More top quality work from Maize – no fancy themes or Nina (that I can see), but a testing cryptic workout to keep us on our toes…
I timed this one at 12:45, in a single sitting – but at that speed some of the nuances and surface readings are left swirling in the wake, and it was good to work back through them for the blog, at a more leisurely rate.
1A was a bit of a gimme for a lead-in – TACIT/understood being a fairly long-standing cruciverbal standard – but things did get harder and more complex/imaginative after that!
Several candidates for favourite clue – 4D is clever, with the two ‘Xxxx Athletic’ football clubs; 21A paints an image of Alfred Nobel ABSENT-MINDEDLY blending dynamite (and then, with a hint of irony(?), founding a peace prize with the proceeds!). When I read 20D I thought Maize was perpetuating the (unproven?) line that BADGERS spread TB, but on closer inspection the definition is ‘animals’, and the reference to TB is part of the word play.
24D is just Cyclops-ean, or Paul-esque!
Probably 8D though – my LOI – with the triple use of ‘chop(s)’. That was my LOI, but my LOP (last one parsed) was 3D THING … in speed-solving mode I just thought THIN = little and G = grand, money. But it was ‘far’ cleverer than that!
So the filled grid – just a Q and an X short of a pangram:
Thanks to Maize for the workout, and I hope I have it all covered below…
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 1A | TACIT | India to engage in diplomatic relations, it’s understood (5) | it’s understood / TAC_T (diplomatic relations) around (engaging) I (India) |
|
| 4A | AESTHETIC | Beautiful water reflecting the Eastern Baltic (9) | beautiful / AES (sea, or water, reflecting) + THE + TIC (Eastern, or rightmost, part of balTIC) |
|
| 9A | NEOLITHIC | Age-old ethnic conflict over crude oil (9) | age-old / nested anagrams! NE_THIC (anag, i.e. conflict, of ETHNIC) around OLI (anag, i.e. crude, of OIL) |
|
| 10A | PURGE | Quietly encourage the removal of undesirables (5) | the removal of undesirables / P (piano, quietly, music) + URGE (encourage) |
|
| 11A | AT DAGGERS DRAWN | Demeanour of dad getting involved with gangster war? (2,7,5) | &lit-ish/demeanour? / anag, i.e. involved, of DAD + GANGSTER WAR |
|
| 13A | ORDER | Command British to leave frontier (5) | command / ( |
|
| 15A | IMPROMPTU | Boast of good timekeeper texting you on the spur of the moment (9) | on the spur of the moment / I’M PROMPT (boast of good timekeeper!) + U (text abbreviation of ‘you’) |
|
| 17A | NEW JERSEY | Latest top place for Princeton University (3,6) | place for Princeton University / NEW (latest) + JERSEY (top) |
|
| 19A | EBBED | Declined to live going back and forth with daughter (5) | declined / EB + BE (be, to live, backwards and forwards) + D (daughter) |
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| 21A | ABSENT-MINDEDLY | Engineer blends dynamite without paying attention (6-8) | without paying attention / anag, i.e. engineer, of BLENDS DYNAMITE |
|
| 25A | TOAST | Brown amphibian (tailless, by the way) (5) | brown / TOA( |
|
| 26A | PRIVILEGE | Gripe at work about iniquitous special treatment (9) | special treatment / PRI_GE (anag, i.e at work, of GRIPE) around VILE (iniquitous) |
|
| 27A | HALF-DOZEN | Sleep very lightly, maybe Nero’s beginning his sex? (4-5) | his (a Roman’s, e.g. Nero’s) sex (the number 6) / HALF-DOZE (sleep very lightly) + N (beginning letter of Nero) |
|
| 28A | LISZT | Scorer of Lazio’s third in sequence (5) | scorer (of musical works) / LIS_T (sequence) around Z (third letter of laZio) |
|
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 1D | TANTAMOUNT | It’s more or less important a mountaineer carries it (10) | it’s more or less / hidden word, i.e. carries it, in ‘imporTANT A MOUNTaineer’ |
|
| 2D | CROWDED | Bragged about Germany being very busy (7) | being ‘very busy / CROW_ED (bragged) around D (Deutsche, Germany) |
|
| 3D | THING | Far from a little money for one’s cup of tea? (5) | one’s cup of tea / ( |
|
| 4D | ATHLETICS | What could be running Wigan and Oldham? (9) | what could be running (amongst other events) / Wigan Athletic and Oldham Athletic are two examples of ATHLETICS! |
|
| 5D | SACKS | ‘Sound of Music’ producer lets staff go (5) | lets staff go / homophone – SACKS (lets staff go) sounds like SAX (saxophone, producer of musical sounds) |
|
| 6D | HYPERBOLE | Exaggerated language contrived by rep in tricky situation (9) | exaggerated language / H_OLE (tricky situation to be in) around YPERB (anag, i.e. contrived, of REP BY) |
|
| 7D | THROW UP | Worth moving out of bed to be sick (5,2) | to be sick / THROW (anag, i.e. moving, of WORTH) + UP (out of bed) |
|
| 8D | CHEW | At first ‘chop chop chops’ will do it (4) | chops (teeth) will do it / C (first letter of the first Chop) + HEW (the second chop!) |
|
| 12D | SUNDAY BEST | ‘Top Gear’ star on prime time previously (6,4) | top gear (smartest clothes) / SUN (star) + DAY (time) + BEST (prime) |
|
| 14D | REELECTED | Staggered around church carrying base of font back in (9) | back in / REELE_D (staggered) around CTE (C_E, Church of England, around, or carrying, T – last letter, or base, of fonT) |
|
| 16D | PHYSICIAN | Heavy-gutted, endlessly vomiting, in awful pain – get a doctor! (9) | a doctor! / P_IAN (anag, i.e. awful, of PAIN), around HY (H |
|
| 18D | WEBMAIL | Spiderman sounded out for IT post? (7) | IT post (as opposed to snail mail) / punny homophone? – Spiderman could be a ‘web male’ |
|
| 20D | BADGERS | Animals coming from farm finally leaving spreaders of TB? (7) | animals / BAD GER( |
|
| 22D | TOPAZ | Stone to sacrifice the Spanish in Andean capital (5) | (precious) stone / TO + ( |
|
| 23D | DRILL | Poor support for GP’s practice (5) | practice / DR (doctor, or GP) + ILL (poor) |
|
| 24D | ITCH | Craving sex before church (4) | craving / IT (euphemism for sexual relations) + CH (church) |
|
I always appreciate a setter who puts in the effort to make good, readable surfaces and they don’t come much better than this. Loved it. Thought 1d was a great inclusion clue. Great blog too.
Lots of good clues with well-disguised definitions, including ‘his sex’, ‘back in’ and ‘what could be running’. I agree though that ”chop chop chops’ will do’ was the best of the lot. THING was my LOI and OUP (one unparsed) – thanks for the explanation.
Very enjoyable and a confidence booster after taking a bit of a hammering from Phi yesterday.
Thanks to Maize and mc_rapper67.
After doing today’s FT prize crossword [so no comments!!] with a fair dose of idiosyncracies, it was a relief to solve this Maize crossword.
Hovis sums it all up for me – in the end, this is how I like them!
No fancy stuff [no x-tiple pangrams needed either], all fair and fine surfaces on top of that.
Excellent crossword.
Now back to Phi, the only recent puzzle I couldn’t yet finish.
Many thanks Maize, and mc_rapper67 for the blog.
thanks to Maize for a really good crossword, and to mc_r for a cracking blog. Top stuff all round
Took me a great deal longer than our reviewer to complete this one but it was an enjoyable tussle marred only by my failure to register the ‘sex’ in 27a and being guilty of losing my temper over the seeming inference in 20d before bothering to sort out the wordplay – that will teach me!
Not at all keen on 7d but there were many goodies by way of compensation – 8d made me laugh the most.
Thanks to Maize and to mcr for the blog.
Apart from TACIT and CROWDED, I found the top half of this puzzle impenetrable at first, so I turned my attention below, where I made better progress. Returning to the NE, I gradually got moving and finished with SACKS in just over the half hour. As has already been said, loads of lovely clues and laugh out loud moments, particularly HALF DOZEN. Thanks Maize and mc_r.
Well, that was lots of fun. On the easy side, though I did get a little stuck to the south, partly because of that lovely, well disguised definition at 27ac. More please! Was Maize tempted by the pangram again, so near?
Many thanks mc_rapper – excellent blog in every detail.
No gimmicks this time, Jon – just to be different.
Re 20d we have some beautiful badgers which come thorough the woods at the back of our house most every night. Some people have been known to initially think they must be spreading TB, but upon closer inspection they discover that’s not the case.
Oops, just gave away my alternative monicker!
A super crossword that kept us on our toes but which we nevertheless finished in fairly quick time. Thanks, Maize and mc_rapper67.
Now for the rant – nothing to do with the crossword apart from 20dn. How ironic that in one part of the country a road has had to be closed because it’s been undermined by a badger sett and the badgers can’t be disturbed, yet in other parts of the country an ignorant, arrogant government which only listens to what it wants to hear is flying in the face of respected academic findings and destroying these beautiful creatures on the ground that they are supposedly spreading TB to cattle. And even if they do spread TB the strategy is ineffective becaus other badgers then move into the cleared areas.
Sorry, Gaufrid. I’ll try to stick to the subject in future.
Apologies for lack of responses from me, last week just flew by – thanks for all the comments/feedback – generally a well-received and well-loved puzzle.
Thanks also to Maize (or Cornick?!) for popping by to give some background on the badger inspiration…allan_c – I am with you all the way on your off-topic rant, even if you deserve (got?) a metaphorical slap on the wrist for it!…