A super puzzle today. If you like alphabetical jigsaws then you can download the puzzle here. Thank you Julius.
| LAMBADA |
Lady Caroline starts to attract Duke at dance (7)
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| LAMB (Lady Caroline Lamb, who had affair with “mad, bad and dangerous to know” Lord Byron) then first letters (starts to) Attract Duke At | ||
| SANS SOUCI |
Second answer very lucid, unlimited, carefree (4,5)
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| S (second) ANS (answer) SO (very) and then middle letters (unlimited) of lUCId | ||
| QUIETUS |
Peaceful American death (7)
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| QUIET (peaceful) and US (American) | ||
| YONNE |
That north-eastern French department (5)
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| YON (that) and NE (north-eastern) | ||
| JARRAHS |
Eucalyptus pots placed around entrances to Royal Albert Hall (7)
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| JARS (pots) contains (around) first letters (entrances to) Royal Albert Hall | ||
| XMAS DAY |
It’s a special occasion; kiss mum, son, father sitting on yard (4,3)
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| X (kiss) MA (mum) S (son) DA (father) then Y (yard) | ||
| ABDUL |
Arab sailor regularly seeing double? (5)
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| AB (able seaman, sailor) then every other letter (regularly seeing) of DoUbLe – an Arabic man’s name | ||
| BOUQUET GARNI |
Poor Rob queuing at soup kitchen might use this (7,5)
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| anagram (poor) of ROB QUEUING AT | ||
| ROOD DAY |
A time to venerate Joey, 6th June 1944 (4,3)
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| ROO (kangaroo, joey) and D-DAY (6th June 1944) – the feast of the Exaltation | ||
| UNHARNESS |
Remove burden from a NHS nurse struggling (9)
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| anagram (struggling) of A NHS NURSE | ||
| OUTTURN |
Percentage of voters cycling? Result (7)
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| TURNOUT (percentage of voters) with the letters cycled (i.e. moved sequentially from back to front) | ||
| ETHOS |
Distinctive character of those putting Spain first? (5)
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| THOSE with E (Espana, Spain) moved to the front | ||
| ZOOMS IN |
Uses telephoto lens (a pandemic video call no-no) (5,2)
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| ZOOM (a video call, popular during the pandemic) and SIN (a no-no) | ||
| VEXER |
He annoys very English King in retreat (5)
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| V (very) E (English) and REX (king) reversed (in retreat) | ||
| POLYMER |
Perspex cheapo Lyme Regis bottles? (7)
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| found inside (bottled by) cheaPO LYME Regis – Perspex is an example (indicated by ?) of a polymer | ||
| FAUSTUS |
German doctor’s fine gold suits spun leaving Italy (7)
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| F (fine) AU (Au, gold) then anagram (spun) of SUiTS missing I (Italy) – character from play by Christopher Marlowe | ||
| KNOCKED SILLY |
Punch-drunk kid yells “conk broken!” (7,5)
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| anagram (broken) of KID YELLS CONK | ||
| WIFE SWAPPING |
Dutch Exchange’s illicit affairs? (4-8)
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| wife (dutch) and SWAPPING (exchange) | ||
| MIDDLE C |
I’m upset; daughters left me ultimately cold note (6,1)
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| I’M reversed (upset) then D D (daughter, twice) L (left) mE (last letter of (ultimately) and C (cold) | ||
| TRANSGRESSED |
Gran’s madly into upside-down cake, possibly having lapsed! (12)
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| anagram (madly) of GRANS inside DESSERT (cake possibly) reversed (upset) | ||
| HIGHJACKS |
Seizes command of men under the influence of drugs (9)
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| Jack is a man’s name, so such men under the influence would be HIGH JACKS | ||
| GAZUMPING |
Looking over first hint of Uxbridge MP’s cheating in housing market (9)
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| GAZING (looking) contains (over) Uxbridge (first letter, first hint of) MP | ||
| DOLE OUT |
Distribute benefits when on strike (4,3)
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| DOLE (benefits, slang for social security payments) and OUT (on strike) | ||
| VIRTUAL |
In effect, trade union gets featured in online campaign (7)
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| TU (trade union) inside VIRAL (a sales promotion carried out through viral marketing) | ||
| INSULIN |
Hormone Luis drunkenly injected in pub (7)
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| anagram (drunkenly) inside (injected in) INN (pub) | ||
| WET FISH |
Churning out few hits, they’re put on ice (3,4)
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| anagram (churning out) of FEW HITS | ||
| NEONATE |
A bit of acne on a teensy little ‘un (7)
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| found inside (a bit of) acNE ON A TEensy – a new-born child | ||
| COULD BE |
Cooking blue cod? Possibly (5,2)
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| anagram (cooking) of BLUE COD |
Thanks Julius and Pete. I had DOLE OUT rather than DOLL OUT.
GREAT FUN-Thanks all, (think I had DOLE OUT)
Sorry, PeeDee not Pete!
PB @1 Snap!
Yes, DOLE not DOLL. Thanks for spotting that. Fixed now.
DOLE OUT for me too.
Surprised to see an alphabetical jigsaw this morning from one of my favourite setters – made me wonder if it was indeed XMAS DAY.
This one seemed a little harder than the last Julius – or maybe it was because these grids usually appear on holidays or at weekends when there’s more time to lavish on them.
Anyway, nailing GAZUMPING/ZOOMS IN early on went a long way towards completing the SE corner. Focusing on the 9-letter words helped eke out the rest. My top picks (though it’s a tough call) were SANS SOUCI and the colloquial KNOCKED SILLY.
The usual Julius wit was on display especially in those perimeter clues. ROOD DAY was a clever disguise.
Last two in were the ‘doctor’ and ‘result’ as they were far from the first options to spring to mind.
Thanks for the unexpected treat, Julius,
and to PeeDee .
Very good. Nice and crunchy. B was great, especially since the Q in the fodder had me looking for something quite different.
I will steal your word, super blog thanks and super crossword. Gordius seems to be the new master of the alphabetical jigsaw. Agree with Diane for favourites.
OUTTURN I actually had the other way ?? Voters is the turnout , and result is the definition = outturn , I will need to check Chambers later so this may be nonsense.
I am a huge fan of Julius (Roz!) his alphabeticals.
They have become a genre of their own.
Despite a lack of starting letters (as in the Araucarian ones), they benefit from (a) clear, relatively simple and immaculate clueing, and (b) a friendly grid.
Sheer delight from my FOS (i.e. First One Solver, not in), WIFE-SWAPPING, to my last, which was GAZUMPING .
To be proper English, the U clue would probably need “an NHS nurse” but the anagram can’t have that.
Many thanks to PeeDee & Julius.
Roz – I had TURNOUT for my first attempt, I had to change it later to fit the grid. I wrote up the explanations in the blog as I solved the clues, before I tried to fit them into the grid. Now I look more closely I think I still have the original (and wrong) definition and explanation in the bog. I will have to fix that.
Yes, Roz, I too understood OUTTURN as the result/outcome, recycled from [voter] TURNOUT though, as I say, ‘outturn’ seemed unusual.
And Sil hits the nail on the head regarding the pleasure of solving these alphabeticals from Julius.
Blog is now updated to show Result as definition and Percentage of voters as part of the wordplay.
Thanks PeeDee – I don’t normally do the FT but I saw your intro line on the front page and yes, I do like alphabetical jigsaws so have downloaded this for later. Just had to be careful to scroll down to the bottom of the page very quickly to avoid seeing any of the solutions…
I did have TURNOUT written by the clue, it does work both ways, then I got transgressed and no letter O so I swapped, did not know that OUTTURN=RESULT but support in Chambers.
Very good. I enjoy these alphabetical jigsaws from Julius as the clues are not usually too devious and it’s a good mental exercise trying to then fit all the pieces together in the right spot in the grid. A few new words too in ROOD DAY and QUIETUS, so definitely worth the effort spent in eventually getting this out.
Thanks to Julius and to PeeDee
My thanks to Peedee for signposting this. Great fun and cheers to Julius.
A very enjoyable afternoon spent on this. Too hot to be physically energetic so the mental exercise was vey welcome. I arrived here after the corrections had been made so was pleased to find I got it all. Thank you Julius and PeeDee.
Thanks for the blog PeeDee and thanks to those who have taken the time to comment. I do derive a certain amount of pleasure and almost almost Sisyphean torment from filling these alphabetical grids. The Member of Parliament for the constituency of Uxbridge & South Ruislip is one Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, incidentally
Best wishes to all, Rob/Julius
That was great fun, thanks Julius – and I did especially enjoy GAZUMPING. I’m sure it’s purely a coincidence that the surface hinted at the incumbent of that seat being involved in wrongdoing.
BOUQUET GARNI and TRANSGRESSED also get ticks, among others.
Agree with Sil entirely – very fair and accurate clueing meant I could even get unfamiliar terms like JARRAHS and ROOD DAY. Only Lady Caroline stumped me.
Thanks for the blog PeeDee, and thanks again for alerting my attention to this one.
Thanks to Julius. More difficult than other jigsaws I’ve seen by him, but enjoyable. Several entries were unfamiliar to this American solver, but could be reliably parsed.
A late thumbs up. Happily got wife-swapping first and bunged it in up top whereupon all followed swimmingly. Thanks poor Rob and PeeDee for the blog, heads-up and link. Is the gazumping clue news or libel?