Loglady, with whose work I am not yet that well acquainted, is occupying the Thursday slot this week.
I think that I have managed to solve all the clues correctly and unaided, although I needed Google to confirm the par at St Andrews for the clue at 15. I am not totally sure of my parsing and would appreciate confirmation (or otherwise!) of 10, 13 and 16A, none of which I could parse to my total satisfaction using Chambers.
The south-east quadrant proved most stubborn today, since it took me a while to unpick 15, to realise what was happening at 22 (where I almost wrote in “Isis”) and to be confident enough of what I suspected all along was the solution to be entered at 24.
My favourite clues today were 12, for pursuing the sport theme through definition and wordplay alike; and 2, for the surface reading and misleading use of “bow” as definition.
*(…) indicates an anagram; definitions are italicised; // separates definitions in multiple-definition clues
| Across | ||
| 01 | NOT OUT | Absence of vendor – on strike perhaps?
NO TOUT (=absence of vendor); a “not out” batsman could (still) be on strike in cricket |
| 05 | SAMANTHA | A woman that loves, a man that possesses
Hidden (“that … possesses”) in “loveS A MAN THAt” |
| 09 | MERE | Just before midday comes around
ERE (=before, in poetry) + M (=midday, i.e. meridian, as in AM and PM); “comes around” indicates reversal |
| 10 | NULLIFIERS | One wearing top up in sun rejected counteractive measures
[I in REFILL (=top up, of drink)] in SUN; “rejected” means (here full) reversal; a nullifier is a measure that renders an earlier measure void |
| 11 | SCHOOLCHILDREN | Youngsters chill, chores done, energy gone, shattered
*(CHILL CHORES + DON<e>); “energy (=E) gone” means that the letter “e” is dropped from anagram, indicated by “shattered” |
| 12 | UNFAIR | Sports administrators that ruin ground covers – it’s just not cricket
FA (=sports administrators, i.e. the Football Association) in *(RUIN); “ground (up)” is anagram indicator |
| 13 | CALABASH | Gourd of Californian atomic punch
CAL (=Californian) + A (=atomic, as in IAEA) + BASH (=punch) |
| 16 | HEADROOM | Space on bus is potential road home
*(ROAD HOME); “potential” is anagram indicator; headroom is the space between a driver’s head and the roof of a vehicle or between the top of a vehicle and the bridge under which it hopes to pass |
| 18 | GALAXY | Loose in joyous part of universe
LAX (=loose) in GAY (=joyous) |
| 19 | DISCRIMINATORY | Recording threatening to bracket Republican individual as bigoted
[R (=Republican) + I (=individual, i.e. one)] in [DISC (=recording) + MINATORY (=threatening)] |
| 21 | OCCIDENTAL | Ought to replace leader in unplanned Western
ACCIDENTAL (=unplanned); “ought (=0, i.e. zero) to replace leader (=first letter)” means letter “o” replaces letter “a” |
| 22 | IRIS | What’s inside the white flower?
The iris is to be found inside the white of the eye! |
| 23 | KEEPSAKE | Reminder to store strong drink
KEEP (=to store) + SAKE (=strong (rice) drink) |
| 24 | DOGGER | One on a trail of // course mixed stone
Double definition; dogger is sandy ironstone or ferruginous sandstone |
| Down | ||
| 02 | OBEISANCE | Bow of canoe bizarrely filled with live fish innards
[BE (=live, exist) + <f>IS<h> (“innards” means central letters only)] in *(CANOE); “bizarrely” is anagram indicator; an obeisance is a bow or act of reverence |
| 03 | OVERHEARD | Listened in on radio – drove excessively
Cryptically, to “drove excessively” could ne to “over herd (cattle)”; “on radio” is homophone indicator |
| 04 | TANDOOR | Burn entrance of oven
TAN (=burn, i.e. in sun) + DOOR (=entrance); a tandoor is a clay oven used in Indian cooking, hence tandoori dishes |
| 05 | SELECT COMMITTEE | Group of MPs inclined, mostly, to carry vote for pledge
[ELECT (=vote for) + COMMIT (=pledge, e.g. funding)] in STEE<p> (inclined; “mostly” means last letter is dropped) |
| 06 | ALFALFA | Two small beers without heads, and a feed
<h>ALF + <h>ALF (=two small beers, i.e. 2 halves; “without heads” means first letter is dropped each time) + A; alfalfa is another (US) name for the fodder plant lucerne |
| 07 | THEIR | A gender neutral person’s article on Iran
THE (=article) + IR (=Iran, in IVR); their is a possessive adjective used to avoid saying his or her, hence “gender-neutral” |
| 08 | ABSINTH | Baths in rum, showing Bohemian spirit
*(BATHS IN); “rum (=odd)” is anagram indicator; absinth is a spirit much favoured in arty, bohemian circles |
| 14 | BILLOWING | Rolling invoice to pay
BILL (=invoice) + OWING (=to pay, i.e. still to be paid) |
| 15 | SIXTY-FIVE | 7 under at St Andrews, in messy place, holding 9 iron, round 4
[IX (=9, in Roman numerals) in STY (=messy place)] + [IV (=4, in Roman numerals) in FE (=iron, i.e. chemical formula)]; a round of 65 strokes would be “7 under (par) at St Andrews”, which is a par 72 golf course |
| 16 | HADDOCK | Fish kept by harbour
HAD (=kept) + DOCK (=harbour, port) |
| 17 | REREDOS | Give second makeover to small church decoration?
RE-REDO (=give second makeover to, cryptically) + S (=small, in sizes) |
| 18 | GNARLED | Twisted delegate made phone call up
DEL (=delegate) + RANG (=made phone call); “up” indicates (here full) vertical reversal |
| 20 | SOCLE | After refurbishment, close platform
*(CLOSE); “after refurbishment” is anagram indicator; in architecture, a socle is a plinth at the foot of a wall or column, hence “platform” |
Back on November 7, I said “Phew! When did Loglady get this hard?”. Perhaps this is his new norm. Very tough with a lot of checking in Chambers. Didn’t know: CALABASH, MINATORY, DOGGER, SOCLE and didn’t know ABSINTHE could be spelt without the E. Some other words, such as: TANDOOR, REREDOS & OBEISANCE, I did know but are hardly common parlance. Don’t recall ever seeing M for midday either. I confess, I did check if “nere” was a word, with n = noon.
Thanks to Loglady for the education and to RatkojaRiku for the blog.
Thanks to RatkojaRiku and Loglady
Mostly pretty good I thought with 15d a nice touch sending you all over the grid to no avail. A couple of things I haven’t come across before – Cal for Californian, and M for midday.
For “M” The only other case I can think of for “translate to Latin and use the abbreviation for that”, is take = recipe = r.
Hi RatkojaRiku and commenters
The idea of M for midday was meridiem as in am and pm. I don’t know if there’s any dictionary backup to be honest. It seems more common usage than ‘n’ though, and I don’t think it’s as convoluted as take=r, as its pretty well known what the m is in am and pm, and seems obvious what the a,p and m are signifying
10, 13 and 16 are parsed how I meant them!
And Hovis i’d like to find a happy medium with difficulty, I certainly don’t want puzzles that are too hard. There might be an element of randomness to the difficulty of the wordplay until I get to grips with this aspect. One thing I normally do is try not to use many obscure words, and yet you’re totally right there’s a tonne of them in this puzzle! So that won’t always be the case
and thanks RatkojaRiku for getting through the difficult parsing and getting it spot on
Chambers gives m as an abbreviation for meridiem.
We found this tough going – we didn’t get a single across answer in the first pass but it slowly came together once a few guesses had been pencilled in and later confirmed from crossers. SELECT COMMITTEE was pencilled in from definition and enumeration, and only parsed once we had finished, and SOCLE was a new word to us.
Sharing Mark Twain’s opinion of golf we just had to guess at par for St Andrews – surely that’s on the borderline between GK and specialist knowledge.
Thanks, Loglady and RatkojaRiku.
Thanks to blogger and setter. Just a guess, but I’d say par at St Andrews was just a general reference to golf, which is par 4, so par for 18 holes would be 72 with the best known golf course in the UK being referenced.