A very pleasant Monday solve – favourites were 1ac, 9ac, 5dn, 13dn, and 21dn. Thanks to Vulcan for the puzzle.
(minor quibble: I did hesitate over ‘elk’=’antelope’ in 8dn)
| Across | ||
| 1 | PLAYBILLS | Do they advertise drama by W Shakespeare? (9) |
| PLAY=”drama” + BILL S. as an alternative abbrevation for “W Shakespeare” | ||
| 6 | PACKS | Prepares for holiday: two join the scrum (5) |
| double definition in rugby a scrum is made up of two ‘packs’ of players, one from each team |
||
| 9 | RIOJA | Dieter’s agreement on port wine (5) |
| JA=’yes’ in German=”Dieter’s agreement”, as Dieter is a German first name; after RIO=”port” city in Brazil | ||
| 10 | GOOD CAUSE | Valid reason to contribute to this (4,5) |
| two definitions | ||
| 11 | NAY | No sound from horse heard (3) |
| homophone/”heard” of ‘neigh’=”sound from horse” | ||
| 12 | KITCHEN SINK | One may pull the plug on this sort of drama (7,4) |
| two definitions – ‘kitchen sink’ dramas [wiki] were part of a British movement of social realism | ||
| 14 | PRELATE | High churchman on time? (7) |
| PRE- as an affix meaning ‘before’, so PRE-LATE=’before being late’=”on time?” | ||
| 15 | RETIREE | One’s finished working on Hebridean island (7) |
| RE=about=”on” + TIREE=name of a “Hebridean island” | ||
| 16 | SOD’S LAW | Oswald’s unlucky formulation (4,3) |
| =the saying that ‘if something can go wrong, it will’ (Oswald’s)*, with “unlucky formulation” doing double duty as an anagram indicator |
||
| 19 | SMUGGER | Runner losing pounds becomes more complacent (7) |
| SMUGG[L]ER=”Runner”, losing L=”pounds” sterling (from Latin Libra) | ||
| 22 | IMPERTINENT | Fresh mint I repent getting chopped up (11) |
| (mint I repent)* | ||
| 23 | GIG | Short musical performance (3) |
| GIG[I]=name of a “musical” [wiki], made “Short” by losing its last letter | ||
| 24 | REAPPOINT | Keep on editing paper? Not I (9) |
| (paper Not I)* | ||
| 26 | IDIOT | Fool I spot holding one (5) |
| I + DOT=”spot” around I=”one” | ||
| 27 | WEEDY | Went back to play with feeble physique (5) |
| WEE-D=urinated=”Went” + the back letter of [pla]Y | ||
| 28 | GREASE GUN | Gang reuse broken lubricator (6,3) |
| =a workshop tool used to apply lubricant (Gang reuse)* |
||
| Down | ||
| 1 | PARSNIP | Vegetable piece shortly cut (7) |
| PAR[t]=”piece” shortened + SNIP=”cut” | ||
| 2 | ANODYNE | Annoyed, struggling for pain relief (7) |
| =a painkilling drug or medicine (Annoyed)* |
||
| 3 | BLACKMAILER | Refuse to touch poster for criminal (11) |
| BLACK can mean to ‘boycott’=”refuse to touch” + MAILER=promotional leaflet=”poster” | ||
| 4 | LEGATEE | Diplomat inattentive at the end: he’s left something (7) |
| =someone to whom a legacy has been left LEGATE=”Diplomat” + the end of [inattentiv]E |
||
| 5 | SOOTHER | Very different item for baby (7) |
| SO=”Very” + OTHER=”different” | ||
| 6 | PIC | Still choose not to finish (3) |
| =a photograph, a still image taken from film PIC[k]=”choose” without the finishing letter |
||
| 7 | COURIER | Palace attendant has no time for messenger (7) |
| COUR[T]IER=”Palace attendant”, minus T for “time” | ||
| 8 | SPECKLE | Detailed plan to bring antelope up to little spot (7) |
| SPEC=specification=”Detailed plan” + ELK=”antelope” reversed/”up” | ||
| 13 | NET CURTAINS | Hangings secure death (3,8) |
| NET=to gain or capture=”secure” + CURTAINS=slang for “death” | ||
| 16 | SKID ROW | Squalid area, where you can’t keep your feet? (4,3) |
| cryptic indication alluding to ‘skid’ meaning to lose your footing | ||
| 17 | DEPRAVE | Corrupt deputy to go mad (7) |
| DEP (deputy) + RAVE=”go mad” | ||
| 18 | WAILING | Wife going sick, complaining (7) |
| W (Wife) + AILING=”going sick” | ||
| 19 | SHEATHE | Put away, he hates to reform (7) |
| (he hates)* | ||
| 20 | GAGGING | Stopping making jokes? (7) |
| second definition with ‘gag’ meaning a joke | ||
| 21 | RIGHT-ON | PC, not entirely bright one (5-2) |
| =being careful to be correct, e.g. PC or politically correct hidden in [b]RIGHT ON[e] |
||
| 25 | PAY | Every year, a year’s earnings? (3) |
| PA (per annum)=”Every year” + Y (year) | ||
Another very undemanding solve .. third in a row … interrupted by a challenging and very enjoyable Saturday prize puzzle.
Did enjoy however a new variation on all those old clues for 9A, which held me up for a few minutes.
Personal opinion (what else could I give): more sophisticated and more enjoyable than previous Vulcans. Thanks.
Thanks, manehi.
An elk is not an antelope. Different families. Deer would have been better.
Yes after the Atkins Diet clue last week, 9A was a well timed diversion.
Just a thought on 16D. Do feet skid, or should it more fittingly be wheels?
Thanks to Vulcan and manehi.
My favourites were PRELATE, SOOTHER, WEEDY.
Thanks B+S
dantheman @4: yes feet can and do skid IMO.
my favs were PRELATE, SOOTHER and SOD’S LAW.
Yes also quibbled elk being an antelope.
thanks to Vulcan and Manehi
I see I should have looked more closely at the parsing of 1a. The answer was obvious, but the charade makes it a better clue than I thought; mea culpa. I’m sure elk as antelope has featured before in crosswords and is probably fairer to UK solvers than deer, but perhaps we should educate ourselves.
Thanks to Manehi for the blog and Vulcan for a gentle wake-up this morning.
I thought this was an excellent puzzle – relatively benign in terms of difficulty but lots of neat clues. I had ticks aplenty – 1,9,12,19,22,27a and 3,5,6d with RIOJA getting my double tick. I was grateful that the antelope (or not) wasn’t one of the more obscure beasts that sometimes get an outing. Many thanks to Vulcan and manehi.
Thanks both,
Like Tomsdad I hadn’t fully parsed 1a and needed the blog to parse ‘gig’. I had the ‘mailer’ in 3d as a person who posts a letter rather than a leaflet, which isn’t really a poster.
Thanks Vulcan and manehi
Yes, a satisfying puzzle. I loved PRE-LATE!
I don’t see any reason not to use DEER in 8d.
btw the Quiptic today is also very good.
I had 1ac as drama=’PLAY’ + BILL’S as in “that drama’s one of Bill’s
Hm. All rather tedious. Was hoping for better as today is a public holiday (again!) here in Finland.
Going to follow muffin’s tip and look at the Quiptic.
I thought this had plenty of good clueing — though none too difficult — and I enjoyed it. The SKID ROW clue was rather lame, I thought.
I was going along pretty quickly until the SW corner, where the anagrams for IMPERTINENT and REAPPOINT held me up for several minutes. The clever ambiguity of whether “fresh” or “chopped up” was the anagrind fuddled me.
Thanks, Vulcan and manehi.
I thought there was a lot to like here – some witty and imaginative cluing, clever misdirection in anagrams and definitions and a nice morning work-out. Perhaps not one for the quickest solvers (and I do find a touch more ambiguity in these “easier” puzzles) but hats off to Vulcan for a sound crossword in my opinion. And I also overlooked the cleverness of 1ac so thank you Manehi for that.
Loved 5ac
Like Roughyed52 I got to 1ac via Bill’s play.
A few tricky ones so took me longer than it probably should have. Clues like 6a PIC, my LOI, were a bit hard to see. I liked 22a IMPERTINENT, 27a WEEDY and 16d SKID ROW, some of which have already been favoured (or not) by previous commentators.
Thanks to Vulcan and manehi.
Another fan of 9a, though to solve it you probably need to know that “Port” in a crossword if referring to a location is likely to be Rio.
Feeling good about finishing Saturday’s prize, I got my humility back by making a mess of this. Not sure why, except for not being familiar with either SOOTHER or KITCHEN SINK dramas. Looking back, it was a good effort on Vulcan’s part, and it’s too bad I couldn’t have enjoyed it more. Thanks to him and scchua.
You were quite right with your quibble – a deer and an antelope are not the same and Chambers says an elk is a deer. Because it is. An enjoyable but too quick solve. Today’s Quiptic earned a copland easiness score of 14, whereas Vulvan’s cryptic was easier at 22.
copland smith @20: OK, I’ll bite. How do you calculate your easiness scores?
The above discussion inspired me to google, which led to the following factoids. In North America, an elk is an elk and a moose is a moose. In the Old World, a moose is called an elk, and an elk is called a wapiti. But the word “wapiti” is Cree, and thus North American, in origin, even though one can find both animals in Asia too! Whichever ungulate you’re talking about, though, they’re both big ol’ deer, and have nothing whatsoever to do with antelopes.
The puzzle was perfect for Monday–fast but still chewy.
mrpenney @22
To add to your deer, I think your “elk” is what Europeans would call “Red Deer”. I don’t think we have a wapiti over here!
Another RIOJA lover here.
One of the nicest things about having a busy day and therefore finishing the crossword late, is that by the time I check into FS, there are already a ton of comments and I generally end up learning a thing or two. I was another with a big question-mark about whether Elks are Antelopes, having never encountered the former and very few of the latter – and it’s been fun reading the discussion. Thanks especially to mrpenney for the factoids! I know almost as little about rugby as I do about elks, and so couldn’t parse PACKS – so thank you Manehi for the explanation. I simply considered GIG to be a short word for performance (Gigi never occurred to me) and thought PLAYBILLS and WEEDY were delightful. All in all, some very inventive clueing and entertaining solving. Thanks Vulcan!
Undemanding but enjoyable, especially RIOJA and WEEDY, which is reminsicent of Sabre’s well-known clue, “Weed with dead leaves ripped off (7)”. I did not think of GOOD CAUSE as a double definition, but as valid = good plus reason = cause, with the whole clue acting as the definition. A very minor quibble, but I do find that sort of “partial &lit” for want of a better term, rather unsatisfactory.
I wanted 1ac to be BILLBOARDS but it didn’t fit.
Loved this.I still struggle with late week settings so I really enjoyed getting all of this ,though it took me a megabus to london and I just completed on the train back from paddington.As an actor loved playbills and kitchen sink.Loi was net curtains. Congrats to all.Love this site.
On the range, the deer AND the antelope play. Would hate to think a popular song was guilty of tautology.
gladys says:
January 6, 2020 at 7:32 pm
I wanted 1ac to be BILLBOARDS but it didn’t fit.
Didn’t stop me writing in BILLBOARD and trying to rationalise the S away.