One for those who like a bit (a lot?) of general knowledge in their puzzles.
I finished the puzzle, but not the parsing, I’m sorry to say. I can’t fully parse 18ac or 26/27ac.
Considering I was in A&E for five hours last night with my (adult) son following a football injury that turned out to be nothing serious, and did not get home until 2:30am, I am chuffed to have completed the puzzle, but my aging brain hasn’t had enough zzzzs to work out the parsings. I will also use this as my excuse for the customary typos that may have crept in.
This was a difficult puzzle, not because of the answers, most of which fell into place, but because of some of the devices used by Wanderer, which made this a challenging blog to write, even if I had had enough sleep last night.
Any help with the unparsed clues will, as always, be appreciated by me and my fellow solvers.
Thanks, Wanderer.
| Across | ||
| 1, 5 | TRISTRAM SHANDY | Book date with lover, say? Memory’s useful for that (8,6) |
| Homophone of TRYST (“meeting with lover”, say) + RAM’S (random access “memory’s”) + HANDY ( “useful”)
The full title of Laurence Sterne’s famous novel was “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman”, but it is normally called “Tristram Shandy” |
||
| 9 | UNDERCUT | Charge less than Greek character returning with reduction (two-thirds off) (8) |
| <=NU (“greek character” returning) with *(reduct), where reduct is two-thirds of REDUCT(ion) | ||
| 10 | PEEWEE | Twice No.1 birdcall (6) |
| PEE + WEE (“No. 1”, twice) | ||
| 11 | GRATUITY | Good friend of Mole enthrals you with one tip (8) |
| G (good) + RATTY (“friend of Mole”, in Wind in the Willows) enthrals U (you, in textspeak) with I (“one”) | ||
| 12 | COWARD | Playwright Jack maybe falls in love with? Just the opposite (6) |
| The opposite of CARD (“Jack maybe”) in O (“love”) W (with) is OW in CARD, so (Noel) C(OW)ARD | ||
| 14 | DRAWING PIN | Warn pidgin changes tack in the US (7,3) |
| *(warn pidgin) I was a bit bemused by the “in the US” bit of the clue, but Chambers entry for “tack” says “drawing pin (N. Am.)”. I’ve always called tacks drawing pins. | ||
| 18 | HALF-LENGTH | Portrait of upper body that could be a Goodman, Wiseman or Deighton? (4-6) |
| Not quie sure of the parsing but Goodman, Wiseman and Deighton are famous Lens, so I can see HALF LEN (as in half of their names being their surname only), but I can’t work out the GTH bit? | ||
| 22 | UPPITY | Ruth follows on horse, possibly difficult to control (6) |
| PITY (“ruth”) follows UP (“on horse”) | ||
| 23 | CHAT ROOM | Where Tom in Paris potentially meets retired Muslim in North Africa? (4,4) |
| CHAT (cat in French, so “tom in Paris, potentially”) meets <=MOOR (retired “Muslim in North Africa”) | ||
| 24 | DEAR ME | Expression of dismay as French cop mislays info about Spain (4,2) |
| (gen) DARME (“French cop” mislaying GEN (“info”) about E (international vehicle identifier for “Spain”) | ||
| 25 | FRETWORK | Go after pine used for ornamental design in wood (8) |
| WORK (“go”) after FRET (“pine”) | ||
| 26, 27 | RETURN TO SENDER | Former No.1 cause of red nose – extremely drunk, following this order? (6,2,6) |
| Can’t work the parsing out – I can see *(red nose) neing O SENDER, but the rest has me beat. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | TRUDGE | Following Twain’s lead, it’s harsh describing golf as a long and tedious walk (6) |
| Following T(wain’s) [lead], it’s RUDE (“harsh’) describing G(golf, in the phonetic alphabet)
Refers to Mark Twain’s famous quote that “golf is a good walk spoiled”. |
||
| 2, 16 | INDIAN ELEPHANT | Meal on the plane, prepared for specific type of jumbo (6,8) |
| INDIAN (“meal”) on *(the plane) | ||
| 3 | TURN UP | Come and go, with animation (4,2) |
| TURN (“go”) with UP (“animation”)
“Up” is the name of a 2009 animated movie, one of the best 250 movies ever made, according to IMdB users. |
||
| 4 | ADULTERANT | Arguably more mature worker is source of corruption (10) |
| ADULTER (“more mature”, arguably) + ANT (“worker”)
The “arguably” in the clue is an indicator that ADULTER is not a real word. |
||
| 6 | HOEDOWNS | First of headwords dictionary has for country dances (8) |
| [first of] H(eadwords) + OED (Oxford English “dictionary”) + OWNS (“has”) | ||
| 7, 20 | NEW LAMPS FOR OLD | Offer from wicked sorcerer, possibly Mr Flood’s pal (3,5,3,3) |
| NEW *(mr floods pal) A reverse anagram. | ||
| 8 | YIELDING | Having some spring produce in garden’s front border (8) |
| YIELD (“produce”) + IN G(arden’s) [front border] | ||
| 13 | SWITCHEROO | Other half of Wisconsin’s affected by surprising change in the US (10) |
| *(other wisco) where “wisco” is half of WISCO(nsin’s) | ||
| 15 | SHOULDER | Bear ought to eat root tops (8) |
| SHOULD (“ought to”) + E(at) R(oot) [tops] | ||
| 16 | See 2 | |
| 17 | OLD-TIMER | Grandfather clock? One that’s long been in service (3-5) |
| A grandfather clock is an old clock, so an “old timer” | ||
| 19 | STATUE | A time entering change in the US, with husband going bust? (6) |
| A T (time) entering *(te us) where “te us” is T(h)E US with H(usband) going | ||
| 20 | See 7 | |
| 21 | SMOKER | Small donkey owner, ultimately one ignoring health warnings (6) |
| S (small) + MOKE (“donkey”) + (owne)R [ulimately] | ||
*anagram
26,27 is a reverse (“return”) of “red”, “ne” (“nose – extremely”) and “sot” (“drunk”) – if you follow the order return “tosender” then you get that lot.
ps glad no serious problems and hope you all recover from the ordeal – I spent a similar time in A&E not so long ago with my adult son!
18a: Half LENGTH is LEN, this giving one of the three Lens listed.
26/27: The “order” is to RETURN (TO SENDER), which would give RED N[os]E (“nose, extremely”) + SOT (drunk)
Thanks to both for the clarifications. Don’t know when I’ll get a chance to edit, but will endeavour to do so ASAP.
Thanks Loonapick – so glad your (and your son’s) ordeal turned out OK.
I loved this, as I generally do with all offerings from Wanderer.
FWIW Tristram Shandy is my favourite book.
I have the sort of brain that remembers ‘stuff’ so I don’t mind a GK filled crossword. I enjoyed the crossword and did smile at the half-length
Thanks to Wanderer and to Loonapick – I hope you and your son recover from last night’s ordeal soon
Can someone explain what “former No. 1 cause” in clue has to do with 26/27 across? I figured out the RED NE SOT angle but thought the answer/definition referred to “this order” at the end of the clue and didn’t know what to make of the start. Before I figured it out, I thought “RETURN TO BENDER” might make one extremely drunk. Thanks.
ub@7 Eileen has underlined former No 1 as the definition – I’ll bet I’m not the only one left with an ear worm of this old Elvis Presley no 1 hit
Dear Sue @8 – you’re giving credit where it isn’t due: I’ve only just come to this, after blogging the Guardian’s Paul. 😉 [but you’re right, you’re not the only one!].
Thanks, – and commiserations – loonapick. I’ve had the same experience [with a teenage son] more than once.
A lovely puzzle, as expected from Wanderer [why on a Thursday, I wonder?]. My favourites today were TRISTRAM SHANDY, GRATUITY, DRAWING PIN, UPPITY, TRUDGE and NEW LAMPS FOR OLD.
Many thanks to Wanderer.
Sorry Loonapick for calling you Eileen in my comment at 8. I’ll blame the ear worm for the concentration problems 🙂
Thanks both. Re your comment on 14a, “thumb tack” is the full US term.
Thanks Wanderer and loonapick
This was an old one that finally got around to doing and one in which the long clues gave a lot of satisfaction when they were able to fall. INDIAN ELEPHANT was an early entry to do that.
Thought that the construction of RETURN TO SENDER was excellent as was CHAT ROOM. Quick enough finish and ended up in the SW corner with the very clever HALF-LENGTH and the not so hard (in hindsight) SHOULDER as the last couple in.