Bobcat reliably provides witty and intricate clues that are easier to comprehend and solve than they are to write up as an intelligible blog post. Still, the usual good fun . . .
. . . with the customary feline nina
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | ASSUMED |
Guessed amount of arsenic given to my boss (7)
|
| AS (arsenic) + SUM (amount) + ED. (my boss, i.e., Bobcat’s editor). I suppose an “amount of arsenic” might be referred to in shorthand as an “As-sum.” | ||
| 5 | SAILING |
First class support guards on board (7)
|
| SLING (support) around (guards) AI (first class, i.e., A1) | ||
| 9 | RAINSTORM |
Martin and Rose mostly soaked together. In this? (9)
|
| Anagram of (soaked together) {MARTIN + ROS[E] minus last letter (mostly)}, the definition referring back to “soaked” | ||
| 10 | COATI |
Scot needing clothes stripped Latin American native (5)
|
| Inside letters of (needing clothes) [S]CO[T] + inside letters of (stripped) [L]ATI[N] | ||
| 11 | ANKLE |
Joint lender, saving skin, hedges pound sterling (5)
|
| [B]ANKE[R] (lender) minus outside letters (saving skin) around (hedges) L (pound sterling, i.e., £) | ||
| 12 | SUBTRACTS |
Turning street vehicles round makes a difference (9)
|
| [ST (street) + {CART + BUS} (vehicles)] all inverted (turning . . . round), with a slightly cryptic definition | ||
| 13 | STOCKPILE |
Reserve supply I kept half closeted (9)
|
| Anagram of (supply) {I + KEPT + half CLOS[ETED]} | ||
| 16 | HOBBY |
Hard cop denied beginning pursuit (5)
|
| H (hard) + [B]OBBY (cop) minus first letter (denied beginning) | ||
| 17 | COCKY |
Arrogant king doing for relations in city by poison gas (5)
|
| CO (poison gas, i.e., carbon monoxide) + {K (king) substituted for (doing for) IT ([sexual] relations) inside (in) C[IT]Y} | ||
| 18 | REEDINESS |
Retiree dines simply, entertaining thin character (9)
|
| Hidden in (entertaining) [RETI]REE DINES S[IMPLY] | ||
| 20 | ILL-GOTTEN |
Billy’s inside information includes too much obtained by dubious means (3-6)
|
| Inside [letters of] [B]ILL[Y] + {GEN (information) around (includes) OTT (too much)} | ||
| 23 | BANJO |
Music maker taking more from Bantock than Joubert (5)
|
| Hidden in (taking more from) BAN[TOCK] + JO[UBERT], with three letters from the former and two from the latter | ||
| 25 | AGATE |
Stone Age art lacking focus bores (5)
|
| A[R]T minus central letter (lacking focus) inside (bores) AGE | ||
| 26 | BOX NUMBER |
‘Bubbly Buxom Brenda’ wanting a duke’s address (3,6)
|
| Anagram of (bubbly) {BUXOM BREN[D][A]} minus (wanting) {A + D (duke)} | ||
| 27 | SPECTRE |
Ghastly vision of extremes of panic in staff changing places (7)
|
| S[C]E[P]TRE (staff) with the outside letters of (extremes of) P[ANI]C changing places in the word | ||
| 28 | SCHOLAR |
Student couples ultimately avoid scam, hoax, lark and rag (7)
|
| SC[AM] + HO[AX] + LA[RK] + R[AG] minus (avoiding) the last two letters (couples ultimately) of each | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | ARREARS |
Regions claiming diverse rights to unpaid debts (7)
|
| AREAS (regions) around (claiming) two separately placed (diverse) {R + R} (rights) | ||
| 2 | SHIRK |
Dodge swindler, one replacing ace (5)
|
| SH[A]RK (swindler), with I (one) replacing A (ace) | ||
| 3 | MASTER KEY |
What widely secures graduate access to Yale? (6,3)
|
| Cryptic definition, playing on the notions of a master’s (graduate) degree with Yale University and Yale locks | ||
| 4 | DROPS |
Doctor’s surgery stops prescribing medicine? (5)
|
| OP (surgery) inside (stops) DR’S (doctor’s) | ||
| 5 | SEMIBREVE |
Bishop interrupting house party curtailed piece of music (9)
|
| B (bishop) inside (interrupting) {SEMI (house) + REVE[L] (party) minus last letter (curtailed)} | ||
| 6 | INCUR |
Suffer from return of former police force to province (5)
|
| RUC (former police force, i.e., Royal Ulster Constabulary) + NI (province, i.e., Northern Ireland) all inverted (return of) | ||
| 7 | IRASCIBLE |
Quick-tempered rector excluded from Barking libraries and clubs (9)
|
| Anagram of (barking) {LIB[R]ARIES minus (excluded) R (rector) + C (clubs)}, with a capitalization misdirection | ||
| 8 | GAINSAY |
Disagree with soldier arresting a couple of Poles allegedly on vacation (7)
|
| {GI (soldier) around (arresting) A} + {N + S} (couple of poles) + outside letters of (on vacation) A[LLEGEDL]Y, with a capitalization misdirection | ||
| 14 | OSCILLATE |
Swingers do it in disreputable local site (9)
|
| Anagram of (disreputable) LOCAL SITE | ||
| 15 | IRRITABLE |
Cross can be sprayed, given change of heart (9)
|
| IRRI[G]ABLE (can be sprayed) substituting a T for the central letter (given change of heart). This sort of clue always gives me pause when the substitute letter cannot be directly ascertained from the clue itself; here, however, the solution is confirmed by the crosser in 20A. | ||
| 16 | HAIRBRUSH |
Amateur Irish sweeper affiliated to Hearts becomes Barnet manager (9)
|
| H (hearts) + A (amateur) + IR. (Irish) + BRUSH (sweeper), referring to Cockney rhyming slang for “hair” | ||
| 17 | CUIRASS |
Dog bites top of Ivanka Trump’s bottom. Could this have protected her? (7)
|
| CUR (dog) around (bites) first letter of (top of) I[VANKA] + ASS (Trump’s bottom, presumably a reference to American English), cryptically referring to armor covering the torso | ||
| 19 | SCOURER |
More acid dispersed by college cleaner (7)
|
| SOURER (more acid) around (dispersed by) C (college) | ||
| 21 | OVERT |
Public upset — Ashes holder lost (5)
|
| OVERT[URN] (upset) minus (lost) URN (ashes holder), with a capitalization misdirection | ||
| 22 | NAXOS |
Short cut taken by lad climbing Greek island (5)
|
| AX[E] (cut) minus last letter (short) inside (taken by) SON (lad) inverted (climbing) | ||
| 24 | NOBEL |
Explosive producer about to upset beauty in audition (5)
|
| ON (about to) inverted (upset) + homophone of (in audition) BELLE (beauty), referring to Alfred Nobel |
And yet, Cineraria, you’ve done a fine job! I thoroughly enjoyed this and was greatly helped by the nina. Some interesting and chewy wordplay overall – difficult to pick a favourite but I’ll nominate SCHOLAR.
Thanks to Bobcat and Cineraria.
Parsed all but four, which is better than my usual for one of Bobcat’s. Thanks for the explanations, Cineraria.
Never heard of a CUIRASS.
Good puzzle. Thanks Bobcat.
Excellent blog. Thanks Cineraria.
Liked BANJO, SCHOLAR, SPECTRE, MASTER KEY and OVERT.
Learnt armour terms, like cuirass, reading history series collected by the late mrs ginf. Saw the pronounceable nina, serval, and looked it up (longest leg-to-body ratio of all cats; leap 20 feet high from a standstill !). All part of the fun, thx Bobcat and Cineraria.
Speaking as a Yank, it strikes me that the wordplay in 17D could have been clued more concisely as: Dog bites top of Ivanka Trump…just sayin’
Tricky stuff, took a while and some googling.
Thanks to Bobcat and Cineraria. We enjoyed the puzzle, which had some lovely clues, notably the neat surface of 12A and were helped by seeing the feline Nina at a point when we were struggling.
Kudos to @BrianB for his twist on 17D
Thanks Bobcat. Generally I get along well with Bobcat but I found this crossword too difficult to be enjoyable. I eventually revealed five clues & just guessed at several others. I did like ASSUMED, SUBTRACTS, ILL-GOTTEN, GAINSAY, HAIRBRUSH, and NAXOS as well as the feline Nina. Thanks Cineraria for the blog.
A pleasant mid-afternoon solve with just the right amount of challenge. We liked the crossing BOX NUMBER and NAXOS. Nice to see a mention of two less well-known composers in 23ac.
Thanks, Bobcat and Cineraria.
Like Tony Santucci @8 I mainly had to rely on solving by definition as the parsing mainly defeated me. Perhaps I’m a bit slow today, but I couldn’t get ARREARS or SHIRK even though I had all the letters.
My initial reaction to CUIRASS was that it was a breastplate with straps so it wouldn’t protect Ivanka Trump’s bottom, but I see that Chambers says it can also be a combined breastplate and backplate so perhaps it might (just).
I didn’t spot the nina. This is term that is new to me. Does it stand for something?
Babbler@10: American cartoonist Al Hirschfeld used to hide his daughter’s name NINA in his drawings, usually with a number at the bottom indicating the number of instances in which the name was hidden, adding a “find-a-word” game to his caricatures, and the term has migrated to the world of cryptic crosswords.
“Witty and intricate clues”. I didn’t find them witty and I found them impossibly intricate.
A classic example of self-indulgent clueing.
Well put Lesley @12. I could not agree more. Not my cup of tea. I gave up with three to go. What is the point of a crossword where you can only work out many of the answers from the crossers, finding a word that fits and then puzzle out the parsing. I regularly grumble about this type of intellectual onanism.
Lesley @12 & Moly @ 13. These comments are insulting to the setter and fail to comply with site policy. Constructive criticism, giving examples of your concerns to back it up, is fine if it is expressed politely, but subjective generalisations about the unfairness of clues with no actual evidence in support is not. As far as this puzzle is concerned, every clue complies with the Ximenean principles of fairness, and I challenge you to provide actual evidence to the contrary. It is just not defensible to say that clues require guesses to be made about the answer before the wordplay can be worked out. That may be the way you solved them, but you have no grounds for saying that everyone else did the same thing. There are no dodgy gimmicks, distortions of words or iffy definitions and nothing surplus in the clues here. Why not just admit that you found things difficult? There is no shame in that. Why should you have the expectation of being able to complete every puzzle with ease? If that were the case there would be no challenge. The purpose of this site is to help people understand how clues work, not to provide a forum for whinging.
Well put Rudolf@14.
Babbler@10: What our esteemed blogger said@11 but, to plusify, there is a(n?) FAQ link hereabouts (under’Info’ at the top of the page) which will repay perusal. Enjoy.
Took me a while but I got there. Very good puzzle, which I think is evidenced by it being solvable albeit I had to have many sessions, bringing a different way of thinking to each