail. I agree the puzzle looks entirely straightforward once it has yielded but I don’t mind admitting to a fair amount of pondering on the way to the finish. Thanks, both.
Unusually for Phi, we didn’t finish, stumped by the EDITRIX and BOXER crossers. We wouldn’t say it was uncontroversial. ‘Editrix’ is not in either Chambers or Collins; Chambers has ‘editress’ as a feminine form but qualifies even that as an old usage. and we normally think of Krakow rather than Cracow, but we’ll let that pass as both forms are common – see this article.
But there was plenty to like, with THESAURUS, TELEPORTATION (Beam me up, Scotty), BEVERIDGE and ANTIPASTO among our favourites. Couldn’t see any theme or nina, though.
Thanks, Phi and John.
You wouldn’t expect me to stop bombarding you with contemporary novelists just because it’s a new year, would you? This time it’s Ned Beauman, whose Madness is Better than Defeat was one of my favourites of last year. But I did end up with NINEHOLES, which I put in assuming it was a small golf-course, only to find it was something weirder.
Happy New Year
Curiously, Lord Beveridge came up in conversation over Christmas. I grew up in the new town of Newton Aycliffe and Beveridge was involved with the setting up of the new towns post war. The main shopping street is called Beveridge Way. I had long known that he had lived on the town for a while. What my brother told me was that while this is true, he only lived there for a week.
An enjoyable puzzle. I was aware of the various spelling of KRAKOW, so was guided by the wordplay. Have played on a NineHole course but didn’t know it had its own name as a game. EDITRIX became inevitable once I had Mr Balboa’s occupation. I’ve walked up and down Beveridge Way in Aycliffe many a time, but never got round to associating it with the benevolent chap. Interesting. Agrestial is a new word for me, but the non crossing letter came down in the right order after I chucked them in the air. Thanks John and Phi.
Happy New Year Phi. This took us a bit longer than normal but we started even later than usual.
Thankfully the app we use enabled us to check our guesses on some of the anagrams.
Thanks John – Happy New Year to you too. Thanks fir the blog.