Zamora with a trademark puzzle in today's FT
Zamorca certainly likes pangrams and charade clues, and this puzzle ticks both boxes.
After my first pass I had about half of the across solutions and all but one of the down answers in. A second pass gave me everything except BODKIN, which came after a little thinking time. My favourite by some distance was ZODIAC SIGN, but there were a few other clues that got ticks too.
Thanks Zamorca
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | FASTEN |
Do up catches around edges of fascia at the front (6)
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<=NETS ("catches" around) with [edges of] F(asci)A [at the front] |
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| 4 | EXECUTED |
Pretty down after former bridge partner’s killed (8)
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CUTE ("pretty") + D (down) after EX ("former") + E (East, so "bridge partner") |
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| 9 | LIMPET |
Permit to catch urchin and sea snail (6)
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LET ("permit") to catch IMP ("urchin") |
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| 10 | MAIN MEAL |
Mother and I, eating at home, take on a large dinner (4,4)
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MA ("mother") and ME ("I") eating IN ("at home") take on A + L (large) |
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| 12 | INTENDED |
Fiancé gets back tax taken care of (8)
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[back] <=NI (National Insurance, a form of "tax") + TENDED ("taken care of") |
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| 13 | HI-TECH |
Hard trailing strike on City that’s electronically sophisticated (2-4)
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H (hard) trailing HIT ("strike") on EC (postcode for "City" of London) |
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| 15 | LAMB |
Clam bakes do contain some meat (4)
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Hidden in [do contain] "cLAM Bakes" |
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| 16 | ZODIAC SIGN |
Perhaps Leo is dozing, miserably nursing a cold (6,4)
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*(is dozing) [anag:miserably] nursing A + C (cold) |
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| 19 | DISHONESTY |
Fraud detective embarrassed over shambolic notes (10)
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DI (Detective (inspector)) + SHY ("embarrassed") over *(notes) [anag:shambolic) |
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| 20 | WARM |
Friendly women’s section (4)
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W (women) + ARM ("section") |
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| 23 | CLIQUE |
Sample of classic liqueur for exclusive little group (6)
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Hidden in [sample of] "classiC LIQUEur" |
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| 25 | FRONTIER |
Borderline F’s concerning in reading level (8)
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F + ON ("concerning") in R (reading, one of the three Rs) + TIER ("level") |
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| 27 | AWAKENED |
Stimulated a wide advanced knowledge with education (8)
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A + W (wide) + A (advanced) + KEN ("knowledge") + ED (education) |
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| 28 | BODKIN |
Throw away bag for ordinary double knit needle (6)
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BIN ("throw away") bag for O (ordinary) + DK (double knit(ting)) |
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| 29 | ELECTION |
Help centre with distribution of notice for poll (8)
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(h)EL(p) [centre] with *(notice) [anag:distribution of] |
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| 30 | METEOR |
More discovered about extra-terrestrial rock (6)
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*(more) [anag:discovered] about ET (extra-terrestrial) |
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| DOWN | ||
| 1 | FALL ILL |
Go down with something bad following trip (4,3)
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ILL ("something bad") following FALL ("trip") |
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| 2 | SOMETIMES |
Very satisfied with half knocked back now and then (9)
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SO ("very") + MET ("satisfied") with <=SEMI ("half", knocked back) |
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| 3 | EYEING |
Observing energies Yankee invested in golf (6)
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E + E (energies) with Y (Yankee, in the NATO phonetic alphabet) invested + IN + G (golf, in the NATO phonetic alphabet) |
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| 5 | X-RAY |
Ten are initially in line for diagnostic procedure (1-3)
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X (ten) + A(re) [initially] in Ry. (railway "line") |
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| 6 | CONVINCE |
Tory immorality includes number with influence (8)
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CON (Conservative, so "Tory") + VICE ("immorality") include N (number) |
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| 7 | THEME |
Bottom of dress encircled by musical note motif (5)
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HEM ("bottom of dress") encircled by TE ("musical note") |
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| 8 | DOLPHIN |
Lido resort’s keeping PH neutral for sea creature (7)
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*(lido) [anag:resort] keeping PH + N (neutral) |
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| 11 | GET OVER |
Rally floating voter after general election starts (3,4)
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*(voter) [anag:floating] after G(eneral) E(lection) [starts] |
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| 14 | JITTERY |
Nervous using jack thing with burst tyre (7)
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J (jack, in cards) + IT ("thing") with *(tyre) [anag:burst] |
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| 17 | IN A PICKLE |
Beset by problems, popular choice tucking into beer (2,1,6)
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IN ("popular") + PICK ("choice") tucking into ALE ("beer") |
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| 18 | MONUMENT |
Picked up new significance surrounding memorial (8)
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MOMENT ("significance] surrounding homophone of [picked up] NEW |
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| 19 | DECLARE |
State cleared criminal (7)
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*(cleared) [anag:criminal] |
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| 21 | MARINER |
Schooner finally given free rein under master seaman (7)
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(schoone)R [finally] given *(rein) [anag:free] under MA (Master (of Arts)) |
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| 22 | SNOOZE |
Zones out, nothing’s interrupting sleep (6)
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O (nothing) interrupting *(zones) [anag:out] |
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| 24 | IRATE |
Furious with current pay (5)
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I (symbol for electric "current") + RATE ("pay") |
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| 26 | HERO |
Leading man’s immersed in the role (4)
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Hidden [immersed] in "tHE ROle" |
A swift and satisfying route to a pangram from Zamorca, which helped confirm my parsing of 27a. Agree that ZODIAC SIGN was neat, along with BODKIN, 19A, 17D and 19D for its nice pithy surface.
Thanks to Zamorca for the fun and Loonapick whose help I needed for the ‘semi’ in 2d.
Pleasant puzzle which I worked through steadily, with the main hold-ups being FRONTIER, BODKIN (hadn’t come across DK for ‘double knit’) and the parsing of MONUMENT. I didn’t know the ‘back tax’ reference in 12a either. I suppose I’ve seen ‘discovered’ as an anagram, rather than a letter deletion, indicator before, but I didn’t recognise it straight away at 30a.
Not unexpectedly, the pangram materialised once the grid was filled.
Thanks to Zamorca and loonapick
An enjoyable puzzle but I’m not sure that “Shy” and “Embarrassed” are synonyms. I am shy when meeting new people; I am embarrassed when caught doing something that I shouldn’t be doing.
Hey! Where is Geoff Down Under today? Missing you, mate…
I parsed bodkin as o ordinary, d double, k knit, in bin, rather than dk as a single entity.
Thanks Zamorca for a pleasant crossword with many good clues including ZODIAC SIGN, DISHONESTY, X-RAY, IN A PICKLE, and SNOOZE. I needed a word finder for BODKIN and the blog to understand its parsing. Thanks loonapick.
Macmorris @ 5 Unfortunately for your parsing, DK is a dictionary-supported as an abbreviation for Double Knitting, but neither of the individual letters is for the components.
I agree with what Simon@7 says about regarding “double” and “knit” separately. Unfortunately, the clue doesn’t work as intended as it stands on account of the meaning of DK given in Chambers (I don’t think it appears in the ODE or Collins online), but I wonder if an earlier version of it had “double knitting”, which would appear to work well enough for the surface.
An enjoyable solve; we thought it might be a double pangram till we were left with only single unches so nowhere to put a second Q (no second J or X either). Favourites included CLIQUE, BODKIN and DOLPHIN (pedant’s corner: pH normally has a lowercase p. not that it matters for the answer, only for the clue surface.)
Thanks, Zamorca and loonapick.
My mother used to knit and DK=Double knit was definitely a thing for needles, wool and in knitting patterns.