A dogged fight versus Hamilton this morning and one which I seem to have lost…
I cannot for the life of me find a solution to 27 Down.
I’ve taken all the help I can get – including calling on the Higher Power, who has no idea either – and I’ve walked away and come back and done the same again and again. Nothing. Not even a best First Guess. So for once I am not including the (incomplete) grid.
Hamilton is always quirky – and there are a few other clues today with which I have Issues – but if anyone has a reasonable solution to 27 I will be fascinated and probably infuriated to hear it.
This is the sole reason for this late blog, for which apologies. Please put me out of my misery.
| Across | ||
| 1 | MAILER | Writer, man one assumed to be right (6) |
| MAN includes 1 then R[ight]. Norman Mailer, of course, writer of inter alia The Executioner’s Song. | ||
| 4 | MONA LISA | The mystery is, alas, I’m no oil painting! (4,4) |
| She of the mysterious smile; so an anagram (‘the mystery is’) of ALAS IM NO with an allusive if rather vague &lit. | ||
| 9 | TIPPEX | Used to amend verbal advice to former partner (6) |
| Homophone of TIP (‘advice’) + EX (‘former partner’). Chambers confirms the alternative spelling. | ||
| 10 | SCRIBBLE | Dash off with two churchmen getting stuck into evaluating relics (8) |
| 2X B[ishop] in anagram (‘evaluating’?) of RELICS. | ||
| 12 | REOPENED | Done with peer dissembling, so started again (8) |
| Anagram (‘dissembling’, I suppose) of DONE + PEER. | ||
| 13 | IMPEND | Threaten small creature with extinction? (6) |
| IMP (‘small creature’) + END (‘extinction’). | ||
| 15 | ANEW | Once again Shane Warne is hiding! (4) |
| Hidden in ‘shANE Warne’. | ||
| 16 | ATTRACT | Entrance to a race round never- ending course (7) |
| A TT (the motorbike ‘race’) around shortened ‘TRACk’. ‘Entrance’ as verb, obvs. | ||
| 20 | COUPLER | It unites newly-weds at end of October (7) |
| COUPLE (‘newly-weds’, although why specifically ‘newly’ eludes me & it’s a bit tautologous anyway unless I’m missing something) + end of ‘octobeR’. | ||
| 21 | HEAT | Pressure unbelievers to cast off layers (4) |
| HEAThens without HENS (‘layers’). | ||
| 25 | MALAYS | South-East Asian people getting place in US state shortly (6) |
| LAY (‘place’) in MASsachusetts, which seems to be a doubly short form: it’s usually either MASS or MA. | ||
| 26 | CACHEPOT | Hide chamber with ornamental cover (8) |
| CACHE (‘hide’ as verb) + POT (‘chamber’-pot, again not a natural abbreviation: PO is the norm). | ||
| 28 | STEP ON IT | Nepotist behaving deviously needs to hurry (4,2,2) |
| Anagram (‘behaving deviously’) of NEPOTIST. | ||
| 29 | SPARKS | Radio officer in place on board (6) |
| PARK (‘place’) in SS (i.e. in a ship, ‘on board’). | ||
| 30 | MEERKATS | Animals we say are no better than Tom and his ilk (8) |
| Homophone (‘we say’) of MERE (‘no better than’) CATS (toms & their kind). | ||
| 31 | ALIGNS | Joins forces after signal deciphered (6) |
| Anagram (‘deciphered’) of SIGNAL. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | MATERIAL | Relevant information (8) |
| Double definition, though ‘information’ feels a wee bit loose for ‘material’. Heigh-ho. | ||
| 2 | IMPROVES | Makes progress while one backbencher rambles (8) |
| 1 M.P. ROVES. All backbenchers are MPs. Not all MPs are backbenchers. | ||
| 3 | ELEVEN | Footballers emerge from tunnel eventually (6) |
| Hidden in ‘tunnEL EVENtually’. | ||
| 5 | ONCE | Starting point for a fairy story? (4) |
| Cryptic def: ‘ONCE, upon a time…’. Still a lovely phrase. | ||
| 6 | A BIT MUCH | M is unreasonable (1,3,4) |
| Double def. ‘M’ is a bit of ‘Much’. | ||
| 7 | INBRED | Natural to be resting around 4, finally (6) |
| IN BED around the end of ‘fouR’. ‘Natural’ here in the sense of ‘innate’, although I’d toyed with the idea of a ‘natural’ (old word for a simpleton’) being ‘inbred’ in the sense of Norfolk (sorry, Norfolk). | ||
| 8 | AMENDS | Compensation these days to include Workers’ Society (6) |
| AD (nowadays more properly ‘CE’) includes MEN (‘workers’) then S[ociety]. | ||
| 11 | RED TAPE | On record as protecting daughter from officialdom (3,4) |
| RE (concerning, ‘on’) + TAPE (to ‘record’) include D[aughter]. | ||
| 14 | FREEWAY | Rumpus over small uphill road (7) |
| FRAY (‘rumpus’) around WEE (‘small’). | ||
| 17 | BODYWORK | The case for plastic surgery? (8) |
| Cryptic double def. The bodywork might be said to be the ‘casing’ of e.g. a vehicle. | ||
| 18 | LEAPFROG | To clear river in bad weather is child’s play (8) |
| LEAP over R[iver] in FOG. | ||
| 19 | STATISTS | Data, 20% of which is lost on politicians (8) |
| STATISTicS, with 2/10ths letters missing. New word on me but Chambers has it. | ||
| 22 | OMASUM | The third gut-wrenching sumo degree secured (6) |
| Anagram (‘wrenching’) of SUMO around MA (‘dgree’). Happened to know this but the surface is straining at the leash of comprehensibility. | ||
| 23 | ALLEGE | Claim, for instance, the French almost go around (6) |
| EG (‘for instance’) inside either ALLEz or ALLEr (both mean ‘go’ in French) around it. Probably the former as being more familiar to English speakers. | ||
| 24 | CHAPEL | Church course Ann quits when dad goes back in (6) |
| CHannEL (‘course’ without ANN) includes reversal of PA. | ||
| 27 | Note that Rolling Stone no longer out and about (4) | |
| No idea. | ||
*anagram
Thanks Grant
Having spent an hour and a half trying to solve 27dn, I finally did so a couple of minutes before your post was published. It is LIST and the parsing is an anagram (about) of ‘rolling stone’ minus (out) ‘no longer’.
In from Gaufrid: the answer is LIST. (He tells me it took him and hour and a half, which is some comfort). ‘List’, I take it, as in’hearken, note’ with an anagram (‘about’) of ROLLING STONE minus ‘NO LONGER’. Many thanks to him. I can now get on with my day. I hear others pinging in…
A tricky crossword and no mistake. I did eventually realise that 27d had to be one of my pet hates, the compound anagram. I was also much amused that I did use some 9a in one place on the grid
Thanks to Grant and Hamilton
Thanks Hamilton and GB
27 was also my LOI, by a long distance. I was about to give up when I suddenly realised what Hamilton was pointing a in the wording of the cluet, checked the wordplay, and bingo! No idea how long it took, though, as I did this one in fits and starts between other jobs.
I wondered too about ‘evaluating’ as an anagrind. I think it *just about* scrapes home. Chambers eThesaurus gives compute as a synonym for evaluate in both directions, and in one sense if something is ‘computed’ it’s ‘worked out’. Stretchy, though.
Overall I enjoyed the struggle, though I recall Hamilton often having tough aspects.
Thanks to Grant and Hamilton
Too many redundant words (TO BE in 1a etc.), iffy anagrinds (EVALUATING in 10a et al), and unindicated DBEs (NEWLY-WEDS in20a), for me to really enjoy this.
@27 I took NOTE to mean LIST as in “make a note/list”, but even there we have a redundant THAT.
I did not finish this puzzle. I still had some way to go as many clues were extremely difficult.
Not helped by use of Indiana as the US state giving Indian.
A BIT MEAN would fit 6d Poor clue.Dont think much of 11d either.
But one gets finnicky after the Mercedes like precision of Arachne
Thanks Hamilton and Grant
This continued in much the same way as a stinker Polymath of his that I did on the weekend. LIST was my third last one in, but the penny did drop about the compound anagram (unlike crypticsue@3, one of my favourite type of clues as they often give me a head-slap moment when the trick finally dawns on me).
I was more stuck in the centre area with COUPLER and FREEWAY taking a long time to solve to finish the puzzle.
The Aussie connection drew me to 15a and saw the hidden immediately to start off the what turned out to be a longer journey than normal. (Although he rarely hides and has been overly frank in his views on the current Aussie cricket team …. lah lah lah)