Another top puzzle from Bluth today.
Some head scratchers, some write-ins and lots of smooth surfaces.
A homophone (‘caught’) of MALE ORDER (the Society of Jesus for example)
INTO (keen on) around or ‘capturing’ R (rook)
Hidden (‘some’) in truLY CRAzy
An anagram (‘surprisingly’) of IF IT’S OPEN
CRU (vineyard) + IF (providing) inside or ‘bottled by’ ChardonnaY (first and last letters only or ‘case’)
A homophone (‘by the sound of it’) of BORDER (bed)
An anagram (‘casting’) of UNICORn (22ac) missing last letter or ‘ultimately wanting’ and NUDISTS AT. When we solved this we actually had a smile. We once saw the dress rehearsal at the Globe. When our son asked what we had missed by leaving early to catch our train home we said, 3 killings and one live burial. We cannot now remember whether we were there when the pies were eaten! We did return and saw the whole play.
tUNIC (military jacket) tORN (ripped) both missing initial letters or when ‘leaders are removed’
Initial letters or ‘starts’ to 5 (Crossbar), 4 (Oddities), 3 (Notaries), 2 (Discount), and ONE
PEE (go) around or ‘over’ ACE (ideal serve) and TIM (Tim Henman the tennis player)
A SOT (drunk) around or ‘touring’ C (clubs)
Alternate letters (‘visiting occasionally’) of aRsEnAl CiTy
SUGAR (Sir Alan) COAT (Parka – a homophone (‘on the radio’) of Parker)
sIMPLICITy (unpretentiousness) missing first and last letters or ‘with no frills’
DISCO (dance) coUNT (number) missing or ‘releasing’ one of the COs (company)
ARIES (sign) with N (name) OT (books) first
An anagram (‘plastic’) of TOY DID
BAR (to stop) with CROSS (angry) in front or ‘at the outset’
Alternate letters (‘regularly’) in StIlL dIg ClAy
imiTate proTEins (middle or ‘essential’ letters only) in a reversal (‘regressive’) of DNA
pOLo (middle letters only or ‘discovered’) with GF (girlfriend) outside
Hidden (‘containing’) and reversed (‘looking up’) in docUMEnt
IN (trendy) N (new)
An anagram (‘incorrectly’) of JUST and INN (17d) around or ‘describing’ I (last or ‘conclusive’ letter of origami)
An anagram (‘cooking’) of ORDINArY with N (last or ‘final’ letter of swan) replacing R (king)
CHOP CHOP (cuts)
ECT (intervention that uses current) inside or ‘stopping’ SPATE (flood)
IN (home) AWAY (not at home)
OMEgA (conclusion) with R T (last letters or ‘terms’ of our contract) replacing ‘g’ (good)
ClergY (first and last letters or ‘extremes’) around or ‘taking’ L (large) ERG (amount of work)
OR (gold) inside or ‘during’ PE (games)
Thanks Bertandjoyce. Concur with your intro, but found a few too many of the clues similar in wordplay with containers (including 2 with the outer letters C…..Y), and substitutions. However, I did like OMERTA.
CONDONE was my favourite, as I was working on that before some of the 5,4,3,2 and 1, so that helped. I thought it both clever and amusing.
CONDONE was my favourite too.
Also liked PEACETIME, EMU and SPECTATE.
Thanks Bluth and B&J.
I’m in agreement with early posters that CONDONE is particularly neat and it clearly required some cunning work in grid assembly to achieve. But well worth it. I did not parse OMERTA so thanks to our bloggers for spotting that. I often fail to spot a substitution and they can be trickier when it’s different numbers of letters either coming or going. But it’s perfectly fair so no complaints. CRUCIFY, UNICORN, PEACETIME, ODDITY and SPECTATE were my bigger ticks.
Thanks Bluth & B&J
Not quite vintage Bluth, for me. Many of the definitions telegraph themselves, and some wordplays feel a tad “under thought-out” in terms of surfaces and synonym opportunities. Very un-Bluth-like.
Still, some novelty and originality: I liked “plastic” for the anagrind in 4(d); conjoining “serve + Tim Henman” in 26(ac), is clever.
25(ac) is a very crafty use of 5/4/3/2/1, but again, I feel CONDONE offers several close synonyms, better than “excuse”, which might improve the artifice.
I found 26(d) possibly ambiguous, ( PT or PE / PORT or PORE).
An easier challenge than past Bluths, but highly entertaining, as per usual. Thanks, B and BJ
PEACETIME was my favourite. I always like a Bluth trademark name fission, so SUGARCOAT amused me as well.
E.N.Boll&@4
4d ‘plastic’ as the anagrind–liked it.
Technically, ‘plastic’ is a better anagrind than ‘elastic’, I think.
With elastic, however much you jumble the letters, they may
return to the original state. 😉
Great stuff from Bluth. Great range of clues in terms of difficulty, wordplay and theme. As well as the signature celebrity inspired clues. Nothing for Jane today though. Couldn’t parse CRUCIFY, SPECTATE or OMERTA so thanks for the blog B&J.
Cheers B&J and Bluth.
As well as the neat grid manipulation required to make CONDONE work, I also liked the “Just 17” trick – was never a reader myself but my little sis was a big fan. And I share Petert’s enjoyment of the Alan Parker wordplay. Lovely stuff!
KVa@6 That’s a purist’s view…which I totally agree with!
Plastic works, whereas as elastic implies you can stretch it, but it rebounds to what it started as.
Nowadays, just about anything seems to be fair game, as an anagrind; if, indeed, one is even included.
But it cheers me, when indicators do a “proper job”. There’s enough of them available. (let’s avoid, “supply”, for now!)
Thanks both. Much to enjoy, with many examples already cited here. I also thought it was 50/50 between PORE and port. Needed a word search to unearth the unknown OMERTÀ- on reflection, Omega is a tough synonym for conclusion, and perhaps should be wearing a question mark as it is a definition by example.
Thanks Bluth, that was enjoyable. I particularly liked CRUCIFY, UNICORN (I solved 16a first & used the ‘leftover’ letters to figure out UNICORN), NOTARIES (I got the first N after I solved CONDONE), EMU, IN A WAY, and CLERGY. I couldn’t parse OMERTA or SUGARCOAT. Thanks B&J for the blog.
Thanks Bert & Joyce and thanks all.
E.N.Boll& @4 CONDONE is a verb, but for the surface to read, I needed a synonym that would also work as a noun. I’d be enlightened if you’d let me know which other synonyms you think would have also worked.
Widdersbel @8 ta! CONDONE was conceived when I started the grid fill… Just 17 on the other hand was delightful serendipity and all the more pleasing (from a setter’s pov) for that.
TFO: omega isn’t a definition by example for conclusion, it’s the second definition given in Chambers!
Cheers!
E.N.Boll& @9 fwiw, I think if something is done in a supple manner that suggests enough movement of parts for me.
Bluth@12
Ouch. My reference to “supply” was only because it got negative posts as an anagrind, some months past, but I condoned it as a fair play on the basis that, if “flexible” converts to “flexibly”, then so “supple” seems agreeable as “supply”, in a cryptic sense.
Hey…I liked plastic!
CONDONE is a very cunning stunt employing your [5-4-3-2 -one] device, but “excuse” as the intro seemed the weakness; I was thinking more ( transitive verb +/= noun) [ pardon / sanction / whitewash / remit ].
Who would be a setter, when they know some solvers are nit-picking ars***les?
Guilty. But I did say “highly entertaining” !
Late to this, and I had quite a few unparsed. So thanks to B&J for the missing details. I won’t go into details, since at this hour (almost 7 here in Chicago; 1 am for y’all) there’s no one left awake to read. But I will say that what I did not grok, I would never have grokked without help in a month of Sundays.
(Okay, one: SUGARCOAT is impossible to parse of you’re not British. Never heard of Alan Sugar; a non-rhotic homophone for the other half; and a misleading reference to a film director? Throw the poor Yanks a bone here.)
mrpenney@14, this Antipodean is still around.
Ok, I get parka/Parker as I’m a non rhoticist. I didn’t know the be(k)nighted Alan Sugar, even though he emigrated here apparently. From what I read on Wiki, I wouldn’t want to know him anyway’
Grok on!