A very enjoyable puzzle from WANDERER today, tending to be on the relatively simpler side of the offering spectrum from this setter. Couple of new words/meanings I learnt along the way. Thanks Wanderer.
FF:9 DD: 8
| Across | ||
| 1, 5 | HOSPITAL CORNER | H-hog some bedding, in neat fashion (8,6) |
| HOSPITAL (H) CORNER (hog) – referring to the neat triangular fold in bedsheets tucked under at the corner. | ||
| 10 | THRUM | Repetitive rhythmic sound from tenor, initially highly strange (5) |
| T (tenor) H (Highly, initially) RUM (strange) | ||
| 11 | BORDEREAU | Boyfriend is about to arrange detailed statement from the French (9) |
| BEAU (boyfriend) around ORDER (arrange) | ||
| 12 | NEPHRITIS | Inflammation affected penis? It hurt, on and off (9) |
| PENIS IT HuRt (off and on, i.e. alternate letters)* | ||
| 13 | CREED | American Indian daughter’s faith (5) |
| CREE (american indian) D (daughter) | ||
| 14 | MINIMS | Notes containing little writing (6) |
| MINI (little) MS (writing, manuscript) | ||
| 15 | REMATCH | Return tie, first of man’s her cat ruined (7) |
| M (first of Man) HER CAT* | ||
| 18 | ORGANIC | Member in charge is showing gradual development, naturally (7) |
| ORGAN (member) IC ( In Charge) | ||
| 20 | SIERRA | Mountain range in Spain, primarily (6) |
| spanish for mountain range, nato phonetic alphabet for S (Spain, primarily) | ||
| 22 | HEAVE | Man greeting cat (5) |
| HE (man) AVE (greeting) – not sure about this but chambers tells me that the definition here is the nautical term for moving anchor to the cathead | ||
| 24 | GLISSANDI | Lad sings badly, including one rapidly executed series of notes (9) |
| LAD SINGS* containing I (one) | ||
| 25 | ROAST BEEF | Severely criticise grouse dish (5,4) |
| ROAST (severly criticize) BEEF (grouse) | ||
| 26 | THICK | Intimate Henry’s come in second (5) |
| H (henry) in TICK (second) | ||
| 27, 28 | DESERT ONES POST | Leave station unmanned? Opened to stress otherwise (6,4,4) |
| OPENED TO STRESS* | ||
| Down | ||
| 1, 17 | HOT AND BOTHERED | Agitated? Doctor had not worried (3,3,8) |
| HAD NOT* BOTHERED (worried) | ||
| 2 | STRIPLING | Young lad taking alcoholic drink, about to stumble (9) |
| SLING (alcoholic drink) around TRIP (stumble) | ||
| 3 | IMMERSION HEATER | Baptism before turning 3 involves a source of warm water (9,6) |
| IMMERSION (baptism) [ THREE (3)* containing A ] | ||
| 4 | ARBUTUS | Pointless war, but useful in part for Bush (7) |
| hidden in “..wAR BUT USeful..” | ||
| 6 | OVERCOMPENSATES | Goes too far making up for misdeed done with fellow politician, beginning to expose top of slit in buttocks (15) |
| OVER (done) CO (fellow) MP (politician) E (beginning to Expose) [ S (top of Slit) in NATES (buttocks) ] | ||
| 7 | NIECE | Relative having base in French city (5) |
| E ( base i.e. last letter of relativE) in NICE (french city) | ||
| 8, 21 | ROUND THE WICKET | One way of making delivery of spherical article to Scottish town, seen on film (5,3,6) |
| ROUND (spherical) THE (article) WICK (scottish town) ET (film) – cricket terminology | ||
| 9 | FRASER | Canadian banker having poor ears boxed by father (6) |
| EARS* in FR (father) | ||
| 16 | TARANTINO | Director that’s source of pitch against Japanese drama (9) |
| TAR (source of pitch) ANTI (against) NO (japanese drama) | ||
| 17 | See 1 down | |
| 19 | CAGIER | Race riots? At heart, Joe is more cautious (6) |
| RACE* containing GI (joe) | ||
| 20 | STIFFEN | During lovers’ tiff, entitled to tense up suddenly (7) |
| hidden in “..loverS’ TIFF, ENtitled..” | ||
| 21 | See 8 | |
| 23 | ADAMS | First lady’s partner, second president (5) |
| ADAM (first lady’s partner , adam and eve) S (second) – referring to john adams, 2nd president of usa. | ||
*anagram
Liked the long defs, especially for 6d and the surface for the hidden in 4d. BORDEREAU went in from the wordplay and I didn’t know HEAVE for ‘cat’.
I parsed 23d as ‘First lady’s partner’ = ADAM – ‘second’ = S with ‘president’ (yes, who happened to be the 2nd US president) as the def. Another nice clue.
Favourite was HOSPITAL CORNER. Lift it up, tuck it in, turn it over.
Thanks to Wanderer and Turbolegs.
Thanks, Turbolegs, for the blog and Wanderer for another typically enjoyable puzzle.
I had a different parsing for 22ac: I’ve learned from crosswords that ‘cat’=vomit, as does ‘heave’ and in 7dn I think the E comes from ‘a transcendental number used as the base of natural logarithms’ [Collins] – again learned from crosswords.
Never heard of HEAVE being CAT but I just did what I was told.
Very neat perimeter and an enjoyable puzzle at the friendlier end of Wanderer
Thanks to latter and turbolegs
Agree with Eileen about E in 7d. Although ARBUTUS is indeed hidden, this ignores ‘pointless’. I therefore believe Wanderer is asking us to remove W(est) from WAR + BUT + US(eful), I.e. “useful in part’.
Eileen: One never stops to wonder about the English language. I had never heard that cat = vomit and assumed it somehow as an American coinage. But the usual Google search came up with this. Of course the Victorians were as imaginative with language as any other culture.
http://catsmeatshop.blogspot.com/2010/09/victorian-slang-primer-no1-shooting-cat.html
Thanks to Wanderer and Turbolegs. I missed the cat-HEAVE connection and took a while getting FRASER because I did not know that river and missed fr = father. LOI was BORDEREAU. also new to me. but with all the crossers I did work out the parsing.
Sorry to be Mr Grumpy, but 1,17 has the same problem I complained about in Wanderer’s last puzzle , with “a major part of the wordplay [BOTHERED] … essentially the same as [a major part of] the answer.”
Cat=vomit has come up (sorry) a few times: I know it from Evelyn Waugh’s A Handful of Dust, in which the protagonist’s young son shocks his mother by using the word in the phrase “horses can’t cat”, having learned it from one of their servants.
Andrew, I had actually the same feeling today (but in that sense usually not with this setter on past occasions).
HOSPITAL/CORNER, ROUND/THE/rest and IMMERSION/rest (and to a certain extent, 25ac) have a similar ‘problem’ as 1d,17.
Overall I still liked this puzzle, though.
Many thanks to Turbolegs & Wanderer.
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
Good puzzle with it’s six long answers that took a couple of sittings to get out. The FRASER river was a new one for me.
Finished with HOSPITAL CORNER and MINIMS.