Chalmie provides this morning’s head-scratcher in the FT.
I found this puzzle quite hard to get into, but once I got a couple of the longer entries, most of it fell into place. I struggled a bit with the SW corner, but TEE-SHOT opened it up for me.
There were some very clever clues in here (I had ticks on 1ac and 3dn, but also liked TEE-SHOT.
However, I do have a few minor quibbles/issues that I’m not sure are genuine ones, or my head being a bit fuzzy from weather-induced sinusitis.
12ac – UP AND UP – does that mean “honestly”?
13ac – the enumeration doesn’t seem right – shouldn’t it be (1,1,1)
18ac – for the enumeration to be (3), the solution needs to be Eva (as in Eva Peron), but that would be loose. I think the setter intended EVA (the space walk) to be the definition, in which case it should be (1,1,1)
15dn – The British – is that in the dictionary?
Otherwise, a fun and challenging start to my morning.
Thanks, Chalmie.
| Across | ||
| 9 | AMERICANA | States things in camera, upsetting authoritarian leader (9) |
| *(in camera) + A(utjoritarian) [leader] | ||
| 10 | LLAMA | Everyone backs Massachusetts wool producer (5) |
| <=ALL (“everyone” backs) + Ma. (Massachusetts) | ||
| 11 | AT TIMES | Tiny character worried about school occasionally (2,5) |
| (Tiny) TIM with ATE (“worried”) about + S (school)
Collins has “s” for school, but I don’t recall ever seeing it in a puzzle before |
||
| 12 | UP AND UP | Oddly unplanned lumps on this – honestly! (2,3,2) |
| [oddly] U(n)P(l)A(n)N(e)D (l)U(m)P(s) | ||
| 13 | DNA | Clean out dungeon with a common acid (3) |
| [clean out] D(ungeo)N with A Enumeration should be (1,1,1) | ||
| 14 | RATIONALIST | Limit quantities of celebs such as Descartes (11) |
| RATION (“limit quantities of” ) + A-LIST (“celebrities”)
Rene Descartes was a French rationalist philosopher |
||
| 17 | TANGO | Turn brown before dance (5) |
| GO (“turn”) with TAN (“brown”) before | ||
| 18 | EVA | Peron’s space walk (3) |
| EVA stands for Extra Vehicular Activity (aka a “space walk”), and Eva Peron (aka Evita) was the First Lady of Argentina from 1946-52 | ||
| 19 | AGAIN | Once more in contact with missing saint (5) |
| AGAIN(st) (“in contact with”, missing ST (saint)) | ||
| 21 | BLACK FRIDAY | Need French papers’ answer in times of financial crisis (5,6) |
| LACK (“need”)+ Fr. (French) + ID (“papers”) + A (answer) in BY (“times”, in maths), so B(LACK-FR-ID-A)Y | ||
| 23, 27 down | QUASHED | Subdued muscle- bound woman (7) |
| QUAD (“muscle”) binding SHE (“woman”) | ||
| 25 | TEE-SHOT | River very fashionable for a drive? (3-4) |
| (River) TEES + HOT (“very fashionable”) | ||
| 27 | SURNAME | Family handle one leaving South American country (7) |
| I (one) leaving SUR(i)NAME (“South American country”) | ||
| 28 | See 1 | |
| 29 | SUEZ CANAL | Returning god is able to half- seal waterway (4,5) |
| [returning] <=ZEUS + CAN (“is able to”) + [half-] (se)AL | ||
| Down | ||
| 1, 28 | WAR AND PEACE | Book we can parade about (3,3,5) |
| *(we can parade) | ||
| 2 | RESTRAIN | Check rare tins for damage (8) |
| *(rare tins) | ||
| 3 | KILMARNOCK | Footballer’s action blocked by normal activity at Scottish club (10) |
| KICK (“footballer’s activity”) blocked by *(normal) | ||
| 4 | JAWS | Film judge apparently weighing shrunken heads (4) |
| [heads] of J(udge) A(pparently) W(eighing) S(hrunken) | ||
| 5 | BASUTOLAND | U-boats surprisingly come on shore in African monarchy (10) |
| *(u-boats) + LAND (“come ashore”)
It would certainly have been a surprise to see U-boats land in a landlocked country (Basutoland was the pre-independence name of Lesotho) |
||
| 6 | FLEA | Note about the French jumper (4) |
| FA (“note”) about LE (“the French”) | ||
| 7 | GANDHI | Somewhat threatening and hideous Indian politician (6) |
| Hidden in [somewhat] “threateninG AND HIdeous” | ||
| 8 | RASPUTIN | Monk overthrows puritans (8) |
| *(puritans) | ||
| 15 | THE BRITISH | This herb, it could identify a nation (3,7) |
| *(this herb it) | ||
| 16 | AT ANY PRICE | Certain pay-off, whatever you offer (2,3,5) |
| *(certain pay) | ||
| 17 | TAB STOPS | Sees club putting up screen positions (3,5) |
| <= SPOTS BAT (“sees club”) [putting up] | ||
| 20 | ACQUAINT | Enjoyably odd account starts to inform (8) |
| QUAINT (“enjoyably odd”) with AC (account) at the start | ||
| 22 | AXEMAN | Executioner initially appalled by up-and-coming celeb (6) |
| [initially] A(ppalled) + X (“by”, in maths) + [up-and-coming] <=NAME (“celeb”) | ||
| 24 | AGE-OLD | Primeval energy found in American heavy metal (3-3) |
| E (energy) found in A (American) GOLD (“heavy metal”) | ||
| 26 | HOES | Caught socks in gardens (4) |
| Homophone of [caught] HOSE (“socks”) | ||
| 27 | See 23 | |
*anagram
Hot on the heels of yesterday’s Aardvark, another pangram.
I certainly take your point on DNA and EVA. It does seem to be quite common for setters to do this for initialisms so I don’t particularly mind.
We talk about people doing things on the up and up, so a definite article seems to be lacking?
No objection to THE BRITISH.
I have only seen S for school once before. I remember because I commented that I couldn’t find it. Clearly should have checked my Collins.
Thanks to Chalmie and loonapick.
Apologies for the proliferation of posts. Reading my second paragraph, I realise that “honestly = on the up and up”.
Thanks to loonapick and Chalmie
I think the def in 12a is THIS, but we are being invited, as Hovis implies, to infer the THE.
I don’t mind THE BRITISH, as it is a common enough usage, but I think A PEOPLE would have been a better def.
Thanks, Chalmie and loonapick. Also struggled with SW corner, partly because I questioned BLACK FRIDAY. Was that to refer to a market crash? Here it’s the opposite of a financial crisis; it means the day after Thanksgiving in November, the start of the Christmas shopping season, when sales are so high that it makes the difference for merchants to be “in the black” for the year!
The first Black Friday was in 1869, when a couple of rogues tried cornering the gold market on the NY Stock Exchange. There have been several others since, not all involving finance.
Thanks Chalmie and loonapick
Got DNA as my first one in and had no issues with the enumeration – it’s almost used as a word in it’s own right even though it is an acronym – a bit like the betting shop TAB over here which stands for Totalisator Agency Board but is always referred to as the ‘tab’.
Got the SE corner around mid-solve after getting TANGO, the PEACE part of the book and then the clever TEE SHOT. My struggle was in the other side where it took ages to work out how the Q from the pangram fitted in there until the ACQUAINT / QUASHED pair finally came as my last couple in.
Liked the ‘up-and-coming celeb’ at 22d and was interested to see a different definition of ‘celeb’ used in 14a.