Devious and challenging, yet 100% enjoyable! Thanks WANDERER!
FF:10 DD:9
| Across | ||
| 8 | VIBRIO | Disease-carrying bacterium evacuated bar between 6 and 10 (6) |
| BaR (without middle character) in [VI (6) IO (10)] | ||
| 9 | ISOTOPES | Spies too involved making variant forms of arsenic? (8) |
| SPIES TOO* | ||
| 10 | GOOD | Nothing blocks setter’s comeback? Excellent! (4) |
| O (nothing) in reverse of DOG (setter) | ||
| 11 | PHENOMENAL | Fantastic friend carries “Women Only” sign (10) |
| PAL (friend) containing [ HEN (women only) OMEN (sign) ] | ||
| 12 | BYES | More than one extra bottle- opener, of course (4) |
| B (Bottle, opening letter) YES (of course) | ||
| 13 | OPPOSITION | Labour mainly in this workplace (10) |
| OP (work) POSITION (place) – nice surface | ||
| 17 | HERA | Goddess having hard time (4) |
| H (hard) ERA (time) – wife of zeus | ||
| 18 | DIRAC | Nobel laureate is debtor without current account (5) |
| [ DR (debtor) outside I (current) ] AC (account) | ||
| 19 | ANDY | A city incorporating dead man’s name? (4) |
| [A NY (cut, New York)] containing D (day) | ||
| 21 | POWDER BLUE | Extremely prolonged row brewing about final appearance of 3 down colour (6,4) |
| { [ PD (extremely ProlongeD) ROW ]* around E (threE, last letter) } BLUE (down) – the 3d reference is also to POWDER . | ||
| 23 | SONG | Prison governor’s number (4) |
| hidden in “priSON Governor’s..” | ||
| 24 | AUSTENITIC | Precious metal gun, item that is coated initially in a type of stainless steel (10) |
| AU (precious metal, gold) STEN (gun) ITIC (first letters of “..Item That Is Coated”..) – new word for me and needed google’s help for the solve | ||
| 28 | TEES | Current found in kettle (4) |
| cryptic def, referring to the 2 T’s in keTTle | ||
| 29 | ORAL EXAM | Love to relax, getting about in the morning in a Viva? (4,4) |
| O (love) [RELAX*] AM (morning) | ||
| 30 | WAVING | Signalling with a 5, 6 and 10 (6) |
| W (with) A V(5) IN (6, 6d is HOME) G (10, 10a is GOOD) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | KILOBYTE | Amount of memory stored in Greek brains (8) |
| expansion of KB, in “..greeK Brains” | ||
| 2 | BRIDESMAID | One getting cross about debris strewn around before wedding party? (10) |
| [ MAD (cross) containing I (one) ] after DEBRIS* | ||
| 3 | SOAP POWDER | Translation of a pope’s word for detergent (4,6) |
| A POPE’S AWARD* | ||
| 4 | TIME | Backup issue for magazine (4) |
| reverse of EMIT (issue) | ||
| 5 | TOGO | How coffee might be ordered in an African country (4) |
| cryptic def; read as TO GO | ||
| 6 | HOME | European (French) sous-chef in residence (4) |
| E (European) under (French sous) HOM (chef {Ken Hom}) – Thanks Geoff! | ||
| 7 | GELATO | Try including story about ice cream (6) |
| GO (try) containing reverse of TALE (story) | ||
| 14 | PERIL | Two school lessons left in danger (5) |
| PE RI (two school lessons – Physical Education, Religious Instruction) L (left) | ||
| 15 | SACRED COWS | Small-minded, muddle-headed bullies? They’re not to be messed with (6,4) |
| S (small) [ CARED (minded)*, muddle headed being anagrind ] COWS (bullies) | ||
| 16 | TRANSITIVE | Like to have sex? Setter’s looking to change gender first (10) |
| [ IT (sex) I’VE (setter’s) ] after TRANS (change gender) – have is a transitive verb | ||
| 20 | DUNGEONS | Waste long stretches of time in underground cells (8) |
| DUNG (waste) EONS (long stretches of time) | ||
| 22 | OEUVRE | Work as engineer, not leading man (6) |
| manOEUVRE (engineer, without MAN) | ||
| 25 | TILL | Farm quiet at first light? (4) |
| sTILL (quiet, without first letter; light in the clue referring to the removal) | ||
| 26 | NEXT | Following up 10 out of 10 (4) |
| NET (reverse of TEN, 10) outside X (10) – very witty construction | ||
| 27 | TIME | Stretch male in relationship (4) |
| M (male) in TIE (relationship) | ||
*anagram
Devious indeed and I too needed help for the steel thing.
Not that it matters but I took the ‘muddle-headed’ bit of sACRED… to refer specifically to the 1st 2 letters of CARED.
Lovely puzzle, hardly any write-ins but all scrupulously fair and satisfying once the many pennies dropped.
Well set and well blogged. Thanks to both.
I parsed 15d as Grant. Made a few mess-ups doing this. Not helped by entering the solution to 3d in 2d. Having moved it to its correct place, I then had the initial O for 13a which I thought must be “obstetrics” (wrong labour altogether). Wasn’t keen on the crossing powders. Took ages to see TILL and, fortunately, AUSTENITIC was my first guess for 24a given the cryptic fodder.
For a while, I had tentatively put in POLE (European) for 6d but solving 30a gave me HOME which I still couldn’t parse so thanks for that. Didn’t know VIBRIO either but easy to guess that one. TEES was sneaky.
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs.
Remarkably tough for a Friday FT, but agree with the others about the fairness.
A little disappointed that TIME appears twice, at 4 & 27. 4 could have been TIDE, and the two clues linked (wait for no man etc). I wonder whether the idea was for 14 to be AFTER, but the grid couldn’t accommdate that.
And what about 4d + 5d + 6d?
And 25d + 26d + 27d (and perhaps 10ac + 12ac).
It surely explains the unusual double use of ‘time’.
Didn’t spot that Sil. We also have ANDY SONG relating to ANDY PANDY. Too long ago to remember but 4d, 5d, 6d was part and probably ended with 25d, 26d, 27d and possibly a couple of 10a, 12a. Definitely had Andy is WAVING GOODBYE.
Thanks, Turbolegs.
Phew! – a bit of a challenge this morning. It was really a case of following what it said on the tin – but some of it was in rather small letters. I particularly admired TEES, HOME, NEXT and TILL – pesky little four-letter clues! I also liked KILOBYTE, TRANSITIVE and ORAL EXAM. [I spent just a couple of minutes thinking that the ‘Women Only’ in 11ac was NO MEN.]
Many thanks for the challenge, Wanderer – most enjoyable.
Just did a refresh before posting – well done, Sil! Couldn’t resist looking it up. 😉
I thought this was rather wicked with TEES particularly devious.
I was a bit surprised to see POWDER appear twice but nevertheless this was quite a brain teaser.
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
Thanks for the link Eileen. So it was “time to stop play” not “time to go home”. Ah, well.
Hovis, I’m sure it was ‘Time to go home’ some days.
Now there’s an earworm you never thought you’d get from a cryptic crossword – great fun
As Turbolegs says ‘devious and challenging’ and very enjoyable
Thanks to him and Wanderer
Very hard with as many unparsed clues as I’ve had in ages. I ended up failing on the ‘stainless steel’, partly because I had (another unparsed) ‘laws’ for COWS in 15d. Missed the theme as well – good spot – and did wonder what TIME x2 was doing. Now I know.
Of those I could work out what was going on, the original ‘quiet at first light’ wordplay was my favourite.
Thanks to Wanderer for a real challenge and to Turbolegs (and others) for explaining it all.
Just remembering that Araucaria’s [Cinephile’s] final puzzle included ‘Warning not to outstay welcome I encountered in African country (4,2,2)’
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
Only got to this one on the weekend where it took two solid sessions to work it through. Needing pre-emptive help to get AUSTENITIC and post solve checking on the Nobel Prize winner. Even so, came here with OPPOSITION (failed to see the lift and separate word play), HOME (didn’t know the chef) and TILL (didn’t think to cut a first letter and was working with TIL and L – really clever misdirection with ‘ first light’). Also failed to see the theme – and reckon that even if I’d seen the connected words, would very unlikely connected them to ANDY PANDY !
Finished with that TILL, TRANSITIVE (hard but with most crossers, able to be guessed and then pieced together) and the really tricky TEES (thankfully remembered the similar play with KB at 1d).
Given all the comments I just read, and being still a beginner, I am surprised that I was able to do most of this puzzle (not all)!
I wonder whether I missed something in 9a. Isotopes are the forms with different atomic weight of any element, not just arsenic. Therefore I thought the clue should have been perhaps ‘variant forms of arsenic, say’
Hi Lucio,
The ? at the end of the clue is to imply just that.
Regards,
TL
Thanks for the blog, Turbolegs.
This wasn’t devious.
It was mean and sadistic.