Another Ssss-aturday Indy blog, another Ssss-erpent……and to follow last time’s perimetral-pangram, we have another suspicious looking perimeter…
As a genetic – if not geographically domiciled – Yorkshireman, I particularly enjoyed the Boycott-ian surface reading of 9A. And the use of the dancing ‘essential’ letters of 15D giving MATA HARI was pure genius…what the? how the?…never mind, just observe, document, comment and move on…
The poignancy of an unmarried woman losing her heart in Ma(dr)id (11A) and the sinister wig-wearing/eavesdropping judges at 25A were other highlights. As was the anagram indicator of ‘irrational’ for POLYTHEISM at 12A.
And at some point along the way I spotted the MIRROR IMAGEs in the perimeter – a nice touch, helping to confirm/finish off a few stragglers:
Nice work all round – my LOI was PARTITA, requiring a bit of checking, and LOP (last one parsed) was MATA HARI (did I mention how much I liked that one?!)
Thanks to the S – and hope to see more than a few Indy setters, solvers and bloggers at the Times shindig on 7 Dec…
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 7A | AISLE | Recited key passage in theatre? (5) | passage in theatre / homophone, i.e. recited: an ISLE, or key, can sound like an AISLE – passage between seats |
|
| 8A | STAMINA | Staying power enlivens without energy returning (7) | staying power / ANIMAT( |
|
| 9A | IN FAVOUR | Approved of batting average contributing to batsman’s score (2,6) | approved of / IN (batting, cricket) + F_OUR (runs scored by a batsman) around (contributed to by) AV (average) |
|
| 10A | LITCHI | Fruit left one with irritating sensation inside (6) | fruit / L (left) + I (one), with ITCH (irritating sensation) inside |
|
| 11A | MAID | Unmarried woman losing heart in Spanish city (4) | unmarried woman / MA( |
|
| 12A | POLYTHEISM | He spoilt my irrational belief (10) | belief / anag, i.e. irrational, of HE SPOILT MY |
|
| 14A | ANEMONE | Flower exhibited in phenomenal retrospective (7) | flower / reversed hidden word, i.e. ‘exhibited in’ and ‘retrospective’, in ‘phENOMENAl’ |
|
| 16A | PARTITA | Musical work uses computers in opening section (7) | musical work / PART A (which might be an opening section of something) around (using) IT (Information Technology, or computers) |
|
| 19A | GENTLENESS | Reduced length spoiled new edition of Sense and Sensibility (10) | sensibility / GENTL (anag, i.e. spoiled, of LENGT( |
|
| 21A | STAG | One may be in a rut and decline over time (4) | one may be in a rut / S_AG (decline) around (over) T (time) |
|
| 22A | ETCHES | Carves piece of sweet chestnut (6) | carves / hidden word in, i.e. piece of, ‘sweET CHEStnut’ |
|
| 24A | SUSPENSE | American poet almost captures state of uncertainty (8) | state of uncertainty / S_PENSE( |
|
| 25A | EARWIGS | What judges do to avoid beginning what eavesdropper does (7) | what eavesdropper does / Judges usually ( |
|
| 26A | OBESE | Honours European owning large corporation? (5) | owning large corporation (belly!) / OBES (OBEs, honours) + E (European) |
|
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 1D | MAINTAIN | Old lady cheers a couple of home guards for support (8) | support / MA (old lady, mother) + IN_IN (a couple of ‘home’s) around (guarding) TA (thanks, cheers) |
|
| 2D | ISLAND | Isolated feature in the main is secure (6) | isolated feature in the main / IS + LAND (secure) |
|
| 3D | RECOMPENSE | Reward school seen differently on coming first (10) | reward / RE (on, regarding) before COMP (comprehensive, school) + ENSE (anag, i.e. differently) 0f SEEN) |
|
| 4D | RAIL | Half-cut banter in bar (4) | bar / RAIL( |
|
| 5D | OINTMENT | Massage a drop of this into men? (8) | &lit-ish / ‘this’ / anag, i.e. massage, of T (first letter, or a drop of, this) + INTO MEN |
|
| 6D | RASHES | Artist’s concealing this woman’s skin problems (6) | skin problems / RA_S (RA’s, Royal Academician’s, or artist’s) around (concealing) SHE (this woman) |
|
| 8D | SORELY | Bank raising standing order urgently (6) | urgently / SO (standing order) above (raised by) RELY (depend, or bank, upon) |
|
| 13D | TRANSISTOR | Broadcast right artists on radio (10) | radio / anag, i.e. broadcast, of R (right) + ARTISTS ON |
|
| 15D | MATA HARI | Dancing femme fatale that did harm essentially (4,4) | &lit-ish / dancing femme fatale / wow…a ‘middle-letters’ anagram, i.e. dancing, of essential, or middle, letters of ‘feMme faTAle tHAt dId hARm’ |
|
| 17D | TRANSFER | Errant fools disheartened about move (8) | move / anag, i.e. about, of ERRANT + FS (F |
|
| 18D | CENSUS | Official list of people in Central and South America (6) | official list of people / CEN (abbreviation, central) + S (south) + US (America) |
|
| 20D | ESTEEM | Satisfy speculators’ expectations initially when returning high value (6) | high value / MEET (satisfy) + SE (initial letters of ‘Speculators Expectations’ – all returned to give ESTEEM |
|
| 21D | STEREO | What has two musical notes separating in this way? (6) | ‘what’ / S_O (so, in this way) around (separated by) TE + RE (two musical notes, in SOL-FA notation) |
|
| 23D | STIR | Good man joining resistance inspires independence movement (4) | movement / ST (saint, good man) + R (resistance), around (inspiring) I (independence) |
|
That’s the second obvious perimeter Nina I’ve seen early on in the solving process this week. Most unusual for me even with this helpful grid type
I thought this quite friendly for a Serpent but as enjoyable as ever. I see flower of the week appears again in 14a.
Thanks to Serpent and mc_rapper
Always fantastic to have a Serpent puzzle to tussle with. Solved satisfactorily except for needing a word fit to get PARTITA. This was a new word for me. Spent a little while seeing if CANTATA would parse but suspected it had to contain IT.
Spotted the nina which helped the solve.
I assume crypticsue is referring to ANEMONE appearing reversed in PHENOMENA in Neo’s recent FT outing. Rather nicely fitting in with her comment on that puzzle.
Thanks to Serpent and mc_rapper67.
Finally getting the hang of the snake’s sneaky ways and also spotted the nina early, as soon as the top and bottom Ms went in. A personal best time after that. Favourite was Earwigs, once I twigged the missing letter. Thanks to Ssss and mc_r.
We found ourselves mostly on Serpent’s wavelength today and completed it without much difficulty, although all we could think of to fit the crossing letters for 16ac was ‘cantata’ – no wonder we couldn’t parse it! And our first thought for 11ac was that ‘Spanish city’ was the definition so we wondered if ‘lemon’ could be a slang expression for an unmarried woman, giving us ‘León’ as the answer – but crossing letters put us right. Spotting the nina helped, too.
Thanks, Serpent and mc_rapper67.
Many thanks to mc_rapper67 for the excellent blog, and to everyone who has taken the time to solve and comment.
Mea culpa. I put in CANTATA but loved the puzzle.
If it’s any consolation copmus, we did too. It was our last one in. We obviously couldn’t parse it but it was the only word we knew that fitted. When we didn’t receive a yellow tick at the end, we had a closer look and guessed where IT would fit and the rest fell into place.
The nina helped enormously as we spotted it fairly early on. It didn’t spoil the sssssolve – ssssssome lovely clues to enjoy. Ssssssssuper!
Thanks to ssssssetter and blogger.