Some fun and games in a nicely ‘accessible'(?) puzzle from Klingsor today…
My favourite surface read was probably 20D – ‘Apple runs America, agreed?’ for RUSSET; closely followed by the RICH deep-FRIED diet of the Frankfurter at 4D. (This was reminiscent of vague memories elsewhere of a certain Marlene having a ‘RICH DIET’…)
I also enjoyed the idea of the composer HANDEL being a bit of a crank (HANDLE!). And the isolationism between East and West Germany being OST + RACISM was quite poignant, although hopefully softened by the generational passage of time since unification?…
New to me was MP for ‘mezzo piano’ at 5D. P for piano/quiet is a basic staple of cruciverbalism, as is MP – member of parliament or military policeman – but I’ve either forgotten or not seen this one before.
My LOI was 29A. I had ?O?K, and resisted the temptation to use a pattern finder, so I ended running up and down the alphabet with these and an imaginary first letter before realising it wasn’t a man ( guy = JOCK?) or a guy rope (nothing obvious springs to mind!) but ‘to guy’…
Nothing too fancy here, I don’t think, and no particular quibbles – except maybe that SPORTSCAST is a bit American, could maybe have done with an indication in that direction?
Just a nice, fairly 18A, gentle-mental workout, for which thanks are due to the K-man.
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 1A | SMUG | Sticks around, being complacent (4) | complacent / SMUG = GUMS (sticks) around |
|
| 3A | AFFORDABLE | A story involving former president’s budget (10) | budget / A + F_ABLE (story) around (involving) FORD (Gerald, former US President) |
|
| 10A | OSTRACISM | Isolation in east of Germany connected with bigotry (9) | isolation / OST (German for East) + (connected with) RACISM (bigotry) |
|
| 11A | FALSE | Extract from Parsifal seems wrong (5) | wrong / hidden word in, i.e. extracted from, ‘parsiFAL SEems’ |
|
| 12A | TWEAKED | Powerless to stop trend, regularly adapted (7) | adapted / T_ED (regular letters from ‘TrEnD’) around (stopped by) WEAK (powerless) |
|
| 13A | HANDLE | Composer, it’s said, is a crank (6) | a crank / homophone, i.e. it’s said – HANDEL (composer) sounds like HANDLE (crank) |
|
| 15A | COME RAIN OR SHINE | Supply son with heroin? A crime, whatever the circumstances (4,4,2,5) | whatever the (meteorological!) circumstances / anag, i.e. supply, of SON HEROIN A CRIME |
|
| 18A | STRAIGHTFORWARD | Vocal passage, alternatively in F minor, is easy (15) | easy / STRAIGHT (homophone, i.e. vocal – sounds like STRAIT, or passage) + F_WARD (F + ward, or minor) around OR (alternatively) |
|
| 21A | MUTTER | Beginning to murmur, speak? (6) | &lit-ish/CD? – speak, in a murmuring fashion! / M (beginning letter of Murmur) + UTTER (to speak) |
|
| 23A | CASH COW | Remains with company in outskirts of Cracow, a money-spinner (4,3) | a money spinner / C_W (outer letters, or outskirts, of CracoW), around ASH (remains) + Co (Company) |
|
| 26A | REIGN | Government’s in control, as a rule (5) | rule / REI_N (control) around G (government) |
|
| 27A | ESOTERICA | Assorted secret items and objects, primarily? (9) | &lit – secret items and objects / anag, i.e. assorted, of SECRET + IAO (first, or primary, letters of Items And Objects) |
|
| 28A | WILDEBEEST | Insect devoured by extremely savage creature (10) | creature / WILDE_ST (extremely savage) around (devouring) BEE (insect) |
|
| 29A | MOCK | Guy needs something to wear, first off (4) | guy (ridicule) / ( |
|
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 1D | SPORTSCAST | Tempers rising over players making programme (10) | (TV) programme / SPORTS (strops, or tempers, rising) + CAST (players, actors) |
|
| 2D | UNTIE | One drops in to make one free (5) | free / UNITE (to make one) with I (one) dropping down a position gives UNTIE (free) |
|
| 4D | FRIEDRICH | Frankfurter perhaps cooked in fat, full-flavoured (9) | Frankfurter (German), perhaps / FRIED (cooked in fat) + RICH (full-flavoured) |
|
| 5D | OOMPH | Keeping fairly quiet, loves husband’s sex appeal (5) | sex appeal / OO_H (O, zero, or love, plural, plus H – husband) around (keeping) MP (mezzo piano, musical instruction, moderately soft, fairly quiet) |
|
| 6D | DEFENDS | Guards object after agent goes up close to duchess (7) | guards / DEF (fed, federal agent, going up) + END (aim, or object) + S (last, or closing, letter of duchesS) |
|
| 7D | BALALAIKA | Instrument dog found under lake (9) | (musical) instrument / BALA (Welsh lake) + LAIKA (famous Russian dog, sent into space) |
|
| 8D | EVEN | Fair game? Not quite (4) | fair / EVEN( |
|
| 9D | WALKER | Welsh speaker short of time, being one inclined to ramble? (6) | one inclined to ramble / W (Welsh) + ( |
|
| 14D | MEADOWLARK | Yours truly meets a bird in the night – this one? (10) | this one (bird) / ME (yours truly) + A + D_ARK (the night) around OWL (bird) |
|
| 16D | MARSUPIAL | Perhaps Joey is up, alarm having gone off (9) | perhaps Joey (baby kangaroo) / anag, i.e. having gone off, of IS UP ALARM |
|
| 17D | OFFICIOUS | Not wanting to get spiteful, Victor ignored meddling (9) | meddling / OFF (not wanting, as in off one’s food) + ( |
|
| 19D | INTENSE | Passionate anger when Catholic becomes Protestant finally (7) | passionate / INCENSE (anger) with C (Catholic) becoming T (final letter of protestanT) gives INTENSE |
|
| 20D | RUSSET | Apple runs America, agreed? (6) | apple / R (runs, cricket) + US (America) + SET (agreed) |
|
| 22D | REEVE | Old bailiff delivers flyer (5) | double defn. / a REEVE is an old word for a bailiff; and a REEVE is a female ruff, or sandpiper – hence flyer. ‘delivers’ is just a linking word? |
|
| 24D | CHINO | Warm wind not OK for this fabric (5) | fabric / CHINO( |
|
| 25D | CREW | Team from NW town missing the final (4) | team / CREW( |
|
Thanks Klingsor and mc_rapper67
I had (F)ROCK at 29A, Rock being a guy’s name (eg Hudson), and the clue style analogous to ‘bloke’ = STAN elsewhere this week. Works for me.
Me too, Simon S, but I’m sure our blogger is right.
Thanks to both for a very enjoyable puzzle and blog.
Yet another for ‘(f)rock’ for 29a, but I entered this unparsed and MOCK is more convincing.
I liked the not so ‘easy’ STRAIGHTFORWARD and the mention of the cosmocanine in 7d.
Thanks to Klingsor and mc_rapper67.
Eileen @ 2
Yes, I’m sure the blog is right, but it’s a shame that there are two apparently wholly valid possible solutions that aren’t resolved by a crosser.
We agree this was a nicely accessible puzzle. A few answers that required patient teasing out, but we got it all.
We weren’t sure at first if 13ac was HANDLE or HANDEL but 7dn soon resolved it. Incidentally, re 7dn, ‘laika’ is, according to Chambers, a name for several breeds of dog. And 4dn held us up quite a while; we guessed ‘Frankfurter perhaps’ referred to a German name but thought we were looking for an anagram (cooked) of one inserted into a word for ‘fat’ – a facepalm moment when we got it. We had MOCK for 29ac, btw.
Thanks, Klingsor and mc_rapper67.
1A could have gone either way for me but the D crossers soon sorted that out. The longer multiword answers, like 15A, sometimes drop into place by repeating the rhythm to oneself, in this case di-dah-di-dah. Thanks to setter and blogger.
Another ROCK here, but I was curious after coming here so I went to the site and used the check button. MOCK is right.
Thanks for all the comments/feedback – mostly focussed around 29A…lucky I missed the F-ROCK in my mental-alphabetical pattern searching!…
allan_c – thanks for the info on ‘laika’ (uncapitalized) – I should have checked Chambers, but immediately jumped to the ‘cosmocanine’ (c) WordPlodder
Thanks to mc_rapper67 and Klingsor
Certainly not one of his toughest, but still very good as always.
I didn’t think of “rock” for 29a, but if I had it wouldn’t have been for long. Klingsor’s definitions are rarely, if ever, a stretch, and Rock Hudson is the only person I can think of with that name ( which of course wasn’t really his name anyway).