I enjoyed this puzzle from Tees today.. Nothing really obscure and a good mix of general knowledge required.
I don’t use the words ASSONANCE and METASTASIS on a daily basis but I have come across both before, and I was aware of ONAN.
For CASHCARDS I started off thinking SH must be an abbreviation for second hand but I couldn’t find one in the usual dictionaries. S is OK for seconds and I can find hh (hands) referring to the height of a horse but I can’t find H on it’s own for a single hand.
There can’t be many crosswords these days where the clues don’t ask you to exclude a letter from a component part, but this is one of them. Indeed there are virtually no references to individual letters in the wordplay. I think the B of BACH in REBEL is the only one.
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No | Clue | Wordplay | Entry |
|
1
|
Settlement crowded we hear (4)
|
PACT (sounds like [we hear] PACKED [crowded]) PACT |
PACT (agreement; settlement)
|
| 3 | River animal reaching inlet causes unnecessary panic (5,5) |
FAL (river in Cornwall) + SEAL (marine mammal; animal + ARM (inlet) FAL SE AL ARM |
FALSE ALARM (warning of danger which turns out to have been unnecessary) |
| 10 | 11 worker employed around state restaurant (7) |
ANT (worker) reversed (retired [entry at 11 across]) containing (around) AVER (state) T (AVER) NA< |
TAVERNA ([Greek] restaurant) |
| 11 | Left American band on road, indebted perhaps (7) |
TIRE (American spelling of TYRE [a band of rubber on the road]) contained in (in) RED such that TIRE is in the RED [in debt) RE (TIRE) D |
RETIRED (withdrawn; retreated; left) |
| 12 | Some nerve twitching after surgical procedure (5) |
OP (operation; surgical procedure) + TIC (convulsive twitching of certain muscles) OP TIC |
OPTIC (reference the OPTIC nerve in the eye connecting the eye to the brain) |
| 13 | Ban tried out that’s cut in court (9) |
An anagram of (out) TRIED contained in (cut) (IN + CT [court]) IN (TERDI*) CT |
INTERDICT (prohibit; ban)
|
| 14 |
Survive having to abandon desperate defenders here? (4,5) |
LAST (survive) + DITCH (abandon) LAST DITCH |
LAST DITCH (descriptive of an attempt, etc made at the last moment or in the last resort; where desperate defenders are often located) |
| 16 | Vehicle in India or Friendly Islands? (5) |
TONGA (light two-wheeled Indian vehicle) TONGA |
TONGA (the TONGA archipelago became known in the West as the "Friendly Islands" because of the congenial reception accorded to Captain James Cook on his first visit in 1773 double definition |
| 18 | Bach’s first musical piece about revolting subject (5) |
REEL (musical piece) containing (about) B (first letter of [first] BACH) RE (B) EL |
REBEL (a person [subject] who resists or revolts against authority) |
| 19 | Rotters, pinching second-hand vehicle, they access one’s account (9) |
CADS (rotters) containing (S [second] + H [hand {?}] + CAR [vehicle]) CA (S H CAR) DS |
CASHCARDS (coded plastic CARDS issued by a bank that allows the holder to obtain money from a bank account via a cash dispenser) Shown as two words in many dictionaries
|
| 21 | Standing upright? It’s time to slice fish! (9) |
T (time) contained in (to slice) BRISLING (Norwegian sprat; a fish) BRIS (T) LING |
BRISTLING (standing upright)
|
| 22 | Better regularly taking food from poulterer (5) |
CAP (better) + ON (regularly taking as ‘he is ON a course of antibiotics’) CAP ON |
CAPON (castrated cock fattened for eating; an item that can be purchased from a poulterer) |
| 24 |
Coin East European must invest in school (7)
|
(E [East] + E [European]) containing (must invest in) DUCAT (historic gold or silver coin of varying values, formerly much used in Europe) E (DUCAT) E |
EDUCATE (teach; school)
|
| 25 | Love helping to make speech (7) |
O (zero; love score in tennis) + RATION (portion; helping) O RATION |
ORATION (speech)
|
| 26 | Swirling mists at seas in transition (10) |
Anagram of (swirling) MISTS AT SEA METASTASIS* |
METASTASIS (transition) |
| 27 | Ceremonial pile in sleepy region (4) |
PYRE (hidden word in [in] SLEEPY REGION) PYRE |
PYRE (pile of combustible material suitable for ceremonial burning of dead body) |
| Down | |||
| 1 | Poor novel likely to be steamy (3-6) |
POT-BOILER (a POT that is BOILing is likely to be giving off steam) POT BOILER |
POT-BOILER (a work in art or literature produced merely with regard to saleability, poor novel for example but well marketed) |
| 2 | Beast found by animal doctor on Guernsey? (5) |
CI (Channel Islands; Guernsey is one of these islands) + VET (veterinary surgeon; animal doctor) CI VET |
CIVET (small catlike creature; beast)
|
| 4 | Sailor is taken by cunning scholar (7) |
(AB [able seaman; sailor] + IS) contained in (taken by) ART (cunning) AR (AB IS) T |
ARABIST (person learned in, or studying, Arabic culture, history, language, etc; scholar) |
| 5 | Slight wound is no handicap (7) |
SCRATCH (slight wound) SCRATCH |
SCRATCH (a player who does not have the benefit of a handicap that gives a better starting position)
|
| 6 | The Deep South? (9,5) |
The ANTARCTIC region is located around the South pole) hence it is in the deep South. Also an OCEAN can be described poetically as the Deep ANTARCTIC OCEAN |
ANTARCTIC OCEAN (a deep sea in the southern regions) |
| 7 | One accusing a monarch vocally? (9) |
ARRAIGNER (sounds like [vocally] A REIGNER [monarch, for example]) ARRAIGNER |
ARRAIGNER (one who accuses publicly) |
| 8 | Thick? Way beyond stupid, on reflection! (5) |
DIM (stupid) reversed (on reflection) + ST (street; way) MID< ST |
MIDST (depths; thick) |
| 9 | Line of children hurries along showing insincere grief (9,5) |
CROCODILE (line of children) + TEARS (hurries) CROCODILE TEARS |
CROCODILE TEARS (insincere grief) |
| 15 | Nickname which Parisian’s given in fashionable bistro (9) |
QUE (French for ‘which’) contained in (given in) an anagram of (fashionable) BISTRO SOBRI (QUE) T* |
SOBRIQUET (nickname) |
| 17 | Sound correspondence seed-spiller kept in various cases (9) |
ONAN (a minor biblical character who spilled his sperm [seed] on the ground rather than complete a sexual act) contained his (kept in) an anagram of (various) CASES ASS (ONAN) CE* |
ASSONANCE (correspondence in sound)
|
| 19 | Wild idea to agree with artist (7) |
CHIME (agree with) + RA (Royal Academician; artist) CHIME RA |
CHIMERA (any idle or wild fancy)
|
| 20 | Soldiers sent north rejected smooth Italians (7) |
GIS (American soldiers) reversed (sent north; down clue) + IRON (smooth) reversed (rejected) SIG< NORI< |
SIGNORI (Italian gentlemen) |
| 21 | Papers supporting British swimmer (5) |
B (Brirish) + REAM (480 to 500 sheets of paper; papers) B REAM |
BREAM (fish; swimmer)
|
| 23 | Once secret little room (5) |
PRIVY (secret) PRIVY |
PRIVY (lavatory, esp in its own shed or outhouse. Not very common now, so I think the ‘old’ in the clue applies to this definition) double definition |
I didn’t know the Norwegian sprat, the two-wheeled Indian vehicle, missed the ‘American band’ and was much more familiar with METASTASIS as being a (secondary) tumour which has spread from the original (primary) site, than as a ‘transition’. Otherwise nothing new in this one!
I use R/LHS as an abbreviation for ‘right/left hand side’ so I thought H for ‘hand’ was OK, but that usage may just be me and I see that’s it’s not even in the OED.
Quite a few to add to the new word list, including, as an added bonus, TONGA as ‘A Fijian toothache remedy’.
Thanks to Tees and Duncan
H for hand(ed) is also used in the designation of batsmen style in cricket, ie LHB = (left-hand(ed) batsman/batswoman).
Tough in places but, in my opinion, not as tough as his FT offering today (which I thoroughly recommend). I also failed to parse RETIRED, so thanks for that. Not sure about H for hand. Yes, I use RHS and LHS but it cannot count when only in a combination. For example, we can’t say E for ‘eye’ because it appears in R.E.M.
Thanks to Tees and Duncan.
Thanks Duncan
No problem with hand=H. From the ODE under H: “(in measuring the height of horses) hand(s): pinto pony gelding—quiet, 13.3 h, great with kids.”.
Thanks Gaufrid @4. It seems hard to find this anywhere else. Like Duncan, I did find hh. I suppose it’s a bit like B for barrel, which is used a lot by setters, but seems mainly to be abbreviated as BL.
Tough in places but we solved and parsed everything without help, though some parsings took a while to see after getting answers from definition and crossing letters.
Interesting that ‘on’ in the clue for 2 down indicates putting ‘vet’ after ‘CI’ as it would for an across clue, when ‘on’ in a down clue can indicate placing something above something else. Deliberate misdirection, maybe?
No problem with SH = secondhand. To us it’s one of those abbreviations which may not appear in dictionaries but are in common use, such as ‘vgc’ for ‘very good condition’ (in small ads) or SX for ‘Saturdays excepted’ (in timetables) – although it can appear as ‘s/h’. Actually, who refers to secondhand vehicles these days – aren’t they either ‘used’ or even ‘pre-owned’?
Thanks, Tees and Duncan
2D Is straightforward I think, although one does initially look at the word “on”. The beast is “found” by the description of an animal doctor on Guernsey, who is a CI vet.