It’s been a while since I blogged a Punk, a long-time favourite setter of mine, and no doubt of many others.
I made a brisk start this time, but slowed considerably after a dozen or so entries. A second sitting did the job, particularly once the longer 17/5 yielded and provided a good handful of letters to work with.
A bit of a workout, then, and an enjoyable puzzle with the characteristic Punk irreverent moments such 13 across and 23 down.
Last one in was 29 across where, if I had to find a complaint, I felt the checking seemed a little stingy: two Es and an O were all we had to work with in a seven-letter light.
Indeed, this did appear to be an unusual grid overall, which raises suspicions, but I can’t see anything hidden in there.
Still, good fun all round, and so many thanks to Punk.
| Across | ||
| 1 | AGA SAGA | Story that may be recalled? (3,4) |
| The wordplay simply references the fact that AGA SAGA is a palindrome. | ||
| 10 | MONSTRANCE | RC men not as desperate to see RC receptacle (10) |
| Anagram of all of (RC MEN NOT AS). An entirely new term for me, though worked out from the wordplay and confirmed with a quick glance at the dictionary before being confident enough to write in. | ||
| 11 | TAUT | Tense, as trained for audition? (4) |
| Homophone of “taught”. | ||
| 12 | PERU | Nation combining games and sport (4) |
| PE + RU. | ||
| 13 | GOOGLIES | Tricky deliveries, balls containing opener for Gloucestershire (8) |
| G[loucestershire] in GOOLIES. | ||
| 15 | BUTTED IN | However busy, I tend to get interrupted (6,2) |
| BUT + (I TEND)*. | ||
| 16 | STYLER | Bank taken aback by the way one arranges locks (6) |
| ST + RELY<. | ||
| 18 | UPSHOT | Final issue finished, executed (6) |
| UP + SHOT. I’m not quite sure I fully understand the definition, even though under “issue” Chambers has “upshot”. | ||
| 20 | CHERUBIC | Adorably cute, smart clothes chafe on end of nipple (8) |
| (RUB in CHIC) + [nippl]E. | ||
| 22 | ABSEILED | Cook retrospectively admitting problem with stock that’s dropped down face, perhaps? (8) |
| BSE in DELIA<, as in Smith. | ||
| 24 | NERO | One right to fiddle with fiddler? (4) |
| Anagram of (ONE + R). | ||
| 26 | PAPA | Successor of Oscar Peterson arrives, and pianist ably starts (4) |
| P[eterson] A[rrives] P[ianist] A[bly]. Papa (P) succeeds Oscar (O) in the phonetic alphabet. | ||
| 27 | SWEARWORDS | Depreciation in weapons, those used offensively (10) |
| WEAR in SWORDS. | ||
| 28 | STONING | Biblical punishment hurt, on being caught (7) |
| ON caught in STING. | ||
| 29 | DEVELOP | Grow old in retirement squeezing girl softly (7) |
| (EVE in OLD<) + P. | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | GOOSEBUMPS | Gunk, oily secretion and further marks on skin (10) |
| GOO + SEBUM + PS. | ||
| 3 | SASQUATCH | Don’t speak about a stocky cryptid’s origin – man in gorilla suit probably? (9) |
| (A + SQUAT + C[ryptid]) in SH. | ||
| 4 | GARAGED | As some cars kept going, actual leaders blew up (7) |
| G[oing] A[ctual] + RAGED. | ||
| 6 | OCELLUS | Observer of flies in house dropping wings to circle room (7) |
| CELL in [h]OUS[e]. | ||
| 7 | LATTE | Second, not the last, drink (5) |
| LATTE[r]. | ||
| 8 | SOUK | Market very much ahead of this country? (4) |
| SO + UK. | ||
| 9 | UNWORN | Fresh brew now inside samovar (6) |
| NOW* in URN. | ||
| 14 | SEMIFREDDO | Cold sweet provided, as cherry on top of dessert, some failing to eat it? (10) |
| (IF + RED + D[essert]) in SOME*. | ||
| 17/5 | YOU SNOOZE YOU LOSE | Opportunities are taken by those most alert, UKIP? Lousy organisation inspiring zero confidence, ultimately (3,6,3,4) |
| Nice, complicated anagram of (UKIP + LOUSY + ZERO + [confidenc]E), and perhaps the longest definition I’ve seen in some time. | ||
| 19 | TREASON | Three bags found, every other piece nicked – it’s a crime (7) |
| Alternate letters of T[h]R[e]E [b]A[g]S [f]O[u]N[d]. | ||
| 20 | CALLER | One visiting Cherbourg initially has to go across the Channel (6) |
| C[herbourg] + ALLER, which is the French verb “to go”. | ||
| 21 | ENDORSE | English language once holding Germany back (7) |
| D in (E + NORSE). | ||
| 23/25 | BRAIN FART | Mental aberration naughty child masks in a good way (5,4) |
| (IN + FAR) in BRAT. | ||
* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; underlined = definition; Hover to expand abbreviations
17/5 is surely not a full anagram.
To me it seems that it is: YOU (U) + SNOOZE (kip), followed by an anagram [organisation] of LOUSY around O (zero), + [confidenc]E
Agree with Sil re 17/5. Haven’t checked yet, but is this a pangram? Lots of obscure words I thought but fun nevertheless. Thanks to S&B.
Just checked for pangram but can’t find J or X. So close but not quite.
Thanks, Sil. I’m sure you’re right. When I’m solving I rarely bother painstakingly verifying the longer anagrams. Should probably be a bit more conscientious when blogging!
Hard work for me. Finally solved the unknown saying at 17/5 when I saw UKIP = ‘you snooze’ (v. good) and took a while to cotton on to ‘a good way’ for FAR in 23/25. A couple of new words in MONSTRANCE and OCELLUS and a few barely remembered ones such as SASQUATCH.
Liked AGA SAGA (brought to mind the “a tale of illicit rumpy-pumpy in the countryside” description quoted in the Wikipedia article) and GOOGLIES for which I thought the answer must be ‘wrong‘uns’ – same ‘deliveries’, wrong ‘balls’.
A real challenge but great fun and worth the effort.
Thank you to Punk and Simon.
Last Monday, The Times had this clue: You sleep soundly – we wanted to be out (4).
The answer? UKIP!
A real challenge at the end of a fairly easy week – this would have been a good prize puzzle. We needed quite a bit of help to finish, stuck mainly with 14, 17/5 and 29. SEMIFREDDO was a new word for us and we had to cheat for it as Chambers Word Wizard doesn’t have it (although it’s in Chambers 13th edition). We thought 17/5 might have been ‘you choose, you lose’ at first, though we couldn’t see how to parse it. And BRAIN FART was new to us as well – we’d worked out it had to be BRAIN -A-T but thought the second word couldn’t be ‘fart’.
A lot we liked, though. GOOGLIES, ABSEILED, GOOSEBUMPS and SASQUATCH among them.
Thanks to Punk and Simon.
I found this tough but also thought it was very good.A few words and phrases unfamiliar’ I dug up semifreddo somewhere`-had to have IF in it.And after staring at UKIP, even after guessing the unfamiliar phrase. Tea tray indeed.
On second thoughts I found this Very tough.
Thanks Punk and Simon.
I found this tough with a couple of unknowns. SEMIFREDDO and OCELLUS. Knew MONSTRANCE due to my RC upbringing, but couldn’t make the leap to the suspected BRAIN FART without revealing th R in 25d. Also needed to unveil the first letter of my LOI, DEVELOP. Took far too long and was almost brain dead by then! Gigled at GOOGLIES. Quite a challenge. Thanks Punk and Simon.