Oof. A Tuesday toughie for once. Great fun, though.
Tuesday’s FT fun for me is usually trying to beat my PB solve time. Today, my only personal record was that this took me longer than Sunday’s Azed; definitely a first.
To begin with, an unusual grid, tempting one to knock off those 4 central 3-letter clues first. Fat chance.
After that, almost everything was ‘a challenge’ as the phrase now is. I have a few quibbles – not grumps, they all came out ‘aha!’ in the end – which I’ve detailed in the inevitably rather full blog below.
I’ve enjoyed this immensely. Many thanks to Jason.
| Across | ||
| 1 | CREASE | Where Root primarily gets century with comfort (6) |
| A very pretty whole-clue def to start with. R (1st of ’Root’) beside C[entury] + EASE (‘comfort’) &lit. Ref Joe Root, who, at the crease, still wields perhaps the most relaxed & beautiful bat of this cricketing age. | ||
| 4 | SCABBARD | Cover rogue poet (8) |
| SCAB (‘rogue’, in the sense of a strike-breaker) + BARD (‘poet’). | ||
| 9 | AS IT IS | Anglo-Saxon illness in the current circumstances? (2,2,2) |
| H’m. A[nglo] S[axon] + ITIS as a generalised, jocular suffix to form (evidently) any kind of ‘illness’. | ||
| 10 | SAUCEPAN | Brass hammer – a sine qua non on the range? (8) |
| SAUCE (cheek, ‘brass’) + PAN (to criticise, to ‘hammer’) w cryptic def. | ||
| 11 | TURNIP | Vegetable pot in recommendation (6) |
| URN (‘pot’) in TIP (‘recommendation’). | ||
| 12 | SET PIECE | Prepare bishop, eg, for carefully planned play (3,5) |
| SET (‘prepare’) + PIECE (in chess, a ‘bishop, e.g.’). | ||
| 13 | ACT | Kid’s reality beginning to fade (3) |
| fACT (‘reality‘) without 1st letter (‘beginning to fade’). I’d be grateful if anyone could come up with a one-for-one kid/act def. ‘Act stupid’ or ‘act the goat’ don’t quite do it & I can’t think of a noun either. Just kidding… | ||
| 14 | SATRAP | Band seizing a governor (6) |
| STRAP (‘band’) around A. | ||
| 17 | REDRESS | Compensation concerning don (7) |
| RE (‘concerning‘) + DRESS (to ‘don’). ‘Don’ as ‘dress’ is common in Xwords but it always make me itchy. ‘Don’ is surely transitive? | ||
| 21 | STROBE | Worst or best flash light? (6) |
| Anagram (‘worst’) of OR BEST. The q-mark is certainly deserved for both def and anagrind. | ||
| 25 | KEG | Term for cask, for example (3) |
| Another, if rather stretchy, &lit. K is the end (‘term’?) of ‘tasK’, then EG (‘for example’). | ||
| 26 | OBEDIENT | Following gong fare comes around noon (8) |
| OBE (award, informally ‘gong’) + DIE.T (‘fare’) around N[oon]. | ||
| 27 | SCENIC | Since being renovated college is picturesque (6) |
| Anagram (‘being renovated’) of SINCE + C[ollege]. | ||
| 28 | PORRIDGE | Time for oats, or similar (8) |
| Double definition, porridge and ‘time’ both being slang for a prison sentence. | ||
| 29 | SATIRE | Spoof is about flag (6) |
| AS, reversed: in one sense, ‘as’ means ‘is’, as in ‘clue as definition’. Well, that’s my best shot. Other and/ors welcome. Then TIRE (‘flag’, obvs). | ||
| 30 | RELEGATE | Downgrade outspoken scandal to do with Auntie? (8) |
| Ooh, another stretcher. A homophone (‘outspoken’) of ‘relly-‘ or perhaps ‘rellie-’ (= a relative, e.g. ’Aunt’) + GATE, once again a generalised suffix, on the pattern of ‘Watergate’, defining any public scandal. And I’m not sure the homophone quite works either. Fun though. | ||
| 31 | DECENT | Respectable Square Mile in depression (6) |
| E[ast] C[entral], being the postcode of the City of London (the ‘Square Mile’ for many FT readers), in DENT (‘depression’). | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | CHASTISE | Take to task Charles over untidy site (8) |
| CHAS (abb. ‘Charles’) + anagram of SITE. | ||
| 2 | EMIGRATE | A regime in chaos – about time to leave for ever (8) |
| Anagram (‘in chaos’) of A REGIME around T[ime]. | ||
| 3 | SCIMITAR | Old injury confining one with German sword (8) |
| SC.AR (‘old injury’) contains 1 + MIT (German ’with’). | ||
| 5 | CLARET | Wine county that’s at the heart of another (6) |
| County CLARE then T (‘that’s at the heart of anoTher’), one of the longest clues for a single letter I’ve seen for a while. | ||
| 6 | BICEPS | They pull up Black Isle mushrooms (6) |
| B[lack] I[sle] + CEPS. | ||
| 7 | AMPLER | Piece of embroidery tipped as being more liberal? (6) |
| sAMPLER (‘piece of embroidery’), 1st letter omitted (‘tipped’, Chambers 3 ‘to remove the tip from’). | ||
| 8 | DONKEY | Head of Mafia meeting important smuggler (6) |
| DON (‘head of Mafia’) + KEY (‘important’). Donkey as ‘smuggler’ = Chambers 3, again. | ||
| 12 | SCARLET | Red alert’s changed – first among comrade’s locked up (7) |
| Anagram (‘changed’, straightforward for once) of ALERTS includes 1st of ‘Comrades’. | ||
| 15 | PEN | Author can stall (3) |
| Triple definition. To ‘author’, jail (‘can’, PEN[itentiary]), and farmyard ‘stall’. Nothing being given away today. | ||
| 16 | ASS | This oaf with book would be deep (3) |
| bASS (of music, ‘deep’), expansion denied. | ||
| 18 | STOCKADE | Doc takes out pen (8) |
| Anagram (‘out’) of DOC TAKES. | ||
| 19 | HORNPIPE | Fleet getting self-righteous in anticipation dance (8) |
| R[oyal] N[avy] (‘fleet’) + PI (‘self-righteous’) included in HO.PE (‘anticipation’). | ||
| 20 | TEA CHEST | Coaches beginning to transport container (3,5) |
| TEACHES (‘coaches’) + 1st of ‘Transport’. | ||
| 22 | COPPER | PC salesman quietly rising under company (6) |
| CO[mpany] over reversal of REP (‘salesman’) + P[iano] (‘quietly’). | ||
| 23 | PETROL | Paddy cutting short spin to get motion lotion? (6) |
| PET (a strop, a ‘paddy’) + abbreviated ROL{l} (‘spin’). Deservedly long time since I’ve heard this sloppy rhyme for ‘fuel’. | ||
| 24 | SIDING | Bit of track is up on toll? (6) |
| IS, reversed, on DING (of a bell, to ring, to ‘toll’). | ||
| 25 | KNIGHT | Cavalier King no longer near the top (6) |
| K[ing] + NIGH (’near no longer’, i.e. a disused form, although the end this blog is nigh) + T (’top’ of ‘The’). There you go. |
||
*anagram
This comprised one of my &lits. puzzles (Life is too short). I struggled for as long as I thought fit and waited for the blog which confirmed my reaction.
So thank you so much Grant – and perhaps Jason.
I’m so glad it gave you a hard time too, GB. Thanks — I thought I must be suffering brain damage. Give us more, Jason.
A DNF, with an unconvincing, ill-parsed ‘rising’ for 24d. I took ACT to mean ‘kid’ as in the sense to pretend or feign.
At first glance it looked as though ‘Flag’ in 29a was going to be ‘saltire’ with a letter excluded to give SATIRE but of course that didn’t work. I ended up paring it as ‘is’ = S (eg ‘he’s’ – dodgy I agree) + ‘about’ = A (it’s in Chambers) + ‘flag’ = TIRE (no doubt about that anyway).
I liked the Joe Root clue, but favourite was the ‘all the threes’ – three word clue, three letter answer, triple def – PEN.
Thanks to Jason and Grant
Re 25a: The first meaning given for “term” in Chambers is “an end”.
Thanks to Jason and Grant. I filled in the grid and came here to find out where I had gone wrong only to discover I had it all right. With the 3-letter clues I only fully parsed ASS; I did not parse PETROL or get the rele in RELEGATE; and was less than confident about the sa in SATIRE – and DONKEY as smuggler (as opposed to mule?) was new to me.
Wonder if Jason will provide the intended parsing for SATIRE. The two I played with was that SATIRE was almost SALTIRE taking about = almost or to lift and separate IS as I = A + S and use about as a reversal indicator.
A few clues I didn’t care for most especially that for ACT. Nobody has yet provided a phrase where you can sensibly replace ACT by KID (hopefully someone may) and I didn’t like fade to effectively mean disappear altogether.
Completed most of this gem by Jason but as a relative newcomer to British crosswords I need to ask how is COPPER PC and how is the PI in HORNPIPE self-righteous? Thanks Grant for the blog.
Tony @7. Copper is slang for a policeman (Police Constable, PC for short). Pi is short for “pious” and appears a lot in cryptics.
Very tough. I kept trying to start 8d with M (head of Mafia) so didn’t get DONKEY or SCABBARD, which made all else work. 13a, I thought to kid and to act must both mean “to pretend, deceive, play a role” – not really synonymous but close enough. Liked the triple def of PEN.
Hovis @8 Thanks. I’ll now have to add pious to my “pi” list which already includes Greek letter, mathematical constant, private investigator, and Philipine Islands.
Hovis @6: Re ACT and KID: Chambers gives, as nouns, KID = a deception, and ACT = a pretence, and as verbs, KID = to pretend, and ACT = to feign.
Re 29a: I’m with WordPlodder @3. I parsed it as ‘S (shortened form of “is”) +A (about, abbrev.), both in Chambers, +TIRE (flag).
Tom @11. Didn’t know KID as a noun so that seems to work. Still don’t think the verbs work unless, as I said, somebody comes up with a suitable phrase. Shame Jason hasn’t provided the intended parsing for SATIRE but all the suggestions work imo.
Thanks Jason and Grant
Yep … a toughie that kept the juices flowing throughout the entire solve, luckily broken into a couple of shorter sessions around a longer lunch time one. EMIGRATE was a quick get to start with but then every clue needed to be prised out reluctantly from some pretty tricky devices and cleverly disguised definitions. Ended up not seeing the parsing of the first bit of 29a (and like Wordplodder’s version too) not the homophone at 30a (which doesn’t work 100% for me either, but made up from by the fun factor element). Have only heard of the half-donkey version of the drug courier as well.
Finished in the SE corner with HORNPIPE and that SATIRE as the last couple in. Would rate this in the top 5-10% of the FT puzzles for the year from an entertainment point of view.
To Trenodia @1:
I’ve been away working and only just got your ‘Life Is Too Short’ (& LITS) acronym.
Consider it stolen.
And to Bruce @13:
Welcome again. Yup, this was a corker.
I’d still like to know the definitive parsing of 29a.
Have a cool Yule (improbable over there).
A belated thank you Grant. We have a predicted 41 in Melbourne on Friday … don’t think that it is scheduled to be that hot at Christmas but certainly not planning on getting the snow gear out !!
You have a great one too … still enjoying the wit of your blogs even if I only get to them quite a bit after the event !!!