Hard work from Hamilton today…
Found this a bit of a grind, to be honest. Some good stuff, but some rather woolly clueing in amongst it, I thought. Still, got there in the end. Thanks to Hamilton.
| Across | ||
| 1 | ACCESS ALL AREAS | Unlimited entry as a caller’s case is re-examined (6,3,5) |
| Anagram (‘is re-examined’) of AS A CALLERS CASE. | ||
| 10 | RUMBA | Architects’ hesitation, standing in for one dance (5) |
| RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) with UM (a ‘hesitation’) replacing the ‘I’ (Roman ‘one’). | ||
| 11 | ANOMALOUS | Irregular sections of another male louse (9) |
| Random (as far as I can see) chunks of ANOther MAle and LOUSe. | ||
| 12 | WARLOCK | Magician’s struggle to get embrace (7) |
| WAR (‘struggle’) + LOCK =’embrace’ (as in ‘Rick and Ilse and finally go into the lock’). | ||
| 13 | DRACHMA | Back in the morning (early hour) to get plastic money? (7) |
| Reversal of AM (‘in the morning’) + H (=’early’ part of ‘hour’) + CARD (‘plastic’, as in ‘pay by plastic’). | ||
| 14 | LIMBO | Dance up in the air (5) |
| Double definition, though I’m not sure ‘up in the air’ quite means ‘limbo’: it’s ‘IN limbo’, surely? | ||
| 16 | REDACTION | Communist effort directed at literary improvement (9) |
| RED (‘communist’) + ACTION (‘effort’). ‘Redaction’ seems to have acquired sinister overtones in recent years. | ||
| 19 | PONDEROUS | Heavy matter holding Oscar’s faulty drone (9) |
| PUS (‘matter’, yucky word) surrounds O[scar] and an anagram (‘faulty’) of DRONE. | ||
| 20 | EAT UP | Enid is to put it away (3,2) |
| Reverse anagram. Well, sort of. ENID is an anagram, indeed a reversal, of DINE, so EAT UP = DINE ‘up’ or anagrammatised – which is borderline illegal – or ‘DINE’ upwards, which I’d be happier with if this were a Down clue. H’mm. | ||
| 22 | NUDISTS | They are ready to reveal the bare facts (7) |
| Whole clue cryptic, I s’pose, though what the ‘facts’ may be be is anyone’s guess. | ||
| 25 | SEVERAL | Number of times Les goes back to woman indoors (7) |
| Reversal of LES includes VERA. Again, not quite sure how the ‘to’ works. | ||
| 27 | IMPRECATE | Swear one member’s on about returning Greek character (9) |
| 1 + MP + RE (‘on’ = concerning) + C[irca] (‘about’) + reversal of ETA (‘Greek character’). | ||
| 28 | PYLON | Tower of power (5) |
| Cryptic def. | ||
| 29 | CONSPIRATORIAL | Undercover sting against criminal Paris tailor (14) |
| CON (= scam or ‘sting’) + anagram (‘criminal’) of PARIS TAILOR. | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | CAMERAMAN | Shooter! (9) |
| Cryptic, though not very. | ||
| 3 | ERATO | The poet’s inspiration drawn from godlier atonement (5) |
| The Muse, hidden in ‘godliER ATOnement’. | ||
| 4 | SMACKEROO | Mrs Cooke given a right big kiss! (9) |
| Anagram (to ‘right’ as verb, I take it) of MRS COOKE + A. | ||
| 5 | LLOYD | Name capitals of Laos, Latvia, Oman, Yemen and Djibouti (5) |
| All those capitalised letters. | ||
| 6 | AVALANCHE | It slides down over husband inside a bed cover (9) |
| H[usband] in A VALANCE (‘bed cover’). Again, the ‘over’ is a bit vague. | ||
| 7 | EPOCH | Record Scottish impatience this time (5) |
| EP (a ‘record’) + OCH! (Scots exasperation). | ||
| 8 | SUSTAIN | Support environmental conservation when ability’s there (7) |
| Becomes ‘sustainabilty’ (= ‘environmental conservation’) with said addition. | ||
| 9 | TROWEL | Cloth to wrap around end of gardener’s tool (6) |
| TOWEL (‘cloth’) around ‘R’ (end of ‘gardeneR’), with partial ‘& lit’. | ||
| 15 | OVERSLEEP | Done with the rest? On the contrary! (9) |
| OVER (‘done’) + SLEEP (‘rest’) &lit. | ||
| 17 | DUSTSHEET | It protects Tess and Henry, playing in musical union (9) |
| Anagram (‘playing’) of TESS + H[enry] included in DUET (‘musical union’). | ||
| 18 | INTER ALIA | Aren’t Ali and I unruly (among other things)? (5,4) |
| Anagram (‘unruly’) of ARENT ALI + I. | ||
| 19 | PONTIAC | US city cop arrests working relative (Spanish aunt) (7) |
| P[olice] C[onstable] contains ON (‘working’) + TIA (‘Spanish Aunt’, as in Tia Maria). | ||
| 21 | PALING | Boy overcome by sharp sound over fence (6) |
| AL (a ‘boy’) surrounded by PING (‘sharp sound’). ‘Over’? No idea. | ||
| 23 | DIP IN | Girl opens paper inmate needs to draw on (3,2) |
| DI (‘girl’) + ‘openers’ (‘opens’ reads oddly, but there) of Paper Inmate Needs. | ||
| 24 | STAIR | Flight into imperialist airspace (5) |
| Inclusion in ‘imperialiST AIRspace’. | ||
| 26 | VIPER | A snake and a sneak? (5) |
| Double def, barely. | ||
*anagram
Thanks Hamilton and Grant
Agree with you here that there did seem to be a lot of fluff around the fodder in many instances. Notwithstanding, was able to work my way through all of it (except the SUSTAINability bit) and get the grid completed, so mission accomplished by the setter I guess.
I opted for a random three letters from each word – ANOther MALe lOUSe – not that it really mattered – not the best clue that I’ve seen … but still better than the one that gave LLOYD which just became a write-in.
CAMERAMAN was actually my last one in – so to me it was cryptic enough to hold me at bay for the duration !
Still, overall, I did enjoy the challenge and was able to get all the way through without any digital help.
EAT UP? I agree as an across clue. RED CARD.
After Radian, this was pretty shabby.
Thanks Grant
On the plus side, I enjoyed solving this and was confident of each answer once solved. Hamilton seems to have the talent to be a good setter but always includes several poorly constructed clues. I had marked up 7 at least but, thankfully, these have all been covered already in the blog. (Although I did also query a single STAIR being a ‘flight’ in 24d.)
It would have been so easy to rotate the grid to change 20a from a lousy clue to a good one. Ah well.
I enjoyed this although there were bits of the wordplay for some clues I couldn’t account for. What is ‘relative’ doing in 19d for instance when we’re given ‘Spanish aunt’; I suppose for the surface. I see what you mean about 20a which I bunged in as a kind of dd without too much thought.
I wondered if there might be a US car theme with PONTIAC and VIPER, but it didn’t go anywhere. I liked ‘Tower for power’ for which I spent too long trying to fit in something to do with a ‘tugboat’.
Thanks to Hamilton and Grant
Hovisn@ 3: I think 24 stands up. Chambers gives
stair /st?r/
noun
1. A series of steps, usu in pl, a flight from landing to landing, but in Scotland, in sing, the whole series from floor to floor
2. One such step
Thanks Simon. I did mean to check this but didn’t get around to it. Not that anybody would say “a flight of stair” would they? I should ask one of my Scottish friends.
Hovis @ 6
Your comment prompted me to look further, triggered mainly by my love of language and how it evolves, and by musing whether dictionaries give their definitions in usage order.
My ancient SOED gives for stair [sic]:
1. An ascending series or ‘flight’ of steps leading from one level to another…
2. One of a succession of steps leading from one floor of a building to another…
3. collect. pl. (of sense 2) = sense 1. Also, in generalized sense, the steps of staircases.
So it woyuld seem that the singular was originally the whole flight, which later evolved to become a flight of the individual components.
Which reminds me of a tricky poser that I was first set several decades ago: describe a spiral staircase * without using your hands.
* the enclosure of the flight, and not a ‘stairscase’, FWIW.