Filbert is becoming a regular in the Independent on Sunday slot. I enjoy his puzzles, but continue to find them at the harder end of the spectrum.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Second child is shy
BACKWARD
A charade of BACK and WARD.
5 Blank sign O’Reilly would be silly to omit?
IGNORE
The setter is inviting you, in a roundabout way, to omit ‘silly’ from ‘sign O’Reilly’: [S]IGN ORE[ILLY]
10 Propose model prisoner for exchange
CONTEMPLATE
A charade of CON and TEMPLATE, with the ‘for exchange’ indicating the order of the particles.
11 Miner sent west by company director
DOC
A reversal (‘sent west’) of CO an D. Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go … down the mines, of course. Today’s trivia: Doc is the only one of the Seven Dwarves who isn’t an adjective.
12 Test pro now?
EXAM
If you are a pro now, then you might be said to be an EX AM[ATEUR].
13 Judge publication excellent
MAGISTRATE
A charade of MAG and IST RATE, where the IST has to be read as ‘first’.
14 Police force had put misleading words in
INTERPOLATE
A charade of INTERPOL and ATE.
19 Car shakes with eruption on Caribbean island
PUERTO RICAN
(CAR ERUPTION)*
22 Lacking tin for biscuits
SHORTBREAD
A charade of SHORT and BREAD.
24 Black nocturnal flier, bat or this?
BOWL
A charade of B and OWL. There are two choices at the toss in cricket.
26 Letter from America, and from France arriving earlier
ETA
A charade of ET for the French word for ‘and’ and A.
27 Ten pounds perhaps for a big delivery?
BIRTH WEIGHT
A cd. That’d be 4.53kg in real money. Children don’t come in pounds and ounces any more.
28 Fruit basket is a funny thing to catch fish with
PUNNET
A charade of PUN and NET.
29 Irishwoman superficially cared for fiancé
INTENDED
A charade of I[RISHWOMA]N and TENDED.
Down
1 Hair etc absolutely flipping full of these nasties?
BACTERIA
Hidden reversed in hAIR ETC ABsolutely, with an extended definition.
2 Fan of film can see it broadcast
CINEASTE
(CAN SEE IT)* Great surface.
3 Women and women only on the date, perhaps
WHEN
A charade of W and HEN.
4 How to box pea pod that’s turned up in eggs?
ROPE-A-DOPE
Not such a great surface – what is that all about? An insertion of PEA and POD reversed in ROE, and a solution this solver was never going to see in a million years even with all the crossers. My wordsearch couldn’t see it either, since you ask.
6 Spooner’s favourite outfit for a drink in the pub
GUEST BEER
A Spoonerism of BEST GEAR.
7 I see ducks shit
OH DEAR
A clue that might not perhaps have made it into the Church Times (or the real Times, for that matter). A charade of OH! for ‘I see’ and DEAR in its affectionate sense, which certainly round these parts can be rendered as DUCK, DUCKIE or – as Filbert requires – DUCKS.
8 Don’t use a key, use an axe
ESCHEW
A charade of ESC for the very top left hand corner key on your QWERTY keyboard and HEW.
9 Test pilot’s second go in a plane
TAXI
A charade of TAX and I for the second letter of ‘pilot’.
15 Esteemed theatre guru’s back on board
REPUTABLE
A charade of REP, U for the final letter of ‘guru’ and TABLE.
16 Sheepskin hat and coat of author sank at sea
ASTRAKHAN
(HAT A[UTHO]R SANK)*
17 German tucks into cat food mistakenly – a disaster, naturally
ACT OF GOD
An insertion of G in (CAT FOOD)* The insertion indicator is ‘tucks into’ and the anagrind is ‘mistakenly’.
18 Two homes journalist exaggerated
INFLATED
A charade of IN, FLAT and ED.
20 Numb like skin that’s lifted
ASLEEP
A charade of AS and PEEL reversed (‘that’s lifted’, since it’s a down clue).
21 Cook American’s entrée in controlled area
DOMAIN
A charade of DO and MAIN. ‘I’m doing whitebait as an an entrée tonight.’ Entree in France (certainly) and in the UK if you’re being posh, is a course before the main event; but in the USA, the MAIN is referred to by this name.
23 Two army units seldom seen
RARE
A charade of RA for Royal Artillery and RE for Royal Engineers.
25 Leap from plane close to failure
JETÉ
A charade of JET and E for the final letter of ‘failure’. JETÉ is a ballet ‘leap’: like many terms in that field of dance, it’s French and is the past participle of jeter, ‘to jump’.
Many thanks to Filbert for this week’s Sunday puzzle.
Thanks Pierre and Filbert.
This was hard.
Didn’t get TAXI and needed parsing for COD, OH DEAR.
Liked
MAGISTRATE
ACT OF GOD
GUEST BEER
DOMAIN
I thought this was hard too but I completed it; only failing to parse EXAM. Hmm. Tricky. Thanks for the explanation Pierre. Hopefully Filbert continues to be a Sunday regular. Liked OH DEAR and ESCHEW in the NE. Both took a while. ROPE A DOPE was fun but my toppie is WHEN. Thanks Filbert and Pierre.
Thanks, Filbert and Pierre!
Liked EXAM, ETA, BACTERIA, WHEN and OH DEAR.
I just love doing Filbert crosswords. How he keeps up such an excellence standard, I will never know. Just at the right level for me – gives my brain a good workout without breaking it. Heck, he even has a cricket clue that I liked. Took me an age to get TAXI but pleased to get it. Got ROPE-A-DOPE from the wordplay and had to resort to google to confirm it. Also got ASTRAKHAN from the wordplay. Think I’ve seen it before but not sure. Looking forward to the next one.
Super puzzle. Hard but satisfying. Loved ESCHEW, SHORTBREAD, ACT OF GOD in particular but it’s all great. Thanks, Filbert and Pierre.
Very tricky today and I was beaten by ESCHEW in the NE and ASLEEP in the SW. yes, I do think Filbert is getting harder. Puzzle by puzzle it seems. IGNORE, MAGISTRATE, SHORTBREAD, GUEST BEER, TAXI and the aforementioned ESCHEW were my favourites today.
Thanks Filbert and Pierre
Tough for me, not helped by failing to see the gettable 1a and 1d until late in the piece and never having heard of (or having forgotten) the terms ROPE-A-DOPE (in Collins believe it or not) or GUEST BEER. I also learnt that to INTERPOLATE can mean to deliberately try to mislead rather than just to insert by estimation as I’d thought.
I’ll go for DOMAIN as my favourite, for the reminder of the geographical vagaries of word usage and because it opened up the hitherto ‘blank’ (as an adjective this time) SW corner.
Thanks to Filbert and Pierre
An excellent puzzle – favourites among many were IGNORE, ESCHEW, and GUEST BEER.
Only minor quibble was OH DEAR. Never heard the plural DUCKS to mean the singular DEAR, and while it’s in Collins, DUCK would’ve been fine in the surface. Perhaps a misdirection too far, especially as OH DRAT matched the crossers, albeit without parse – and might have also fitted the definition better, being a slightly more severe pronouncement (not sour grapes for once, I plumped for DEAR!).
Thanks Filbert & Pierre.
Amoeba @8: DUCKS is certainly an alternative term of endearment and it’s in Chambers as such. I’m not sure which part of the country it’s associated with: an initial internet search only gives the singular version which is associated with the East Midlands.
Thanks both. As others, this was a welcome challenge, the morning after the night before which was a ‘tiring and emotional’ night as a Man City fan for the last 50-plus years. With that regional slant in mind, if you called somebody ‘ ducks’ round these parts, you would probably require a good dentist!
I would have said Midlands but citations in the OED suggest nonspecific “northern”. They describe the -s suffix as hypocoristic, meaning relating to pet names. TILT.
Well I don’t read the Church Times but I admit to having found the bad language in 7d unsettling to the point of not being able to concentrate on the clue. My LOI therefore.
Polite request to the esteemed Filbert please avoid if poss.
I inhabit the Derbyshire bit of the East Midlands, and can confirm that duck, duckie and ducks are all everyday greetings. Often preceded by ‘Ey oop …’
Thanks Filbert for the customary excellence. Despite some difficulty I really enjoyed this. I couldn’t parse EXAM, I took the guess-then-check route for OH DEAR, and I needed a word finder for DOMAIN. My top picks were MAGISTRATE (short clue, long answer), ETA (long clue, short answer), ESCHEW, ACT OF GOD (great surface), and ASLEEP. Thanks Pierre for the blog.
4 down: Greatest way to box etc could have been a more helpful definition, Perhaps Filbert would have thought it would be a giveaway
JET[e] and PUERTO RICAN took me back all the way to… just last Sunday – so not that far, really.
Filbert clued JETS with reference to their West Side Story antagonists and scchua included the clip of Jet Song in the blog.
Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics are brilliant:
‘If the spit hits the fan…
…The Jets are in gear || Our cylinders are clickin’! || The Sharks’ll steer clear || ‘Cause ev’ry PUERTO RICAN || ‘S a lousy chicken! || And we ain’t kiddin’!
Here come the Jets || Yeah! And we’re gonna beat || Every last buggin’ gang || On the whole buggin’ street! ||
On the whole! || Ever! || Mother! || Lovin’! || Street! || Yeah!’
You couldn’t swear in movies 62 years ago, but we all knew what “buggin'” and “Mother! Lovin'” stood for.
And I think “spit” may stand for that word Filbert used at 7d. OH DEAR, naughty boy. I liked it.
Thanks F&P
Pierre – for ROPE-A-DOPE, I didn’t need it for the clue, but OneLook has no trouble finding multiple occurrences, with or without hyphens:
https://www.onelook.com/?w=R%3FP%3F-A-%3FO%3FE&ls=a
WordPlodder@7 “in Collins believe it or not” – I should jolly well hope so! h.eckler@15 “Greatest way to box…” – Nice one! 🙂
It’s a neologism, coined by Muhammad Ali – a continuing guest star in crosswords, as well as a wordsmith in his own right – to describe the technique – if you can call it that – described here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope-a-dope
There’s even a disambiguation page, because there are two albums and a record label by that name.
And thanks Widdersbel@11 for hypocoristic – that’s a new one on me!