A fun and fairly straightforward Monday puzzle from Vigo.
We had a few comments in last week’s blogs about teaching friends and family to solve cryptics; this puzzle would probably make a good teaching exercise. There are examples of lots of clue types, quite a few standard abbreviations, and a couple of clever misdirections in 11a and 13a. My favourite is probably 23d, with apologies to any greengrocers who are fed up with jokes about their lack of punctuation skills. Thanks Vigo for the entertainment.
Definitions are underlined; BOLD UPPERCASE indicates letters used in the wordplay; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.
ACROSS | ||
1 | CURIOUS |
Peculiar rogue promises to pay (7)
|
CUR (rogue = bad person) + IOUS (IOU = I owe you = a promise to pay a debt). | ||
5 | SCRAPES |
Fixes fight with El Salvador (7)
|
SCRAP (a fight) + ES (which can be an abbreviation for El Salvador, though not necessarily a well-known one; ISO 3166, the current standard for country codes, uses SV).
Scrape = fix = a difficult or dangerous situation. |
||
9 | ADAPTABLE |
Flexible cushion turned over in a piece of furniture (9)
|
PAD (cushion), reversed (turned over), in A TABLE (a piece of furniture). | ||
10 | SNAKE |
Benefit involving northern wind (5)
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SAKE (benefit, as in “for your own sake”) around (involving) N (northern).
Wind (verb, rhyming with mind) = snake = move in a twisting path. |
||
11 | CARDIAC |
One of pack in charge holding ace of hearts (7)
|
CARD (one of a pack of playing cards) + IC (abbreviation for in charge), holding A (ace, in card-playing notation). Straightforward enough when you can manage to split “ace of hearts” into two. | ||
12 | PEACOCK |
Firm chaff initially swallowed by mountain bird (7)
|
CO (short for company = business = firm) + initial letter of C[haff], swallowed by PEAK (mountain). | ||
13 | DANDELION |
Daughter with European cat weed (9)
|
D (daughter) AND (with) E (European) LION (a big cat).
The surface initially suggests “weed” as a verb, but we need to see it as a noun (an unwanted plant); appropriately enough, though, dandelion leaves are known as a diuretic. |
||
15 | TAPIR |
Creature that a pirate holds (5)
|
Hidden answer (. . . holds) in [tha]T A PIR[ate].
Jungle animal; looks like a long-nosed pig, but actually a distant relation of the rhino. |
||
17 | STEEL |
Way fish harden (5)
|
ST (abbreviation for street = way) + EEL (a fish).
Steel (verb), as in “steel yourself” = prepare for a challenge = harden. |
||
19 | ENGENDERS |
Fancy green dens for bears (9)
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Anagram (fancy) of GREEN DENS.
Engender = give birth to (literally or metaphorically) = bear. |
||
22 | LIGHTER |
Not so heavy smoker’s accessory (7)
|
Double definition. | ||
25 | TENSILE |
Springy hat worn by English non-smoker (7)
|
TILE (slang for hat), around (. . . worn by) E (English) + NS (non-smoker).
Having studied materials engineering, I’m not really convinced by “springy” as a definition for “tensile” – but it’s close enough for crosswords, and I won’t bore you all by trying to explain. |
||
26 | COATI |
Pelt island creature (5)
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COAT (pelt = animal’s fur) + I (abbreviation for island).
Another exotic creature to go with 15a; this one’s a relative of the raccoon. |
||
27 | NEAR THING |
Narrow escape when excavating without leader (4,5)
|
[u]NEARTHING (excavating), without the leading letter.
As one might say when getting out of a SCRAPE (5a): “That was a near thing!” = a narrow escape. |
||
28 | TRAGEDY |
Gyrated drunkenly to Bee Gees tune (7)
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Anagram (drunkenly) of GYRATED.
1979 hit for the Gibb brothers. |
||
29 | EMPRESS |
Space group of journalists provides leader (7)
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EM (space: in typography, a space originally defined as being the width of the uppercase letter M) + PRESS (the press = journalists collectively). | ||
DOWN | ||
1 | CHANCED |
Risked placing new church in country (7)
|
N (new) + |
||
2 | REARRANGE |
Adjust back row (9)
|
REAR (back) + RANGE (row = a line). | ||
3 | OUTSIDE |
Unpopular team away from home (7)
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OUT (unpopular) + SIDE (sports team). | ||
4 | SUBSCRIBE |
Reserves bed with bit of extra support (9)
|
SUBS (short for substitutes = reserves for a sports team) + CRIB (bed for a baby) + first letter (a bit) of E[xtra].
Subscribe = support = give money to (a cause), or agree with (an opinion). |
||
5 | SWEEP |
Clean compass (5)
|
Double definition: (verb) to clear away dirt with a broom, or (noun) sweep = compass = full range. | ||
6 | RESTART |
Break sculpture perhaps and begin again (7)
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REST (a break from work) + ART (sculpture perhaps). | ||
7 | PIANO |
Penny and Scotsman love quietly (5)
|
P (p = abbreviation for penny) + IAN (the crossword setter’s favourite Scotsman; the spelling Iain is perhaps more authentically Scots but less helpful for wordplay) + O (zero = love in tennis scoring).
Piano = musical term for quietly (from Italian). |
||
8 | SNEAKER |
Tell tales about revolting trainer (7)
|
SNEAK (tell tales = inform on someone), then RE (about = on the subject of) reversed (revolting).
Sneaker = trainer = sports shoe. |
||
14 | NIGHTMARE |
Dream of dark horse (9)
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NIGHT (the dark) + MARE (horse). | ||
16 | PRECIPICE |
Cost including epic rewritten for Cliff (9)
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PRICE (cost), including an anagram (rewritten) of EPIC. | ||
17 | SOLICIT |
Very legitimate petition (7)
|
SO (very) + LICIT (legitimate; a word more common in its negative form, illicit).
Petition (verb) = ask someone for something = solicit. |
||
18 | LATRINE |
Reliant upon changing for convenience (7)
|
Anagram (upon changing) of RELIANT.
Convenience = toilet facility. |
||
20 | NONSTOP |
Constant undoing regularly upset kitties (7)
|
Alternate letters (regularly) of [u]N[d]O[i]N[g], then POTS (pot = kitty = communal store of money) reversed (upset = upwards in a down clue). | ||
21 | SLEDGES |
Makes offensive remarks about sliders (7)
|
Double definition. A term used in sport (particularly cricket) for attempting to unsettle an opposing player by making personal insults; or vehicles for sliding down snow-covered slopes. | ||
23 | GUAVA |
Greengrocer using apostrophes: ‘Vegetable’s and topping’s for fruit‘ (5)
|
Initial letters (toppings) for G[reengrocer] U[sing] A[postrophes] V[egetables] A[nd], with a reference to the error of using an apostrophe to form plurals (supposedly common in signs handwritten by greengrocers).
Tropical fruit native to Central America and neighbouring countries. |
||
24 | RANDY |
Feeling frisky in outskirts of Rugby (5)
|
The outskirts (outer letters) of Rugby (Warwickshire town) are R AND Y. |
This was a light delight to brighten up a cold grey morning. My only slight hold-up was with the parsing of NEAR THING.
Many thanks to Vigo and to Quirister.
1 down. Should be N (new) + CE (church), placed inside CHAD (African country), not CH as in blog
Graham @2, thanks – “church” is usually either CH or CE, so I was obviously not concentrating. Now corrected.
A pleasant way to kick off the solving week, with that very appealing beastie the TAPIR my pick of the day. As someone ignorant in the ways of materials engineering, once I’d worked out the not so obvious wordplay, I bunged in TENSILE without further thought; too much knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
ES is the international vehicle registration code for ‘El Salvador’.
Thanks to Quirister and Vigo
Thank you to Quirister for the blog. I am deligjted you enjoyed 23d but have to credit my fellow setter, Harold, who suggested the greengrocer clue after test solving – much better surface than my original (Fruit greencrocer used as visual aid initially). So thank you Harold!
I share Quirister’s three favourites and also had ticks for NEAR THING and TRAGEDY.
Both TAPIR and COATI used to be crossword staples. I hadn’t seen either for ages, then Vlad gave us COATI in the Guardian just last week.
Many thanks to Vigo for a very pleasant start to the week and to Quirister for the blog.
Indeed a pleasant start to the week. I suspect greengrocers insert the apostrophe on purpose as its (sorry, it’s) expected of them. Thanks Vigo and Quirister.
WordPlodder @4: yes, you’re right about IVR. I usually quote ISO 3166 when explaining two-letter country codes, because it has wider application (especially online), but it doesn’t always align with IVR.
delighted rather than deligjted – really need to wear glasses when typing on my phone!
Always a pleasure to see Vigo in the Monday slot – a great way to start what used to be the working week.
Different choice of favourites for me – CURIOUS, LIGHTER & SOLICIT making the grade here.
Thanks to Vigo for the fun and to Quirister for the review.
Chapeau Vigo for honesty and modesty-and a fun puzzle to kick the week off
Thanks V and Q and Harold. Nice start to the week.
COATIS are clearly like buses. You wait ages for one and then two turn up together.
Nothing really to add. A very nice start to the week, and we particularly liked the greengrocer’s. We thought, though, that the dark horse might really be a chestnut.
Thanks, Vigo and Quirister
Did this together over a couple of evenings after tea , we’re a bit behind but thought we’d complete this as opposed to taking on a Hoskins (nothing against Hoskins but I find Vigo more straightforward!) exactly as Quirister says a nice selection of clue types and anagram indicators along with devices like “outskirts” and old classic IAN
Favourites probably CHANCED and COATI and the surface of TRAGEDY was great
Thanks a lot Vigo and Quirister
But all I wanna know is how the Tombsy times two done did on my puzzle, dagnabbit!
Oh, madame, I just can;t stand the antic……………………………
………………………………pation!