A good workout from NEO this friday, thanks to whom for enlivening my day. Several elegant surfaces and precise cluing ..
FF: 8 DD : 8
| Across | ||
| 1 | CARDAMOM | Article on eccentric American mum that’s spicy (8) |
| [CARD (eccentric person) A (article)] MOM (mum, american) | ||
| 6 | THRILL | Hour in work giving excitement (6) |
| HR (hour) in TILL (work) | ||
| 9 | SATURN | World – go after it! (6) |
| TURN (go) after SA (it) | ||
| 10 | DELEGATE | European member in time to assign (8) |
| [ E (european) LEG (member) ] in DATE (time) | ||
| 11 | POOL | Reserve some still water (4) |
| double def | ||
| 12 | LAMENTABLE | The French people submit – it’s awful (10) |
| LA (the, french) MEN (people) TABLE (submit) | ||
| 14 | TOM THUMB | Little fellow to hitchhike covering miles (3,5) |
| TO THUMB (hitchhike) containing M (miles) | ||
| 16 | CHOP | Composer drops in for mutton slice (4) |
| CHOPin (composer, without IN) | ||
| 18 | MIMI | Doomed sewer in Herculaneum I’m inside (4) |
| hidden in “..herculaneuM IM Inside” | ||
| 19 | TANGIBLE | Root finally cracked Belgian concrete (8) |
| T (rooT, last character) BELGIAN* | ||
| 21 | BACKSTREET | Supports deal reportedly? Not in a big way! (10) |
| BACKS (supports) TREET (sounds like TREAT – deal) | ||
| 22 | EROS | Horseless champion succeeded in love (4) |
| hERO (champion, without H – horse) S (succeeded) | ||
| 24 | TONE-DEAF | Confusing note with others? (4-4) |
| &lit; NOTE* D E A F (notes in the musical octave) | ||
| 26 | ENAMEL | Title accepted by the Spanish Crown Protector? (6) |
| NAME (title) in EL (the, spanish) | ||
| 27 | ISLAND | One smooth student’s to get in for Easter? (6) |
| [I (one) SAND (smooth) ] containing L (student) | ||
| 28 | YARMOUTH | 27 town boy holsters weapon (8) |
| ARM (weapon) in YOUTH (boy) | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | ALAMO | Mission accomplished – like another mission – on all fronts (5) |
| starting letters of “..Accomplished – Like Another Mission – On..” | ||
| 3 | DOUBLETHINK | Orwellian concept from twin not convincing king (11) |
| DOUBLE (twin) THIN (not convincing) K (king) | ||
| 4 | MENELAUS | Spartan king elevated among usual enemies (8) |
| hidden, reversed in “..uSUAL ENEMies” | ||
| 5 | MADAME BUTTERFLY | Passionate sailor snares me – totally captivating female? (6,9) |
| MAD (passionate) [ AB (sailor) containing ME ] [ UTTERLY (totally) containing F (female) ] | ||
| 6 | TALENT | Story books for able people (6) |
| TALE (story) NT (books, new testament) | ||
| 7 | RUG | Heroin perhaps unopened in wrap (3) |
| dRUG (heroin, perhaps without first letter) | ||
| 8 | LITTLE OWL | Flyer unusually low after drop (6,3) |
| LITTLE (drop) LOW* | ||
| 13 | ARCHIPELAGO | Geographical mix-up missing capital in Philippines? (11) |
| gEOGRAPHICAL* (without first letter) | ||
| 15 | OVIPAROUS | As some layers – over six – on Greek island that ships uranium (9) |
| O (over) VI (six) [PAROS (greek island) containing U (uranium)] | ||
| 17 | KNITWEAR | Spilt ink and water that often covers blouses etc (8) |
| INK WATER* | ||
| 20 | ATTEND | When news is on TV daughter’s to listen (6) |
| AT TEN (when news is on tv) D (daughter) | ||
| 23 | OVERT | Public upset after vase lost (5) |
| OVERTurn (upset, without URN – vase) | ||
| 25 | ERA | Muse having to leave for day (3) |
| ERAto (without TO) | ||
*anagram
I can’t parse 18. I can only think of Puccini’s Mimi in La Boheme but she was a flower girl not a sewer. Unless I’m being stupid, not uncommon I must admit.
Dave @1
In La bohème, Mimi is a seamstress (in Act 1 she describes herself as an embroiderer).
Thanks Gaufrid, that’ll teach me to post without fact checking, I refer to my previous comment re. stupidity.
While on the theme of Puccini, I don’t suppose it’s worth mentioning that his opera at 5d is actually called Madama Butterfly, not Madame, but that wouldn’t fit with the wordplay.
No…? I thought not.
Thanks to setter and blogger.
Dave. No you are not stupid, by any means. She says she embroiders artificial flowers and is called by one of the male characters “My flower girl”.
Tom_I – you’re right about the title of the opera: in fact I toyed with entering MADAMA until I realised it didn’t work. The usual English name (which I would have no objection to) is Madam Butterfly.
Apart from that, it’s actually a full &lit, with the whole clue being both the definition (with Pinkerton as the “passionate sailor”) and the wordplay. Come to think of it, the definition is of the character, not the opera, though the objection to “Madame” still stands.
I was about to point out the excellent &lit at 5 down so thanks Andrew for saving me the trouble. MADAME is quite a common misspelling that’s forgivable when the clue is otherwise so good, I think!
Thanks trenodia. Funny how ones memory plays tricks, I had the same problem with IO’s Hamlet reference a couple of days ago. I knew it was Horatio but just got stuck on well. I shall have to dig out my old textbooks and do some revision.
A damn fine clue for MADAME as well. I could have sworn etc, but the references confirm.
Otherwise elegant and precise however, as blogged.
Thanks to Neo and Turbolegs. Enjoyable. I needed help parsing TONE DEAF, and, though I know several kinds of owls, the “little” one was new to me.
I parsed 28 but had no idea that it was an island town.
copmus@11: Very late to the party (I didn’t get to solve this till last night) but 28 refers to Yarmouth, Isle of Wight. The one in Norfolk is Great Yarmouth.
Thanks Neo and Turbolegs
Even a bit later than allan@12, but this is the last of my June 2018 backlog … at last ! Found this one quite tricky and took a number of goes at it before it finally surrendered and fell out. Very enjoyable and quite a bit of lateral thinking to be done with his wide variety of clue devices, including the two excellent &lit ones – didn’t pick up the D E A F notes of 24a – which made it even better after seeing it here.
Interesting to see that both operas referenced were by Puccini and thought that he may have been a part of a theme for a while there.
Finished in the NE corner with THRILL and TALENT the last couple in.