BRADMAN dishes out one of his tougher puzzles today to end the workweek.
FF: 8 DD: 10
I couldnt have solved this without help from the internet for two clues ( 17a, 4d ) and to confirm a few parses.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | CONTEMPT |
Disdain, as against sweet talk (8)
|
| CON ( against ) TEMPT ( sweet talk ) | ||
| 5 | BODEGA |
Person given time to go round shop (6)
|
| BOD ( person ) EGA ( time = AGE, reversed ) | ||
| 8 | NOW |
On return achieved victory right away (3)
|
| reverse of WON ( achieved victory ) | ||
| 9 | FIRST-CLASS |
Super environment for new pupils? (5- 5)
|
| cryptic def | ||
| 10 | NAMETAPE |
Label meant somehow to be attached to wild animal (8)
|
| [ MEANT ]* APE ( wild animal ) | ||
| 11 | LOOTED |
John and Edward stripped (6)
|
| LOO ( john ) TED ( edward ) | ||
| 12 | CANS |
Some African sounds in headphones (4)
|
| hidden in “..afriCAN Sounds..” | ||
| 14 | A SHORT FUSE |
Father so furious with us shows propensity to lose temper (1,5,4)
|
| [ FATHER SO US ]* | ||
| 17 | LE MOT JUSTE |
The right expression for Napoleon? (2,3,5)
|
| french for ‘ the right word’ ; i am not a big fan of this clue as the language knowledge required here is a barrier ( unless of course i am missing something patently obvious ) | ||
| 20 | YALE |
University year’s beginning with booze (4)
|
| Y ( Year, beginning ) ALE ( booze ) | ||
| 23 | DEMEAN |
Humble cleric entertaining your setter? (6)
|
| DEAN ( cleric ) containing ME ( your setter ) | ||
| 24 | FENESTRA |
Opening is possible with fastener loosened (8)
|
| [ FASTENER ]* ; dredged this one up from some dark recess of the mind and had to confirm it with chambers. | ||
| 25 | SHOE POLISH |
What helps Oxford to shine? (4,6)
|
| cryptic def | ||
| 26 | PHI |
Measure of acidity one found in Greek character (3)
|
| PH ( measure of acidity ) I ( one ) | ||
| 27 | IN GEAR |
Wearing glad rags and ready to go? (2,4)
|
| double def | ||
| 28 | WESLEYAN |
This nonconformist (DV) may be newly saved, converted (8)
|
| reverse anagram [ WESLEYAN DV ]* = NEWLY SAVED | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | CANONICAL |
Minister I term mostly authoritative (9)
|
| CANON ( minister ) I CALl ( term, mostly ) | ||
| 2 | NEWSMAN |
Journalist making various points, several inadequately (7)
|
| NEWS ( North, East , West, South – several points ) MANy ( several , inadequately ) | ||
| 3 | EFFETE |
Flowery English female opening gala (6)
|
| E ( english ) F ( Female, opening ) FETE ( gala ) | ||
| 4 | PARI PASSU |
Step into City University side by side (4,5)
|
| [ PAS ( step , french ) in PARIS ( city ) ] U ( university ) | ||
| 5 | BUCKLER |
Armour as something that gives way? (7)
|
| cryptic def; guessed the answer and then confirmed with chambers | ||
| 6 | DRAGONFLY |
Insect to keep going a long time? Crafty! (9)
|
| DRAG ON ( keep going a long time ) FLY ( crafty ) | ||
| 7 | GUSHERS |
Leader of Girl Guides who could seem over-effusive? (7)
|
| G ( Girl, first letter ) USHERS ( guides ) | ||
| 13 | STOKEHOLE |
Space by furnace to store fuel, by the sound of it? (9)
|
| sounds like STOW ( store ) COAL ( fuel ) / Thanks to Hovis@1 | ||
| 15 | ON THE SIDE |
Secretly occupying a space at the meal table? (2,3,4)
|
| cryptic def | ||
| 16 | ELEVATION |
Height of joy ever only half grasped (9)
|
| ELATION ( joy ) containing EVer ( only half ) | ||
| 18 | EMERSON |
US writer coming out, not the first person (7)
|
| EMERSiON ( coming out , without I – first person ) | ||
| 19 | JUNIPER |
Environmentalist revealing evergreen shrub (7)
|
| double def; first referring to anthony juniper – had to google to get this reference. | ||
| 21 | AUTOPSY |
A superior girl who achieved eminence in examination (7)
|
| A U ( superior ) TOPSY ( girl who achieved eminence, from the novel uncle tom’s cabin by harriet beecher stowe ) ; i have no idea if my parsing is correct .. did think if “top” in the answer had something to do with achieve but couldnt get anywhere with that. | ||
| 22 | BETHEL |
Third man, not the first, to be seen outside the chapel (6)
|
| aBEL ( third man, without first letter ) outside THE |
13d ought to be ‘sounds like STOW COAL’. Agree with many of your difficulties. I did know FENESTRA & LE MOT JUSTE though and guessed PARI PASSU from wordplay.
Whether it’s ‘stow’ or ‘store’ said coal, perhaps depends on your accent?
‘Le mot juste’ is apt maybe for a crossword where we’re all striving for just that but I agree it’s a tad unfair.
Failed on PARI PASSU, IN GEAR and BETHEL.
Still, I enjoyed the attempt.
Thanks to Bradman and Turbolegs.
Thanks Hovis@1. Your parse fits better than mine did. I initially went down the path of “stove” – could be a furnace, and it sounds like stow as well and from there, I went down a different rabbit hole and never came back to this.
Failed on BETHEL, WESLEYAN and AUTOPSY. Wouldn’t have got the Topsy reference in a million years.
Thanks Bradman and Turbolegs.
STOKEHOLE (eventually parsed) was my last in for what was a pretty hard work-out from Bradman today. I couldn’t parse EMERSON, JUNIPER or AUTOPSY and BETHEL was new – I presume the crossing with WESLEYAN was intended. A rudimentary knowledge of French helped with a few of the others already mentioned.
Thanks to Turbolegs and Bradman
I’m fluent enough in French to get LE MOT JUSTE, but not PARI PASSU, apparently. Embarrassed to say I couldn’t see WESLEYAN, despite having all the cross letters. Needed word search help for FENESTRA and AUTOPSY, where I agree with Turbolegs’ parsing.
I particularly liked 2d and 25a. Thanks, Turbolegs and Bradman.
ACD
Thanks to Bradman and Turbolegs. I did not get STOKEHOLE (I opted for smokehole that at least fits the definition) but I did parse PARI PASSU, AUTOPSY, FENESTRA, IN GEAR, and BETHEL.
Thought this was going to be a breeze at first, but then slowed down dramatically: I agree that this was tougher than Bradman’s norm.
However, the obscurities played to my relative strengths, as a former finance lawyer for PARI PASSU, which comes up regularly, and as a French speaker… Wasn’t aware of FENESTRA as an English word, but knew it was Italian for a window (and could work backwards from “defenestrate”) so that was ok, too. However, JUNIPER just went in unparsed, as the person was completely unknown to me: thanks to Turbolegs for doing the homework.
So overall a satisfying challenge.
Thanks Bradman and Turbolegs
Unlike some, I didn’t find this much trickier than Bradman usually is. Stokehole probably took longest to spot.
Re LE MOT JUSTE, I don’t think it’s particularly unfair: it’s not an uncommon expression, and is in both current Chambers and my mid-70s SOED.
We’re wioth Simon@9 in not finding this particularly tricky – not that it didn’t need some head-scrstching a few times. We knew both LE MOT JUSTE and PARI PASSU – and both of them are in Chambers. We did wonder if BODEGA was a little unfair, but that too is in Chambers.
We liked STOKEHOLE and SHOE POLISH but our favourite as DRAGONFLY.
Thanks, Bradman and Turbolegs
Hello! I’m just a tiny little baby newcomer to these, could someone do me the favor of explaining the notation at the top FF:8 and DD:10?
Thanks to all of you for such a great unraveling of cryptic mechanics! I really thought my Dear Mum was just crazy, but now I do see she was merely One Of A Kind. Cheers to your kind!
Hello Alex @11 and welcome to our strange world. FF is fun factor and DD is degree of difficulty . I asked the same question a few months ago.The 10 classification for this puzzle accords with my experience and failure to finish .
Most fell into place with ease, with three or four stinkers — the ones mentioned by others.
Thanks Bradman and Turbolegs
A week late to comment on this one which I started last Sunday, spilling over to the Monday – so certainly no stroll in the park for me. LE MOT JUSTE was known and using a well-known person or city is fair cop to indicate that one has to look for a word spoken in that country.
Had a bit of trouble equating ‘flowery’ to EFFETE, couldn’t see the MAN[Y] last bit of 2d and never heard of Tony JUPITER until looking him up in wiki. Also needed the blog to point me towards TOPSY (but then ‘growing like TOPSY’ was a common term and also a name my dad used for my younger sister).
Finished in the SE corner with WESLEYAN (neat subtraction anagram), BETHEL (a word vaguely familiar, but had to check it) and ON THE SIDE were the last few in.