Guardian Cryptic 27,831 by Chifonie

by

The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/27831.

I think this fits the bill for a gentle start to the week, apart from a few synonyms which are somewhere between unexpected and loose.

Across
1 HEMLOCK Socrates’s killer shows a hesitation to bolt (7)
A charade of HEM (‘a hesitation’ – that’s a change from um or er) plus LOCK (‘bolt’).
5 DOWAGER Manage venture for widow (7)
A charade of DO (‘manage’) plus WAGER (‘venture’).
10 TICK Instant credit (4)
Double definition.
11 NUTRITIOUS Teachers’ recipe? It promises to be wholesome! (10)
A charade of NUT (National Union of ‘Teachers’; now merged into the National Education Union) plus R (‘recipe’) plus ‘it’ plus IOUS (‘promises’).
12 KINDLE Arouse and race the French (6)
A charade of KIND (‘race’) plus LE (‘the French’).
13 RAINCOAT Scoundrel acquires a popular firm making clothing (8)
An envelope (‘acquiring’) of ‘a’ plus IN (‘popular’) plus CO (‘firm’) in RAT (‘scoundrel’).
14 ANALGESIC Medication sorted out Gail’s acne (9)
An anagram (‘sorted out’) of ‘Gail’s acne’.
16 RULER Regret drinking port with royal head of state (5)
A charade of RULE, an envelope of L (left, ‘port’) in RUE (‘regret’); plus R (‘royal’).
17 SCANT Little or no time to follow screening (5)
A charade of SCAN (‘screening’) plus T (‘time’).
19 EGLANTINE Rose‘s inelegant disposition (9)
An anagram (‘disposition’) of ‘inelegant’.
23 PILASTER Persist in support for architectural feature (8)
An envelope (‘in’) of LAST (‘persist’) in PIER (‘support’).
24 PALTRY Mate’s attempt to be sorry (6)
A charade of PAL (‘mate’) plus TRY (‘attempt’).
26 BERTOLUCCI Film director developed erotic club (10)
An anagram (‘developed’) of ‘erotic club’.
27 CHAT Talk about item of clothing (4)
A charade of C (circa, ‘about’) plus HAT (‘item of clothing’).
28 RAT RACE Soldiers to pursue struggle for survival (3,4)
A charade of RA (‘soldiers’) plus TRACE (‘pursue’).
29 LEATHER Hide drug among the soapsuds (7)
An envelope (‘among’) of E (‘drug’) in LATHER (‘soapsuds’).
Down
2 EDITION Rabble-rousing lacks its initial impression (7)
A subtraction: [s]EDITION (‘rabble-rousing’) minus its first letter (‘lacks its initial’).
3 LIKED Enjoyed song about monarch (5)
An envelope (‘about’) of K (king, ‘monarch’) in LIED (‘song’).
4 CONCEDE Admit new church is bound by regulations (7)
An envelope (‘is bound by’) of N (‘new’) plus CE ( Church’) in CODE (‘regulations’).
6 ORIGIN Duck doctor in spring (6)
A charade of O (‘duck’) plus RIG (‘doctor’) plus ‘in’.
7 AGINCOURT Battle for a drink on playing area (9)
A charade of ‘a’ plus GIN (‘drink’) plus COURT (‘playing area’).
8 EMULATE Bird slow to to imitate (7)
A charade of EMU (‘bird’) plus LATE (‘slow’; the first listing in OED – Chambers gives it as dialect). Thanks to the Grauniad for the doubled ‘to’ at no extra charge.
9 STARTING PRICE Opening quietly paper of a kind that gives the betting (8,5)
A charade of STARTING (‘opening’) plus P (piano, ‘quietly’) plus RICE (‘paper of a kind’).
15 LANCASTER Ancestral building — a royal house (9)
An anagram (‘building’) of ‘ancestral’.
18 CHIMERA Fit in with artist’s wild fantasy (7)
A charade of CHIME (‘fit in’) plus RA (‘artist’).
20 APPRISE Warn parish priest getting into a lift (7)
An envelope (‘getting into’) of PP (‘parish priest’) in ‘a’ plus RISE (‘lift’ – raise would be more common)
21 NARRATE Ran over judge? Tell us the story! (7)
A charade of NAR, a reversl (‘over’) of ‘ran’ plus RATE (‘judge’).
22 ITALIC Character with inclination for one toiletry containing iodine (6)
An envelope (‘containing’) of I (chemical symbol, ‘iodine’) in I (‘one’) plus TALC (‘toiletry’).
25 LICIT Permissible but to some extent duplicitous (5)
A hidden answer (‘to some extent’) in ‘dupLICITous’.
completed grid

30 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,831 by Chifonie”

  1. This was an enjoyable puzzle for a Monday. My favourites were SCANT + ITALIC.

    New for me was NUT = National Union of Teachers which I found in my online dictionary.

    Thanks Chifonie and PeterO.

  2. Nothing too complicated here, straightforward solve over 90 minutes here and there. LOI LEATHER, COD Eglantine. Thanks to setter and blogger.

  3. A game of one half and two quarters for me. Lower half fell into place easily, top right a bit longer, then a pause for thought before finishing top left. Last four yielded by reasoning that ..k.. probably ends in d or n then the final clues followed.

    I found it slightly unusual for manage not to mean run in a Monday, so progress was held up until I discarded that.

  4. Loose synonyms indeed.

    Being a Monday we expected to finish in somewhat less than Roberto’s 90 minutes but didn’t manage without the use of aids.

     

     

  5. Nice enjoyable Monday from the Chif, lots of smooth neat surfaces like Instant credit, rat containong a in co, scan t, pal try, and etc; probably easier to do early in the week when there’s less need to obscure. Next doing the Eye xword, for a change of tone, usually smutty.

    Ta PeterO and Chifonie.

  6. Most enjoyable after a late night and early morning focus on the European election results. HEMLOCK foi..a lot around at the moment.
    Thanks Chifonie and PeterO.

  7. Thanks Chifonie and PeterO

    Nice Monday puzzle. I liked the surfaces for NUTRITIOUS and ANALGESIC, and LANCASTER was a neat anagram.

    Would “foreign song” have been fairer in 3d?

    HEMLOCK would have been difficult without the GK.

  8. Gentle start to week from Chifonie. Liked 6d origin, where for once doctor did not refer to a person of that profession or ‘to doctor’ some words. Our slow bird in 8d is in fact quite fast, perhaps even legendarily so when up against a kangaroo (see John Williamson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYjrhj_K3ck !)

  11. Thank you to Chifonie and PeterO.

    A gentle workout for a sunny Bank Holiday morning, especially after the challenge of Azed’s “Carte Blanche” yesterday.

    Muffin @ 7 – I think Lied as song is fair: it has half entered the English language. In crosswordland people are constantly singing Lieder (and airs).

  12. Had to look up Socrates’ death but the rest were straightforward Monday stuff with some very hoary anagrams.

    Thanks to Chifonie and PeterO

  13. Thanks to Chifonie and PeterO. A very pleasant and not too taxing beginning to the week. Generally straightforward but by no means a write in for me. I liked edition, origin and starting price and thanks again to Chifonie and PeterO.

  14. Thanks to Chifonie for a fine Monday puzzle and to PeterO for parsing a couple that in retrospect should have been obvious. I tripped over my own brain at 8d, where the A_E at the end convinced me that ‘imitate’ was part of the wordplay, but then I couldn’t think of a seven-letter bird ending in APE. Oh, well …

    One question: Does any dictionary give ‘r’ as an abbreviation for recipe?

  15. I have to inform every one that Apprise appears both in this puzzle and the Quick Crossword today….

  17. Thanks both,

    CoD was 11ac for me because of the outrageous cluing across the punctuation.

    As this was over fairly quickly, I returned to Friday’s Shed, which I’d found very difficult. It all slipped into place today. I sometimes wonder whether crosswords are a verification (failure to disprove for Popperians) of the Law of Formative Causation – they get easier once a lot have people have solved them, even if there is no communication between solvers.

     

  18. ‘of people’ not ‘have people’. It was too bright, in the conservatory, to read what I’d written properly.

  19. DaveinNCarolina @14

    In answer to your question, indeed so – and I would be fairly confident that you have come across it at your local pharmacy, generally rendered Rx. The x never was a real letter, but a flourish on the tail of the R at the head of an old hand-written prescription. The R stood for recipe – not the English word derived from it, but the Latin imperative “Take”. You will likely encounter it again.

  20. Thanks, PeterO, for your informative answer to my question. It wasn’t in my online Collins, but I thought it might be in other sources.

  22. Robi @ 10. I don’t mean to be facetious, but which puzzle were you doing??

    I enjoyed this, especially the clever anagram at 15D.

    Thanks Chifonie and PeterO.

  23. Perfectly pitched for a Monday–easy, but not so easy that it fell right in. (For me, 20 minutes.) Too bad it’s a holiday–I would have had time for something tougher.

  24. Thanks to Chifonie and PeterO. I agree – a good Monday puzzle. Only ORIGIN with “rig” = “doctor” gave me trouble.

  25. I thought this was an excellent puzzle that once again shows they don’t have to be difficult to be elegant and enjoyable. I was another with ORIGIN as my loi (and cotd); who persisted for far too long looking for an -APE word for 8d; and loved the surface misdirection in 11a. Lots of other ticks. Many thanks to Chifonie and PeterO.

  26. Did so well to start with and enjoyed the challenge which was a gentle start to the week. Then stared at 6d for far too long and gave up. Could not see doctor = rig for the life of me, but totally fair of course. So a DNF for me. My favourites were KINDLE and BERTOLUCCI. Did anyone else think the definition for RAT RACE a little off? Many thanks to Chifonie and PeterO

  27. Lots to enjoy in this – with AGINCOURT being the solution I enjoyed best, and EMULATE a close second. Many thanks to Chifonie, and to Peter O for the explanations

  28. Bad news for compilers. The National Union of Teachers is no more. The NUT has amalgamated with the Association of Teachers and Lecturers to make a giant education union.

  29. I would say that the extra ‘to’ in 8d is intentional – if you’re slow to (get to) something/somewhere, you’re late?

  30. Finished it in about 1 hour and 25 minutes, whch is less than 90 minutes. pretty good going for me.

    Really liked liked.

    Thanks all involved in the cryptic magniloquence.

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