Standing in for David.
A fine challenge from GUY.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | JAMBOREE |
Festival crowd took Ecstasy (8)
|
| JAM ( crowd ) BORE ( took ) E ( ecstasy ) | ||
| 5 | USER ID |
Terribly rude is how one appears online (4,2)
|
| [ RUDE IS ]* | ||
| 10 | LEGIT |
Proper bolt on foot (5)
|
| cryptic def; LEG IT ( bolt on foot ) | ||
| 11 | BARCELONA |
Tesla owner in California backs local football team (9)
|
| [ ELON ( tesla owner ) in CA ( california ) ] after BAR ( local ) | ||
| 12 | TRAVERSAL |
Crossing South Africa during journey (9)
|
| RSA ( south africa ) in TRAVEL ( journey ) | ||
| 13 | METAL |
Motorway delayed Rolling Stones on the road (5)
|
| M ( motorway ) ETAL ( reverse of LATE – delayed ) | ||
| 14 | LITANY |
Set on fire one unspecified catalogue (6)
|
| LIT ( set on fire ) AN ( one ) Y ( unspecified ) | ||
| 15 | MOONSET |
Attack after second satellite’s disappearance (7)
|
| MO ( second ) ONSET ( attack ) | ||
| 18 | PUNGENT |
Sharp wordplay, Guy (7)
|
| PUN ( wordplay ) GENT ( guy ) | ||
| 20 | MOOLAH |
Note hospital on low funds (6)
|
| MOO ( low ) LA ( note ) H ( hospital ) | ||
| 22 | THIEF |
Criminal boss? Time for new leader (5)
|
| cHIEF ( boss, with T ( time ) replacing the first letter ) | ||
| 24 | MICROPORE |
Tiny hole I cut to size in seconds (9)
|
| [ I CROP ( cut to size ) ] in MORE ( seconds ) | ||
| 25 | CONCOURSE |
Fiddle lessons in large hall (9)
|
| CON ( fiddle ) COURSE ( lessons ) | ||
| 26 | IDEAL |
Trade with India as good as it could be? (5)
|
| I ( india ) DEAL ( trade ) | ||
| 27 | SPRATS |
Ship’s sides bother fish (6)
|
| SP ( ShiP, end characters ) RATS ( bother ) | ||
| 28 | TELEPATH |
Page breaks spoiled the tale, thought reader (8)
|
| P ( page ) in [ THE TALE ]* | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | J-CLOTH |
Religious footwasher, reluctant dishwasher? (1-5)
|
| JC ( religious footwasher, jesus christ ) LOTH ( reluctant ) | ||
| 2 | MIGRATION |
One packs old sports car with limited amount, moving abroad (9)
|
| [ I ( one ) in MG ( old sports car ) ] RATION ( limited amount ) ] | ||
| 3 | ON THE WATERFRONT |
Film father went to, Brando not bad for a change (2,3,10)
|
| [ FATHER WENT TO bRaNdO ( without letters of ‘BAD’ ) ]* | ||
| 4 | EMBASSY |
Case of SARS maybe disturbed House of Representatives (7)
|
| [ SS ( SarS, case of i.e. end characters ) MAYBE ]* | ||
| 6 | STEAM LOCOMOTIVE |
Heavy smoker usually seen dragging? (5,10)
|
| cryptic def | ||
| 7 | ROOST |
Look for food in the dirt around small hen-house (5)
|
| ROOT ( look for food in the dirt ) around S ( small ) | ||
| 8 | DRAW LOTS |
To choose blind, pull many across the window? (4,4)
|
| DRAW ( pull ) LOTS ( many ) – what’s the ‘across the window’? parking reference? or is the whole clue the def? | ||
| 9 | PRELIM |
Heat in the afternoon outside about fifty-one (6)
|
| PM ( afternoon ) around [ RE ( about ) LI ( fifty-one ) ] | ||
| 16 | SOAP OPERA |
Long running show, very good each time (4,5)
|
| SO ( very good? ) A POP ( each ) ERA ( time ) – ‘ very ‘ would have been sufficient purely for definition purposes i think | ||
| 17 | UP STICKS |
Courier company approves move to another address (2,6)
|
| UPS ( courier company ) TICKS ( approves ) | ||
| 19 | TIMBRE |
Listening to Piaf, say, her stamp? (6)
|
| cryptic def | ||
| 20 | MACHETE |
Knife marks pine tree’s bark (7)
|
| M ( marks ) ACHE ( pine ) TE ( TreE, end characters ) | ||
| 21 | HEALTH |
Toast former Tory PM, with Labour leader getting in (6)
|
| HEATH ( former tory pm ) containing L ( Labour, first letter ) | ||
| 23 | INNER |
Secret wife kept from Victor (5)
|
| wINNER ( victor, without W – wife ) |
I admire the setter’s chutzpah in 18a – indeed, Guy’s wordplay did not disappoint! Not only sharp but inventive and scrupulously clued throughout.
So many I enjoyed today…LEGIT, LITANY, EMBASSY, TIMBRE, USER ID, MOOLAH and PRELIM for its wonderfully sneaky surface.
Many thanks to Guy and Turbolegs.
Hmm… not sure what you meant in the blog, Legs, for PRELIM. I had the definition as ‘heat’ from P(RE). LI. M
Excellent wordplay with a good degree of difficulty to make it a satisfying solve for me. 3D is clever by including Brando in the wordplay but made it a bit of a giveaway. When I saw Brando together with the enumeration, the solution immediately sprung to mind without having to parse it.
Thanks Guy & Turbolegs
Thanks to setter and blogger. Could someone help me understand the parsing of 19d, ‘timbre’, which defines as a quality of voice, I think?
In reference to 8d, if you ‘draw the curtains’ you pull them across the windows, so if you ‘draw lots’ you …
Hi Diane@2,
I usually solve the FT everyday on PD’s blogging tool and arbitrarily mark a word in the clue and random text in the parse text box so that the clue gets shaded out ( a self-check that the tool has to make sure every solve has a definition and a parsing ). I forgot to go back and re-edit the same.
Hi Kevin@4,
Allusion to the French language suggested by inclusion of Edith Piaf. The word itself has its original roots in Greek though.
Regards,
TL
Turbolegs@6,
I guessed as much!
And yes, as you say, TIMBRE gives us both the quality, or distinctive characteristic of a voice, as well as being French for ‘postage stamp’
14a LITANY – “one unspecified” = ANY
Thanks for standing in for the blog, very good puzzle, neatly clued .
Like Kevin I just thought of TIMBRE referring to the unique voice so I missed the clever stamp bit.
LITANY I just had – one unspecified = ANY .
and I can now agree with Frankie@8
I guess I tried to accommodate the ‘one’ else ‘unspecified’ by itself could be ‘any’? Thoughts? My parse was with an algebraic connotation.
Regards,
TL
2d MIGRATION – MG are still going, celebrating their centenary this year. This one looks like a new sports car.
3d ON THE WATERFRONT (1954, celebrating a 70th (Platinum) anniversary) – “I coulda been a contender“
[23d INNER]…
Thanks Guy and Turbolegs
14ac: I had “one unspecified” together for ANY as Frankie@8 and Roz@9
9dn: I took the indication for PM as “in the afternoon”
16dn: I had a wrong parsing for this in an earlier version of this comment, which I deleted.
…Thanks G&T – a fine puzzle.
G&T Always a nice combination. I suppose if you had vertical blinds you would draw them in the same way as curtains.
Got stuck in the top left corner and missed both one down and one across, as well as Legit.
A few too many clues were “find the answer and then work out the parsing” for my liking.
Good blog
I couldn’t account for the R in TRAVERSAL. Presumably republic, yes? I could make no sense of “across the window” in DRAW LOTS. And the “good” in the clue for SOAP OPERA seems pointless, although I guess the surface wouldn’t work as well without it.
I didn’t finish, so now I shall look through the above for some “D’oh!” moments, thanks Guy & Turbolegs.
Geoff@18: RSA stands for Republic of South Africa, as distinct from KSA, which is Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Thank you, Pelham.
I particularly liked J CLOTH when I finally worked it out
Fine puzzle and blog
As above – good puzzle, particularly liked ON THE WATERFRONT. I had the same questions/comments as GDU@18 and Petert@16
Thanks Guy and Turbolegs
What Diane@1 said.
Thanks, Guy and Turbolegs.
Thanks, Turbolegs and Diane. My schoolboy French wasn’t up to the job! But got it now.
Thanks Guy for the challenge. I had many favourites including USER ID, BARCELONA, PUNGENT, MOOLAH, THIEF, TELEPATH, MIGRATION (despite the unneeded ‘old’), and MACHETE. It wasn’t total success, however, as I gave up and revealed the nho J-CLOTH, the inexplicable TIMBRE, and CONCOURSE, one I should have solved. Thanks Turbolegs for parsing and for explaining METAL, a correct guess of mine without a hint of understanding the definition.
J-CLOTH was my favourite once it dropped – fantastic. I’d forgotten my GCSE French though, so TIMBRE was a mystery.
Chambers gives a definition of ‘so’ as ‘very good’, but not as just ‘very’, which is by far the more familiar to me.
Thanks Guy & Turbolegs.
Excellent job by Guy!