A very impressive puzzle. Thank you Gozo.
10 fifteen-letter entries, no very obscure words used and some nice concise clues to match. Bravo!
| ACROSS | ||
| 8 | QUEEN OF THE SOUTH |
Team man taking our paper into wrecked hothouse (5,2,3,5)
|
| QUEEN (man, chess piece) then FT (Financial Times, our paper) inside anagram (wrecked) of HOTHOUSE – a football team form Dumfries in Scotland | ||
| 9 | RAISE THE CURTAIN |
Lift drape when Austrian heretic is murdered (5,3,7)
|
| anagram (is murdered, performed badly) of AUSTRIAN HERETIC | ||
| 10 | TEMPLATE |
Office worker, former model (8)
|
| TEMP (office worker) LATE (former) | ||
| 11 | REFUGE |
Island shelter (6)
|
| double definition – an island in the street for pedestrians | ||
| 12 | SPARKLE |
Deer knocks back glitter (7)
|
| ELK (deer) RAPS (knocks) all reversed (back) | ||
| 13 | FALL OUT |
Quarrel and its side effect (4,3)
|
| double definition | ||
| 15 | ARNICA |
Suitable treatment for bruised crania (6)
|
| anagram (bruised) of CRANIA – a herb used for treating bruises | ||
| 16 | SNAPPERS |
They take photographs of turtles (8)
|
| double definition – photographers and the Snapping Turtle | ||
| 17 | STOMACH DISORDER |
Poor Satchmo’s gripe? (7,8)
|
| two statements of an anagram: anagram (poor) of SATCHMO and anagram (disorder) of STOMACH | ||
| 18 | ORANGE FREE STATE |
Fruit for nothing, say, in South Africa (6,4,5)
|
| ORANGE (fruit) FREE (for nothing) STATE (say) – somewhere in South Africa | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | RUN A TEMPERATURE |
Feel unwell painting, held by rugby type (3,1,11)
|
| TEMPERA (a type of painting) inside (held by) RU (Rugby Union) NATURE (type) | ||
| 2 | WELSH PARLIAMENT |
Master plan while rebuilding Senedd (5,10)
|
| anagram (rebuilding) of MASTER PLAN WHILE – Senedd Cymru the devolved government for Wales | ||
| 3 | FOOTBALL MATCHES |
Measure at formal dance equates with games for 8 (8,7)
|
| FOOT (a measure) with BALL (formal dance) and MATCHES (equates) | ||
| 4 | UTTERED |
Said a word or two – indistinctly, but not for starters (7)
|
| stUTTERED (indistinctly, as when saying a word or two) missing (but not for) first two letters (the starters) | ||
| 5 | REQUIRE AN ANSWER |
Want a reply about paper gossip from all sides. Right (7,2,6)
|
| RE (regarding, about) QUIRE (measure of paper) ANA (gossip) NSWE (north, south, west and east…all sides) then R (right) | ||
| 6 | YOUTHFUL SPIRITS |
Thirty plus four, take away one is representative of teenage exuberance (8,7)
|
| anagram (representative of) of THIRTY PLUS FOUr |
||
| 7 | STRING QUARTETTE |
Four bowmen with scores (6,9)
|
| cryptic definition – scores are sheet music, a variant spelling of quartet | ||
| 14 | ISADORA |
Duncan is a lover say? (7)
|
| sounds like (say) “is adorer” (is a lover) – dancer Isadora Duncan |
As you say, an impressive grid fill.
Forgot ANA for “gossip”, so had to check that. Took a while to guess the QUEEN part of 8a, never having heard of the team. Didn’t know what Senedd was but worked out the anagram so didn’t need to look it up. The Duncan in 14d was another unknown.
I had parsed 4d as mUTTERED but admit that is missing a ‘starter’ rather than ‘starters’.
Thanks Gozo and PeeDee
18ac: I think that technically this may need something like “once” on the end of the clue. The name Orange Free State was apparently replaced by Free State when South Africa’s provinces were reorganised in 1994.
6dn: I read “take away one” as remaining remove the last letter from “Thirty plus four”. I like the idea that “take” should clue R as in “recipe”, but cannot account for the word “one” in the clue if you read it that way..
Some minor typos in the explanations: at 15ac, CRANIS should of course be CRANIA; at 2dn, “Snedd” should be “Senedd”; at 5dn, it may be better to put NSWE rather than NSEW.
Thanks for that Pelham. I had your explanation of 6dn too but was a little unhappy about which letter has to be omitted not being specified. Then I spotted R=take and assumed that must be the answer, but sadly I didn’t think it through properly.
I’m not convinced that the names of places always have to be indicated as “former” once they are no longer the official title. Place names don’t just disappear once they are not the current official title. If the clue does not explicitly require the name to be current then then I think names that remain alive in living memory are also viable.
Yes, some lovely clues here and am unusual grid with only one down clue after those starting in the top row.
I solved REFUGE thinking of the island in Tasmania, but after reading the blog I see it’s mu h more likely that Gozo meant the pedestrian refuge. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it.
Thanks GOZO and Peedee.
When I first saw the list of clues beside the grid on the pdf file I thought there must be some clues missing, but with all those fifteen-letter answers, obviously not.
Very enjoyable though to have finally finished this with many of the long answers not being write-ins, despite being made up of more than one word. Of the shorter answers, I had to put in SNAPPERS from the first part of the def only and couldn’t see REFUGE as an ‘Island’ either. Good to see ‘Duncan’ had nothing to do with “Macbeth” as I’d first thought.
One minor quibble; I had STRING QUARTETTO for 7d which I think is a valid alternative answer.
Thanks to Gozo for a very original grid and to PeeDee
Hi Wordplodder, I wondered about quartetto and quartette too, both are in the dictionary. My gut feel is that quartette will be in the solutions tomorrow, but we will have to wait and see.
When parsing YOUTHFUL SPIRITS, I decided it was an anagram of THIRTY + FOUr (as in blog, with R = take) + ‘S for “is”. I’ve never liked S for “is” but have seen it used on several occasions. Can’t say I care for “take away one” to mean the removal of the last letter either. We’ll probably never know what Gozo intended.
Marvellous!
Congratulations to Gozo for this spectacular feat of engineering, especially using accessible answers.
Thanks to PeeDee for blog and explaining a few mysteries for me, not least 5D which I got quickly but which was unparseable for this humble solver.
Ps. I read 6D as and anagram of “thirty plus four” take away one of these letters (unspecified which one) plus “is”.
Hovis@8 – don’t you need both letters from ‘is’?
Hovis – do you have an example of a puzzle using S for IS, as a standalone word?
Sorry, I meant an anagram of THIRTY PLUS FOUr + I (one) + ‘S.
PeeDee @12. Probably be hard tracing one but I’ll have a quick look. Don’t hold your breath though.
18ac: I take your point PeeDee @4. Does anyone else wish to express a view on this matter?
6dn: I like the suggestion from Hovis @13.
7dn: For what it is worth, Chambers 2014 gives quartette (and quartett) as alternative (English) spellings alongside quartet, but then gives quartetto as a separate word marked as Italian. I agree with PeeDee @7 in expecting to see -E in the “official” answer. For a non-prize puzzle, solvers can of course make up their own minds whether the -O alternative is equally valid, valid but inferior, or not valid.
As expected, I couldn’t find a suitable search to find S used for ‘is’ but have definitely seen it (as in it’s if anybody is wondering). Maybe somebody with a better memory can recall an example.
Late today but I’ll add my name to the throng of admirers in an absorbing and unusual grid.
Like Wordplodder, DUNCAN at first conjured Macbeth. It was my LOI and I needed all the crossers to finally spot ISIDORA, she of the flowing scarf tragedy.
Didn’t know that football team but was able to parse it successfully. For a number of others, I’m grateful to PeeDee for his explanations. I’m another who had (m)UTTERED which I still feel fits the definition better but there’s no argument with PeeDee’s parsing here.
ARNICA and STOMACH DISORDER had great surfaces and for this reason were favourites.
Thanks for the treat, Gozo.
I think mUTTERED also works. One could interpret “for starters” as meaning “in the first instance” or “thinking of the first item”. Which is right, muttered or stuttered? I don’t think it matters very much. One thinks of one or other of these explanations and and then writes UTTERED as the solution in either case.
I can’t comment on the ‘foursome” in 7d. Having entered “stomach distress” for 17a, I couldn’t finish 7d. Thanks Gozo for a great grid and PeeDee for the parsing.
PeeDee,
It’s an interesting one: ‘for starters’ favours your parsing from ”stuttered’, I feel. On the other hand, the words spoken by one who stutters may yet be heard clearly if not without interruption whereas ‘muttering’ is often inaudible and so indistinct.
In the end, the result is the same so, as you say, it doesn’t really matter.
Thanks Gozo. When I first saw my printout I thought that some of the clues must be missing. Quite a feat of construction I must say. It turned out to be a steady solve; I missed QUEEN in 8a not knowing the team and I had to use a word finder to change “distress” into the correct DISORDER @ 17a. I almost never list a double definition as a favourite but I really liked SNAPPERS. I was also impressed by the anagram @ 2d. Thanks PeeDee for the blog.
Super!
Thanks Gozo and PeeDee
Great setting to have so few clues in a 15 x 15 grid – daunting as it was to see that many 15 letter clues to start with. Actually ORANGE FREE STATE jumped out almost immediately and boosted the confidence to get the ball rolling.
Was a [M]UTTERED parser with the logic explained by PeeDee@17 – but either works and it is only the final product of UTTERED that really matters. Didn’t understand the ‘island’ REFUGE, but it had to be. Have seen QUEEN as a ‘man’ a few times now and that helped with working out the unknown football team.
Liked the complicated word play of that one as well as for RUN A TEMPERATURE and REQUIRE AN ANSWER.
Finished in the right hand side with the clever SNAPPERS, STRING QUARTETTE (which looked like it was two letters too long until I checked the alternative spelling) and FALL OUT.