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Don’t forget to put your clocks back tonight!
You’ll have more time to do puzzles that way.
Unless you’re like a friend of mine who saves time by not changing his clocks twice and year. He says he can’t be doing with all that faff. He averages out the time and sets his clocks half hour off all year.
Talking about clocks, I had an anticlockwise solving experience. Not by choice. After failing with the first two across clues and 1 down I started with 18 down and 18 across. Then worked steadily across the bottom and up the right hand side, not without leaving a few gaps (and a couple “bunged in from the definition” – some wordplay still unclear). The gaps got filled in in due course. Near the end the top left hand corner looked very bare except for 9A – an approachable anagram gobbled earlier. The ice was broken by 2D ORPHANAGE which is my favourite clue for the inventive wordplay. As usual when I look at them now I wonder what fooled me so much about the last four 1D, 12A, 1A and 3D. Mind you 12A CLAUSAL was difficult.
Re 14A : Coincidentally we have planned a family games night this evening with various grandchildren and older. Dare I get out the Risk?
Re 23A : Allows me to quote a top fact about Lesotho – it is a mountainous, landlocked country and it has the highest lowest point of any country at about 1,400m.
It’s going to happen again , I know. I’m going to declare I see no theme and someone will point one out before the ink’s dry.
Wordplay troubles:
18A – SHELL I’m not sure how to get rid of “get rid of”
24D – SPOIL I cannot see the wordplay at all for this one
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | PLOUGH | Cultivate favourable publicity about old hotel (6) PLUG (favourable publicity) around O[ld] then H[otel] |
| 4 | COMPLAIN | Company minutes outspoken protest (8) CO[mpany] M[inutes] PLAIN (outspoken) |
| 9 | DEPUTISED | Every principal to begin with studied dancing and acted as understudy (9) (E[very] P[rincipal] STUDIED)* AInd: dancing. |
| 11 | SNEER | Contemptuous expression of witness withholding name (5) SEER (witness) around (withholding) N[ame] |
| 12 | CLAUSAL | America stops appeal, with change of heart related to sentencing? (7) USA inside CALL (appeal) with heart changed making CLAL. Very tough |
| 13 | INERTIA | I retain unusual characteristic of sloth (7) (I RETAIN)* AInd: unusual. |
| 14 | BOARD GAME | Risk for one willing to back directors (5,4) GAME (willing) after (to back) BOARD (directors) Def. by example. |
| 16 | INANE | It would still be foolish if son were involved (5) If S[on] is inserted (involved) in the answer it makes INSANE, still a synonym of foolish/inane &Lit |
| 18 | SHELL | Woman will get rid of case (5) SHE’LL SHE (woman) WILL. I’m not sure how to get rid of “get rid of” ? |
| 19 | INTERMITS | Stops sit-in organised around school period (9) (SIT-IN)* AInd: organised, around TERM (school period). Not a very familiar word |
| 21 | OCTAGON | Company acquiring label in acceptable shape (7) TAG in CO in ON TAG (label) in CO[mpany] in ON (acceptable) |
| 23 | LESOTHO | State part of article so thoroughly (7) Hidden in “articLE SO THOroughly” |
| 25 | AFRIT | Evil demon largely behind ceremony not finishing (5) AF[t] (largely behind) RIT[e] |
| 26 | RESPONSES | Presses on, somehow obtaining answers (9) (PRESSES ON)* AInd: somehow. |
| 27 | HOLIDAYS | Leave house cover when fencing yard (8) HO[use] LID (cover) AS (when) around (fencing) Y[ard] |
| 28 | CLOSER | Conservative failure that will come to an end (6) C[onservative] LOSER (failure) |
| Down | ||
| 1 | PEDICAB | Patrons transported by this feature of encyclopedic ability (7) Hidden in (feature of) encycloPEDIC ABility |
| 2 | ORPHANAGE | Change and cope without male leadership in children’s institution (9) MORPH (change) and MANAGE (cope) remove leading M[ale] from both. Top clue |
| 3 | GATES | Most of TED Talk’s about computer pioneer (5) GAS (talk) (‘s about) TE[d] Last one in. I have no idea why but Bill Gates just didn’t spring to mind |
| 5 | OLD WIVES TALES | Grotesque Saw videos tell stories of dubious merit (3,5,5) (SAW VIDEOS TELL)* AInd: Grotesque. Evocative surface reading |
| 6 | POSTERIOR | Return on investment connected with tense concession rises later (9) ROI (Return On Investment) RE (connected with) T[ense] SOP (concession) all reversed (rises) |
| 7 | AVERT | Prevent state heading for totalitarianism (5) AVER (state) T[otalitarianism] |
| 8 | NARRATE | New arrival had to report on events (7) N[ew] ARR[ival] ATE (had) |
| 10 | SALVATION ARMY | Amoral vanity’s destroyed good band (9,4) (AMORAL VANITY’S)* AInd: destroyed. |
| 15 | DELIGHTED | Pleased legal document includes help for navigating obscure passages? (9) DEED (legal document) around LIGHT (help … etc.) |
| 17 | ACID TESTS | Rigorous trials start to assess Policemen’s Ball after last one’s cancelled (4,5) A[ssess] CID (Policemen) TEST[e]S (ball, after E removed, E from [on]E (last one)) |
| 18 | STOMACH | Tolerate school keeping Queen’s partner second from last (7) SCH[ool] around (keeping) TOM (Queen’s partner, ref. cats) and A ([l]A[st]) |
| 20 | SPONSOR | Finance track covers partnership in deal (7) SPOOR (track) around NS (partnership, North/South in bridge, thus in deal as in cards) |
| 22 | TYROL | Great deal involving railway boosted region (5) RY (railway) in LOT (great deal) all reversed (boosted) |
| 24 | SPOIL | Corrupt result of ruthless campaign? (5) Answered purely from crossing letters and definition |
I took SHELL as a verb meaning ‘get rid of case’, as in shelling peas say.
I couldn’t parse SPOIL either.
unless it’s simply a cryptic reference to ‘spoil’ as ‘pillage’?
Forgot to mention the inner perimeter nina.
Yes, “Love in the Time of Cholera” is a novel by Gabriel García Márquez and published in 1985 – the inner perimeter nina !
I (dubiously) parsed SPOIL as double def, with “result of ruthless campaign?” = Spoils of war. Open to other ideas
Can the spoils of war be singular? I, too, read SHELL as a triple She’ll, shell = get rid of and case. Missed the Nina and couldn’t parse posterior. Thanks, both.
17d – ACID TESTS – I parsed this with the singular TEST[I]S – there’s only one “Ball” in the clue – A[ssess] CID (Policemen) TEST[I]S (ball, after I = 1 removed)
FrankieG@ I think you are right, but it wasn’t a mental image I wanted to dwell on.
I’m another who saw SHELL as a triple but I was concerned that ‘get rid of’ and ‘case’ were essentially the same root but I may well be misinterpreting something. And I can’t tease anything out of SPOIL other than the double def – having searched for a way of adding ‘ruth’ to a word meaning campaign.
Otherwise, the usual super effort by Serpent – challenging but fair.
Thanks Serpent and beermagnet
Petert@8 – Well one wouldn’t want one’s “last one” removed.
I liked 10d – SALVATION ARMY – “good band” making a nice change from Led Zeppelin, King Crimson, Genesis…
Finally spotted an Inner Nina, the trademark of Basilisk/Jack/Serpent. AFRIT the only sign of any constraint in the grid.
Loved the puzzle nearly as much as the book and thats saying something
Clocks dont change in North Queensland-its still 1955 here
I don’t think SPOIL is really a double definition. Spoils are the results of a ruthless campaign, the question mark is indicating a corresponding (but made-up) singular “result”.
Thanks to Serpent and beermagnet
Challenging but I got it all with the help of the nina to complete the NW corner. Vaguely thought of the spoils of war but couldn’t properly parse 24dn. Wasn’t too happy with PEDICAB because I would spell ‘encyclopaedic’ thus, but Chambers has it both with and without the ‘a’ so no cause for complaint.
Thanks, Serpent and beermagnet.
Spoil doesn’t have to be plural. I thought the question mark was going with ruthless – it would have to be a pretty saintly campaign that didn’t result in some spoil.
Not sure why SHELL has caused any bother, get rid of case seems pretty obvious, and it can even be intransitive to account for what I thought was a missing ‘of’ after case.
I’m always surprised to see withholding used like that. Does anyone think it means the same as holding? I don’t, I just think I’m being asked to pretend the ‘with’ isn’t there. Of the Chambers definitions (ignoring the obsolete ‘to keep in bondage or custody’), ‘1 hold back, restrain’ looks tempting but surely means something like ‘stop from advancing’ as you might do to an army or a dog.
I have a dim memory of reading about a medieval petition against someone who was accused of “spoiling” another person, in the sense of “corrupting”. I agree with James@14 about “withholding”. Missed the Nina, as usual. Thanks to Serpent and beermagnet.
Thanks beermagnet and Serpent.
Beautiful, as ever with solid clues.
Nina helped with a couple in NE.
INANE and ACID TESTS top two favs.
@7 FrankieG
If I is one, what is last doing there?
Illipu@17
I think it tells you to remove the last (in this case second) i from ‘CID testis’.
Thanks to serpent and Beermagnet
Thanks Serpent, that was excellent and it was my favourite crossword of the week. I saw the nina forming about halfway through my solve and that helped with a number of answers. I managed to complete this albeit with incomplete parsing of CLAUSAL, PLOUGH, and SPONSOR. My top picks included the brilliant ORPHANAGE, INERTIA, INANE, NARRATE, and TYROL. Thanks beermagnet for the detailed blog.