Never easy, Steerpike.
A chewy puzzle with many devious definitions and some tortuous wordplay. Leavened by a little wit, this was a classy offering and a very satisfying solve, well worth the perseverance, I thought. thanks, Steerpike.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | CHATTERBOX |
Gossip about mad character having fight (10)
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C[irca] (‘about’) + HATTER (‘mad character’) + BOX (‘fight’). |
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| 6 | CHUB |
Young animal devouring last of fresh fish (4)
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C.UB (‘young animal’) around last of ‘fresH’. |
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| 9 | BEDFELLOWS |
Spooner’s agent cries out for associates (10)
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Spoonerism of FED (US ‘agent’) + BELLOWS (‘cries out’). |
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| 10 | ABBA |
Group of sailors standing back-to- back (4)
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2x AB (‘sailors’), 2nd reversed. |
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| 12 | SACRELIGIOUS |
Dismiss ecclesiastical reports as profane (12)
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Homophone (‘reports’) of SACK RELIGIOUS ‘(‘dismiss ecclesiastical’). |
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| 15 | POTPOURRI |
Team, reportedly on dope, given lesson in medley (9)
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POUR (of rain,‘teem’, homophone of ‘team’) after POT (‘dope’) + R[eligious] I[nstruction] (‘lesson’). |
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| 17 | SALSA |
Part of Cleopatra’s lascivious, gyrating dance (5)
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Hidden, reversed, in ‘cleopatrAS LAScivious’. |
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| 18 | RUN-UP |
Period preceding a mass in oratory (3- 2)
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Homophone (‘in oratory’) of AMASS (to ‘run up’). |
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| 19 | CONDEMNED |
Sentenced fraud; heartless fellow caught in act (9)
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CON (‘fraud’) + MaN (‘fellow’ without middle) in DE.ED (‘act’). |
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| 20 | PLOUGHSHARES |
Diggers parking by lake initially startled animals (12)
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P[arking] + LOUGH (‘lake’) + 1st of ‘S{tartled}’ + HARES (‘animals’). |
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| 24 | UNIT |
College student’s final module (4)
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UNI (‘college’) + last of ‘studenT’. |
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| 25 | CLASSICIST |
Court accepts girl is touring Cuba with international scholar (10)
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C[our]T surrounds LASS IS which in turn surrounds C[uba] + I[nternational]. |
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| 26 | SING |
Half the characters in prison confess to crime (4)
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SING-SING being the prison in question. |
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| 27 | ADVENTURER |
Endure a TV broadcast about Right being opportunist (10)
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Anagram (‘broadcast’) of ENDURE A TV. |
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| DOWN | ||
| 1 | COBS |
Company regularly commandeering best horses (4)
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CO[mpany] + alternate letters of BeSt. |
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| 2 | AIDE |
Article Independent journalist turned over to assistant (4)
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A (‘article’) + I[ndependent] + ED (‘journalist’), reversed. |
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| 3 | THE BAY OF PIGS |
Military fiasco in Egypt has FBI worried about nothing (3,3,2,4)
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1961 failed invasion of Cuba by CIA. Anagram (‘worried’) of EGYPT HAS FBI around 0. |
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| 4 | RULER |
Sovereign leader finally united the French Resistance (5)
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Last of ‘leadeR’ + U[nited] + LE (Fr. ‘the’) + R[esistance]. |
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| 5 | ORWELLIAN |
War is in conflict with Lionel Blair’s vision? (9)
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Anagram (‘in conflict’) of WAR + LIONEL, to give adjective from George Orwell, nom-de-plume of (Eric) Blair. |
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| 7 | HOBGOBLINS |
Mischievous types slobbing around beneath government department (10)
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H[ome] O[ffice] (‘government department’) + anagram (‘around’) of SLOBBING. |
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| 8 | BRASS BANDS |
Supporters on beach mobbing key players (5,5)
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BRAS (‘supporters’, ho ho) + S.ANDS (‘beach’) around key of B. |
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| 11 | EGGS BENEDICT |
For example, German tormenting sect in bed and breakfast? (4,8)
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EG + G[erman] + anagram (‘tormenting’) of SECT IN BED. |
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| 13 | SPARK PLUGS |
Scintillating parts of Gran Torino (5,5)
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Cryptic definition of the engine-parts which create the spark in a GT (or any) car. Highly misdirectional… |
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| 14 | STENTORIAN |
A tenor isn’t terribly sonorous (10)
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Anagram (‘terribly’) of A TENOR ISNT. |
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| 16 | ROCK-SOLID |
Very strong boxer almost slipped circling ring (4-5)
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ROCKy (‘boxer’, almost) + S.LID around O. |
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| 21 | AISLE |
It may lead to matrimony (5)
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Cryptic definition, as in to lead a bride ‘down the aisle’. |
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| 22 | TIER |
Add runs to draw level (4)
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TIE (‘draw’) + R[uns]. |
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| 23 | STAR |
Celebrity essentially posed on pitch (4)
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Middle of ‘poSed’ + TAR ‘(pitch’). |
Thanks for parsing POTPOURRI – I just couldn’t see it. I believe 12a is spelt SACRILEGIOUS. Nice puzzle.
Great fun! Favourites were ORWELLIAN, SPARK PLUGS, SING and EGGS BENEDICT.
The lengthy anagrams were satisfying to tease out, along with the wordplay for the likes of 20a and 16d.
Completed after a moderate tussle but I also needed help parsing POTPOURRI and RUN-UP.
Thanks for the entertaining workout, Steerpike, and Grant for the fine blog.
Mostly enjoyable. I had to come here to see the parsing of POTPOURRI, RUN-UP, SPARK PLUGS & SING. Never heard of Sing Sing prison. STENTORIAN is new to my lexicon. My favourite was ORWELLIAN.
Good fun, but a real challenge. Like others above, I couldn’t parse POTPOURRI or RUN-UP and had a lot of trouble getting PLOUGHSHARES, my last in.
Favourites were the SPARK PLUGS cryptic def and the misleading surface for ORWELLIAN.
Thanks to Steerpike and Grant
I agree this was a lovely puzzle and an illuminating blog. Thanks to Steerpike and GB. I had also misspelt SACRILEGIOUS.5d was one of my favourites and very neat.
I struggled like every one else, but enjoyed it a lot. 1a was my FOI and I knew we were off to a fun start.
One quibble: is “gyrating” the reversal clue in SALSA? That feels weak to me. Everything else felt very fair.
Thanks to Steerpike and Grant.
Very enjoyable, I agree. It all went in very smoothly except for the SW corner. PLOUGHSHARES came eventually -very well constructed – but I am a bit unsatisfied with SPARK PLUGS. No car that I know of and certainly no GT car has spark plugs any more, plus the GT in the description of a model of car refers to “Gran Turismo”, not Gran Torino, which is a video game (admittedly involving cars so I got there in the end).
Thanks to Grant for parsing run-up, which I failed to do.
Perplexus @ 7
I agree about spark plugs, but the Ford Gran Torino was the sport model of Ford’s late 60s Torino range. The car also featured in an eponymous film starring Clint Eastwood.
Thanks for the blog, very good range of clues today, Diane@2 has a good list. I will add SALSA for an excellent hidden clue and description, also the Spoonerism was very nice today.
Thanks, Simon S @8: not a car I am familiar with!
A minor point but the R(ight) is left out of the anagram in 27A
Thanks Steerpike and Grant
27ac: I agree with AID@11 that the R(ight) is missing from the parsing. However, the way I read the clue, R is to be inserted into the anagram rather than forming part of it. If the clue had said “with” instead of “about”, it would be an anagram of ENDURE A TV R, leading of course to the same answer.
Quite a stiff challenge – we needed a bit of help to finish. 14dn held us up for a bit, our first thought was ‘resonating’ till we saw it didn’t fit the anagram fodder. ORWELLIAN was our favourite; we also liked CHATTERBOX and BRASS BANDS. And we checked in Chambers for the correct spelling of SACRILEGIOUS.
Thanks, Steerpike and Grant.
Thanks Steerpike, that was satisfying. Somehow I got all the answers but I was not able to parse SACRILEGIOUS, POTPOURRI, RUN-UP, and ORWELLIAN. My favourites were CHATTERBOX, ABBA, PLOUGHSHARES, SING, and BAY OF PIGS, the latter two for their surfaces. Thanks Grant for a most needed blog.
Thanks Steerpike and Grant
Actually got through the grid fill in good time – it was another thing and probably the same time to tidy up the parsing and the spelling of SACRILEGIOUS.
Hadn’t come across this meaning of ADVENTURER before and took some time to see the ‘amass’ version of RUN UP. As with others, SPARK PLUG took a little time to land – and only by equating ‘scintillating’ to SPARKS in the end.
Finished with that RUN-UP, THE BAY OF PIGS (after which I read up on the failed 1961 US invasion – had always only thought of it in regard to the Russian stand-off a couple of years later) with the corrected SACRILEGIOUS to complete it.