Quite hard work today, but no criticisms really: Hob has produced a nice crossword with some good clues, and the only delays were the result of my incompetence.
Definitions underlined, in maroon. Anagram indicators in italics.
The theme is ducks; certainly these appear at 1ac, 9ac, 14ac, 24ac, 30ac, 1dn, 7dn. 8dn, 13dn, 26dn, and in the wordplay for 25ac, but probably I’ve missed the odd one and this will I trust be pointed out.
| Across | ||
| 1 | DUCKS | Hook’s Darling? (5) |
| Not an easy one to explain: I think the ‘s is an indication of a hidden, so it’s HOOk, and oo is 00, or ducks as in cricket | ||
| 4 | NICKNAMES | Swinging men, as shown by cooler sobriquets (9) |
| nick [= cooler] *(men as) | ||
| 9 | AYLESBURY | Busy year for development around large Home Counties town (9) |
| (Busy year)* round l | ||
| 10 | TILDE | Wavy line seen around some translated literature? (5) |
| Reverse hidden in translatED LITerature | ||
| 11 | EPISODE | Record one’s lines for scene (7) |
| EP 1’s ode | ||
| 12 | GUFFAW | Loud laugh from a wife after foolish talk (6) |
| guff a w | ||
| 14 | HARLEQUIN | Arguably one of 15 playing the clown? (9) |
| 2 defs, one of them referring to the rugby club Harlequins | ||
| 16 | DEE | Letter from flower girl, perhaps (3) |
| 3 defs, the middle one being the old crossword chestnut flow-er for a river and the last one possibly being ‘girl. perhaps’, since Dee isn’t a very common girl’s name and otherwise what is the ‘perhaps’ doing? | ||
| 18 | BOW | Cricketer, only 50%, getting stick for playing (3) |
| bow{ler} — a violinist’s bow | ||
| 20 | REHEARSAL | Practice that’s needed before a learner driver tries again (9) |
| before a L is rehears [brings to trial again] | ||
| 24 | RUNNER | Shoot the messenger? (6) |
| 2 defs | ||
| 25 | SADDLER | Small 1D, perhaps, heading off to find one providing resting place for bums (7) |
| s {w}addler since 1D is DRAKE and a waddler is a type of duck — at least I assumed it was and now find that it isn’t; it’s just a general word for something that waddles, like a duck | ||
| 28 | RADII | First signs of rickets, as displayed in immature bones (5) |
| First letters | ||
| 29 | BEE ORCHID | Buzzer beside choir, set off by daughter’s bloomer (3,6) |
| bee (choir)* d | ||
| 30 | ORPINGTON | Playwright about to send electronic message to Kentish Town once (9) |
| Or(ping)ton — ref Joe Orton, the playwright who is remembered I suspect more for his lifestyle and his convenience to crossword setters than for his plays — why Orpington was a Kentish Town once I can’t see: it’s still a town in Kent | ||
| 31 | NERVY | On edge as Queen covers third of tracks from Kind of Blue (5) |
| Kind of Blue is navy, a kind of blue, and third of tracks is the letter a, so ER replaces the a in navy | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | DRAKE | Sailor having date with dissolute chap (5) |
| d rake | ||
| 2 | COLLIER | Pitman shorthand for writing on dog’s tail (7) |
| collie R — the shorthand for writing is R as in the three Rs | ||
| 3 | SYSTOLES | Distributed toys less in periods of contraction (8) |
| *(toys less) | ||
| 4 | NOUVEAU | Part of speech briefly describing part of the Observer that’s up-to-date? (7) |
| no(uvea)u{n} — the Observer is the observer, the eye | ||
| 5 | CRYOGEN | Freezing mixture, say, turning up in children’s drawer after adult’s left (7) |
| cr{A}yo(ge)n, the ge being (eg)rev. — the children’s drawer is the thing that children draw with | ||
| 6 | NOTIFY | Advise turning up healthy, in that case (6) |
| (y(fit)on)rev. | ||
| 7 | MALLARD | A couple of lines in short play about record-breaker (7) |
| (a ll) in (dram{a})rev. — the Mallard steam engine was a record-breaker | ||
| 8 | SMEE | Pirate sells me empty boxes (4) |
| Hidden in sellS ME Empty | ||
| 13 | TEAL | Shade of white, allegedly (4) |
| Hidden in whiTE, ALlegedly, with some &littery since teal is only arguably a shade of white: a very off-white shade | ||
| 14 | HOBO | Hospital with type of blood found in 1A bum (4) |
| H 0(B)0 — 00 is ducks, 1A, and B is the type of blood | ||
| 15 | IDE | Fish that is seen crossing the 16 (3) |
| i(D)e since 16 is DEE, or the letter D | ||
| 17 | MANDARIN | Producer of orange tongue (8) |
| 2 defs | ||
| 19 | WOUND UP | Teased by women? Love a French party! (5,2) |
| w 0 un [a in French] DUP [Democratic Unionist Party] | ||
| 20 | RAREBIT | Strike-breaker eats cooked Brie in this? (7) |
| ra(rebi)t, the rebi being *(Brie) | ||
| 21 | HAS-BEEN | Banshee flying around one whose time is gone (3-4) |
| (Banshee)* | ||
| 22 | SULPHUR | 16th in table is the tip for Southampton (7) |
| S, the abbreviation for sulphur, is 16th in the Periodic Table and is S{outhampton} | ||
| 23 | INDIAN | Restaurant in unfinished state (6) |
| Indian{a} | ||
| 26 | RUDDY | Blooming filthy topless shows (5) |
| {c}ruddy | ||
| 27 | TRIO | Unrestrained revelry when cycling in a small group (4) |
| riot with the t moved rond to the front — nothing to do with brio, as for a while I suspected | ||
*anagram
Quack Quack!
23d is a duck too. I always thought 30a was a chicken but I’ve now added it to my list of ducks
Thank you to Hob for a crossword with a theme that even this non-noticer of themes and/or Ninas couldn’t miss – thanks also to John
I didn’t know this of course, but from the Orpington entry in Wikipedia: “It is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. Before the creation of Greater London in 1965, Orpington was in the county of Kent.”
Another to add is the MANDARIN duck – as per usual in the avian world, the female looks very dowdy in comparison to the male of the species.
Glad I wasn’t alone in having trouble with ‘Hook’s’ in 1a; I still don’t really get it.
Love that MALLARD – thanks for the link.
Thanks to John (your ‘waddle’ is my ‘paddle’) and to Hob.
Ducking good stuff.
This dabbler seemed to be on wavelength for most of it, but I did need the blog to clarify a couple of points where I was fuzzy.
Thanks to Hob for the tasty puzzle and to John for the plum sauce.
Thanks Hob, John
23 and 24 are one duck, I think. Didn’t know a smew was also a smee, but I enjoyed the Peter Pan red herring, even though I was also left wondering about Hook’s.
There was another nice duck puzzle not too long ago. I searched for a few ducks but couldn’t find it, then remembered that the ducks were divided between solutions, so tried searching for eg LARDON for [mal]lard, but still no luck, I mean duck. Eventually I just searched DUCK, and up popped Donald in a puzzle by Morph in June this year. LARDON is actually a solution, but doesn’t show up in searches because in the blog ducks were coloured green (all of them, not just the mallards), so green LARD and black ON seem to be treated as separate words. You get a search result for LARD and likewise for APARTH in APARTHEID[er] but not for the whole solution. Not really a major problem, but an interesting glitch.
Apparently, Dee can occasionally be a boy’s name – hence the “perhaps”?
We were left struggling in the SE corner and eventually resorted to a wordfinder for 25ac, after which the rest fell into place – and a real facepalm moment for SULPHUR as we never thought of the periodic table (and one of us was a chemist!)
We enjoyed the theme, though, particularly MALLARD, our CoD.
Thanks, Hob and John.
Ducks Nicknames, indeed. Had trouble with the downs – Failed to parse 4, 6, 23 and 27d, so thanks for elucidating, John, and for the fun, Hob. As for a any missing ducks…. 2d “Mary Collier (c. 1688 – 1762) was an English poet, perhaps best known for her poetic riposte to Stephen Duck, The Woman’s Labour. “. Or was that just coincidence rather than intention? Furthermore 22d could refer to the specialty Korean dish of “Sulphur duck roasted in mud“. Anyone fancy a taste?
Defeated me, I’m afraid. Been out this evening ad just don’t have time.
Anyone else been having trouble getting the puzzle off the website? I found I couldn’t load it in either Edge or Chrome, and only got it in Firefox by turning off my ad blocker.
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Damn, I’ve worked out (I think) how to stop Kaspersky adding that message, but forgot to do it this time.
I’m partly posting here to see if I can reproduce the fault to get logs to send to Kaspersky, but I take it no-one else is having problems with the Indie site?
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Dormouse @11
As when I checked earlier in the week, I’ve again had no problems accessing the online Indy using Win10/Chrome.
I’m having problems on W10 with both Edge and Chrome.
What’s slightly bizarre is that I’ve tried disabling AdBlock plus in both browsers, and I’m still getting a message to disable my adblocker.
Dormouse @13
You will shortly have mail.