ARTEXLEN kicks things off this week…
I found this to be a bit more of a challenge than I’d normally expect for a Monday. The parsing of some of the solutions took me quite a while, and, sadly, 25d eludes me completely.
Plenty of great clues with excellent surfaces though, 8d probably being my favourite.
Thanks ARTEXLEN!
ACROSS
1. Good luck penetrating wall Thebes toughened (3,3,4)
ALL THE BEST
[w]ALL THEBES T[oughened] (penetrating)
6. Birds on walls regularly overlooked (4)
OWLS
O[n] W[a]L[l]S (regularly overlooked)
9. Worker in gallery starts to verify artwork depicting goddess (7)
MINERVA
MINER (worker in gallery, an insect) + V[erify] A[rtwork) (starts to)
10. Dim man in family backing Gunners (7)
UNCLEAR
UNCLE (man in family) + (RA)< (gunners, <backing)
12. Not working is not acceptable (3,2,5)
OUT OF ORDER
13. Promise to cut grass (3)
OAT
15. Divorced detective residing in most favourable accommodation (6)
BEDSIT
(D and I) (detective, divorced) residing in BEST (most favourable)
16. Heard woman’s not single? Wrong! (8)
MISTAKEN
“miss” (woman, “heard”) + TAKEN (not single)
18. Would eat nuts — not permitted (8)
OUTLAWED
20. Commands from court received by page after returning (6)
EDICTS
CT (court) received by (SIDE)< (page, <after returning)
23. Picked up gross vase (3)
URN
“earn” (gross, “picked up”)
24. Impious one beside bishop carrying scripture in case (10)
IRREVERENT
I (one) beside RR (bishop, Right Reverend) carrying (RE (scripture) in EVENT (case))
26. Jobs along with feeding strays (7)
ERRANDS
AND (along with) feeding ERRS (strays)
27. Pronounced colour known to be worn by Republican fanatic (7)
DIEHARD
“dye” (colour, “pronounced”) + (HAD (known) to be worn by R (republican))
28. European overwhelmed by work about to cry (4)
YELP
E (European) overwhelmed by (PLY)< (work, <about)
29. Do easy line after correcting saw (4,4,2)
LAID EYES ON
(DO EASY LINE)* (*after correcting)
DOWN
1. Forces raising advanced weapons (4)
ARMS
RAMS (forces, raising A (advanced))
2. Flagging article in guild to be restored (7)
LANGUID
AN (article) in (GUILD)* (*to be restored)
3. Agreement suffering, nothing is admitted by country (13)
HARMONISATION
HARM (suffering) + O (nothing) + (IS admitted by NATION (country))
4. Light comedy’s fourth penned by notable Elizabethan (6)
BEACON
[com]E[dy] (fourth) penned by BACON (notable Elizabethan, Francis)
5. Soldier having small muscle ache (8)
SQUADDIE
S (small) + QUAD (muscle) + DIE (ache)
7. Some time to eat upwards fifty of brownies? (3,4)
WEE FOLK
WEEK (some time) to eat (L (fifty) + OF)< (<upwards)
8. Told to wind metal watches for study (10)
SCRUTINISE
“screw tin eyes” (wind metal watches, “told”)
11. Cast actor: diver in Italy to evacuate major vessel (7,6)
CAROTID ARTERY
(ACTOR)* (*cast) + (DARTER (diver) in I[tal]Y (to evacuate))
14. Completely refurbished lousy table (10)
ABSOLUTELY
(LOUSY TABLE)* (*refurbished)
17. Underwear on king in mostly tidy state (8)
NEBRASKA
(BRAS (underwear) on K (king)) in NEA[t] (tidy, mostly)
19. Part of plant terribly interlaced, not great (7)
TENDRIL
(INTERL[ace]D (not ACE (great))* (*terribly)
21. Dances around with new headphones (7)
CANCANS
CA (around) with N (new) + CANS (headphones)
22. Occasionally nervy and deed gets avoided (6)
EVADED
[n]E[r]V[y] A[n]D [d]E[e]D (occasionally)
25. Deity I elementarily exposed (4)
ODIN
Sorry! I don’t know how this one works.
Re Odin —I think it’s Iodine exposed.
Oldham@1
Absolutely. I (elementarily-element’s chemical symbol) is Iodine.
Thanks, Artexlen and Teacow!
Liked BEDSIT, ERRANDS, WEE FOLK, CAROTID ARTERY and ODIN.
Having breezed through both Guardian cryptics, I was feeling unstoppable today, but there were some sticky moments in this one, for a few of which I resorted to revealing. Couldn’t parse ARMS, ODIN or TENDRIL. Scratched my head over …
Miner/worker in gallery (9a)
Had/known (27a)
Brownies/wee folk (7d)
Thanks Artexlen & Teacow, and the above for ODIN.
MINERVA
I was thinking of a ‘worker in (a mining) gallery’.
Definition 3 of ‘miner’ in Chambers is An insect or other animal that makes galleries in the earth ….
Thanks, Hovis. Time to buy Chambers.
Seems to fit both types of miners.
Good puzzle which needed a bit of thought (eg for MISTAKEN, SCRUTINISE and NEBRASKA among others) to solve though at the end I still couldn’t parse MINERVA or EDICTS; sorry, I’m being thick but could someone explain SIDE for ‘page’?
Satisfying to work out what was going on with ODIN, the second periodic table related clue today.
Thanks to Artexlen and Teacow
I think PAGE is when a book open the two different sides would be left and right pages?
Great puzzle so thanks to both . Blog was very clear and puzzle properly opaque.
Had to plug brain in for WEE FOLK
WordPlodder@8 – Write an essay on at least four sides of foolscap paper and hand it in by tomorrow. 🙂
But FrankieG, that example with “pages” means something else to me.
7d “Some time to eat upwards fifty of brownies?” WEE(LOF<)K
Is there a typo in the clue?
"Some time to eat upwards of fifty brownies?” would make more sense, wouldn’t it?
It would parse as WEE((OF<)L)K
SM @9 and FrankieG @11 – thanks for the ‘page’ = SIDE explanations.
Quite chewy for a Monday I thought. ARTEXLEN clearly has a talent for picking less than obvious synonyms.
I did initially raise an eyebrow for the page = side equivalence. Surely a page has two sides I thought, but it’s in Chambers under “side noun 7. A page.” So fair enough.
COTD for me was the brilliant ODIN.
Thanks ARTEXLEN and Teacow.
Funny language this English. I agree that a page has two sides. (If you tear a page out of a book, you tear out two sides.) But we talk about page numbers not side numbers, so a page is effectively also half a page. A bit like ‘night follows day’ and both together form a ‘day’ (roughly speaking). I’m rambling now 🙂
Geoff Down Under@12
I think teachers used “sides” to make it clear how long the essay should be, without specifying the number of sheets, and whether to write on both sides or not.
A sheet of paper can be a page. A single leaf in a book is usually two pages. So page is ambiguous.
I’ve just now looked up wiktionary:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/side
‘One surface of a sheet of paper (used instead of “page”, which can mean one or both surfaces.) – “John wrote 15 sides for his essay!”‘
John sounds like a right waffler. 🙂
25d is a brilliant clue, kicking myself for not spotting it! I guessed ODIN on the basis that the other Norse deity that would have fitted, IDUN, is just too obscure for a Monday 🙂
Thanks to Artexlen, Teacow, Oldham and KVa!
continued from @17
…nothing like John McClane in DIE HARD. “Yippee-Ki-Yay, motherf*cker”
MINERVA (and Athena) were both associated with OWLS.
Thanks for the blog, a tricky puzzle with very clever wordplay . I agree with Frankie @13 – upwards of fifty – does read better and we only need to reverse the of .
Perhaps ODIN could have been – Deity I exposed – concise and harder.
Gallery is certainly a term used in coal mines for horizontal drifts.
Good to see the clue for OWLS without the use of parliament.
Motored along swiftly till 5, 7, 8dn took longer than all the rest put together.. die = ache produced a tumbleweed moment .. was firmly entrenched in the junior guides with brownies until there was no other way to go. Scrutinise was a proper penny drop..
Thanks Artexlen n Teacow
Also good to see gallery not being Tate. Thanks, both.