I found this an absolute pleasure to solve – nothing too taxing on the old grey cells, but with a really delightful economy of cluing, along with a great deal of wit.
I particularly enjoyed the institute (of which there will currently be many across the pond) that hates libs rioting, the nerd with wonky teeth, the witch tripping over her broomstick and the short fat kids downstairs. In truth there were so many deft and elegant surfaces here that it’s hard to pick out only a few. But suffice to say the image of John Cage with a didgeridoo up his bottom will linger with me. It made me laugh. A lot.
It was also nice to see an outing for the old joke in 25a, which brought to mind the Morecambe & Wise classic – what’s a Grecian urn? About 5 drachmas a day.
All right, I’ll get me coat, but not before saying thanks to Salty for a lovely start to the Easter bank holiday.
MOH’s patented cruciverbial hardness scale rating: Calcite
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | TRIP SWITCH |
Safety feature causes woman using broom to stumble (4,6)
|
| WITCH (woman using broom) after TRIPS (causes… to stumble) | ||
| 6 | CHUB |
Fishy piece from Schubert? (4)
|
| Hidden answer (piece from) in sCHUBert. Had it been a 5-letter answer, it might have been TROUT… | ||
| 10 | GRIPE |
Vegan, at heart, ready to eat beef (5)
|
| Charade of G (veGan at heart) + RIPE (ready to eat) | ||
| 11 | SCARECROW |
Scruffy fellow who might deter a murder? (9)
|
| Cryptic definition, with murder referring to the collective noun for a group of crows | ||
| 12 | TIGER TEAM |
Security specialists having great time getting drunk (5,4)
|
| Anagram (getting drunk) of GREAT TIME. “Tiger team” is a term, hitherto unknown to me, that apparently originates in military contexts and refers to elite personnel tasked with solving critical problems and stress-testing security measures | ||
| 13 | CHIDE |
Tip for cleaning leather carpet (5)
|
| Charade of C (tip for Cleaning) + HIDE (leather), with carpet read as a verb | ||
| 14 | EX PARTE |
Old, old man, regularly rather prejudiced (2,5)
|
| EX (old) + PA (old man) + every other letter (regularly) of RaThEr | ||
| 17 | BISHOP |
See boss roughly interrupting dance (6)
|
| Envelope (interrupting) of ISH (roughly, as in the multipurpose suffix) into BOP (dance). A diocesan bishop is the boss of an episcopal see | ||
| 19 | SOREST |
Extremely painful? In that case, take it easy, … (6)
|
| Charade of SO (in that case) + REST (take it easy) | ||
| 21 | ENTREAT |
… call upon two nurses! (7)
|
| EN (Enrolled Nurse) + TREAT (nurse, as a verb) | ||
| 24 | BAFTA |
Newspaper article on airline gets award (5)
|
| FT (newspaper) + A (article) following BA (airline) | ||
| 25 | BUCCANEER |
Pirate picked up $1 per body part (9)
|
| Homophone (picked up) of “buck an ear” (dollar per body part). The old chestnut asks “how much do a pirate’s earrings cost?” | ||
| 28 | SPELLBIND |
Transport in awkward situation after turn (9)
|
| BIND (awkward situation) after SPELL (turn) | ||
| 29 | SATAY |
Are guests eating a Malaysian dish? (5)
|
| Envelope (eating) of A in STAY (are guests) for the very tasty, typically peanut-based dish that probably originated in Java rather than modern-day Malaysia but has since spread far and wide | ||
| 30 | DIDO |
Impersonated old queen in play (4)
|
| DID (impersonated) + O (old), the definition presumably referring to the Marlowe play Dido, Queen of Carthage | ||
| 31 | THREATENED |
Looked like a nerd with teeth all wonky (10)
|
| Anagram (all wonky) of A NERD and TEETH. Def as in “it looked like/threatened rain” | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | TOGETHER |
Thermal rating number: one (8)
|
| TOG (thermal rating for duvets, etc) + ETHER (substance that numbs) | ||
| 2 | ICING |
Decoration Henry erased from ancient Chinese text (5)
|
| The I CHING (ancient Chinese text) minus H (Henry erased) | ||
| 3 | SHEARER |
Who snips off coat tail of sessions judge? (7)
|
| S (tail of sessionS) + HEARER (judge, one who presides over a hearing) | ||
| 4 | ISSUE |
Lives upstairs from short fat children (5)
|
| IS (lives) above (upstairs from, in a down clue) SUE (suet without its last letter for “short fat”) | ||
| 5 | CLAIMABLE |
Rope secures large object that may be requisitioned? (9)
|
| Envelope (secures) of CABLE (rope) round L (large) + AIM (object) | ||
| 7 | HERBIVORE |
Film VW carrying five men, one eating salad? (9)
|
| Envelope (carrying) of HERBIE (the VW Beetle in the film franchise that started with The Love Bug) around V (five) + OR (other ranks, men) | ||
| 8 | BOWLER |
Deliveryman’s hat? (6)
|
| Cryptic definition, or possibly simply a double definition – this is one of those clues where the distinction between the two gets a bit blurry | ||
| 9 | FENCES |
Church in area prone to flooding installs barrier (6)
|
| Envelope (in) of CE (church) inside FENS | ||
| 15 | PROOFREAD |
Heard Bake Off judge given licence to look for errors (9)
|
| Homophone (heard) of Prue (Leith, Bake Off judge and mother of Tory MP Danny Kruger, not that I’m going to hold that against her…) and “freed” (given licence) | ||
| 16 | ESTABLISH |
Institute hates libs rioting (9)
|
| Anagram (rioting) of “hates libs” | ||
| 18 | STOREYED |
Small hill inspected over several levels (8)
|
| Charade of S (small) + TOR (hill) + EYED (inspected) | ||
| 20 | ENABLE |
Permit being open but not before noon (6)
|
| “Amenable” (open) without AM (not before noon) | ||
| 22 | TRANSIT |
Art isn’t out of place in passage (7)
|
| Anagram (out of place) of ART ISNT | ||
| 23 | ABASED |
Tucked up trousers being cut down to size (6)
|
| Envelope (trousers) of ABED (tucked up) round AS (being). The only grammatical context I can think of in which “as” might stand in for “being” is something like “As/Being a blogger, I find it annoying when I can’t quite parse a solution properly” | ||
| 26 | CADGE |
Tip of didgeridoo wedged in composer’s bum (5)
|
| Envelope (wedged in) of D (tip of Didgeridoo) inside John CAGE | ||
| 27 | EAT IN |
Core members of team can dine at own table (3,2)
|
| Central letters (core members) of tEAm +TIN (can) |
Salty serves up a plateful of sweet definitions, in this one.
Deliveryman=BOWLER; See boss=BISHOP; Coat snipper = SHEARER; Murder deterrent= SCARECROW; even Film VW= HERBIE.
I wasn’t sure about “fishy”, as used in 6(ac), until I twigged it’s a twee word for “fish”,
“A buck an ear”, 25(ac), is a bit of a replay.
I’m not fond of ellipsis clues, but 19 & 21(ac) work together, quite well.
All-in-all, a fully entertaining and well-crafted puzzle, the surfaces are masterful. A new setter to me, and a second helping, welcome.
Cheers, Salty and MOH ( great blog)
Enjoyed the puzzle, all going swimmingly until some pauses for thought, mostly in SW: “as” for “being”, I tried “at” first, which slowed things down.. I also tried PL n OW for “extremely painful” which didn’t speed things up either… as noted, some great surfaces.
Thanks Salty and, for the jovial blog, miserableoldhack…
Perfect Bank Holiday fare, with only the SW corner causing a delay
As our blogger said, there was so much to enjoy so thank you to him and Salty
Very good puzzle. Great blog.
Thanks Salty and MOH.
Liked TRIP SWITCH, BISHOP, TOGETHER, PROOFREAD and ABASED.
TRIP SWITCH
Nothing wrong with the parsing in the blog. I thought it would
be better to take ’causes woman using broom to stumble’ as one
block to mean ‘TRIPS WITCH’.
What an absolutely lovely puzzle.
A delight.
The other one, MOH @25ac, has the punchline Under me buccan ‘at 🙂
It’s a shame we don’t see more of Salty: as with his previous puzzles, this showed plenty of clever constructions and sparkling wit contained in some really tight clues with barely a superfluous word. Several of my faves have already been nominated: TRIP SWITCH, SCARECROW, CHIDE, THREATENED, TOGETHER, HERBIVORE, FENCES and TRANSIT.
Thanks Salty and MOH
I’m in total agreement with Miserableoldhack’s introduction and with Post Mark’s opening remark.
This was a delight, for all the reasons mentioned above. ABASED was my last one in, as I had to think about the AS but I came to the same conclusion as our blogger.
As so often, I had far too many ticks to list – I did smile wryly at BUCCANEER, a reminder of a much-missed setter.
Huge thanks to Salty for the fun – please come back soon! – and to Miserableoldhack for a far from miserable blog.
What an excellent puzzle.
I’d also parsed TRIP SWITCH as the longer definition outlined by KVa @ 5.
Nice puzzle:)
Although I guessed the answer from the definition and crossing letters, ABASED was the only one I couldn’t parse. After reading the solve here, have to admit I doubt I would have ever gotten it
I needed a bit of help to finish. I’d never heard of a TIGER TEAM. I did wonder if there was a thing called a WHEELBLIND. I didn’t know the Marlowe play, I only know DIDO from the Virgil poem Aeneid and the operas by Purcell and Berlioz.
Game of two halves for me. NW and SE went in very quickly, but SW and NE were a bit more of a struggle. Lovely puzzle though with some inventive clueing. Very enjoyable.
Another here held up by abased, didn’t see it so glad blogger did. Thanks both.
Many thanks MOH for a lovely blog and everyone for the very kind comments. Glad this one proved enjoyable to solve!
Great fun – mostly steady away but a handful of holdouts towards the end slowed me down somewhat. Lovely clues – liked TRIP SWITCH, SCARECROW, BUCCANEER, TOGETHER and CADGE.
Thanks both!