Kite makes a rather infrequent return to the Prize slot.
I see that I haven’t blogged one of Kite’s puzzles since January last year. This made me rather apprehensive when I saw the name on this one: Kite’s puzzles always (I think) have a theme and that one of mine had a grid based on the arrangement of a chess board, which, having only vague memories of playing chess in my schooldays, I surprised myself by actually spotting, post-solve. I remember enjoying several puzzles themed on anniversaries (Poppy Day, the RNLI, VE DAY) but I see we’ve also had one featuring a perimeter Nina of the initial letters of the numbers on a dartboard, the structure of DNA and other topics which I would have found rather more daunting.
All things considered, I think I was let down quite lightly here. Following my habit of going through the clues in order, my first two entries were 16ac EPSOM and 17ac ASCOT and I couldn’t believe it was going to be so straightforward but it turned out that we were, indeed, looking for UK horse racing courses – although the clues did become chewier as it went along. I am by no means a race-goer but I was familiar with the names of all the courses included here and so I found it an absorbing and enjoyable solve, which I hope wasn’t too unfriendly for non-UK solvers – I think some of the names should be familiar. (I’ve given links to all the race courses in the blog.)
There were some excellent anagrams, especially the one in the middle column, some intriguing constructions, deft misdirection and generally smooth surfaces throughout. I admired the symmetry of the seven-letter thematic entries in the four corners.
I had ticks for 1ac SANDOWN, 5ac AINTREE, 14ac LEICESTER, 24ac ATTUNE, 7dn TROLLOPES, 8dn EL GRECO, 9dn COMPLETE IDIOT and 16dn STOMACH.
Thanks to Kite for an enjoyable Saturday puzzle.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 Park sown from this? (7)
SANDOWN
S AND OWN = SOWN
5 Isn’t about English, of course (7)
AINTREE
AIN’T (isn’t) + RE (about) + E (English)
10 Found in caddy or kitchen bowl (4)
YORK
Hidden in caddY OR Kitchen – bowl as in cricket
11 Show up long moving vehicle (10)
SNOWPLOUGH
An anagram (moving) of SHOW UP LONG
12 Web reveals tense affair (6)
TISSUE
T (TENSE) + ISSUE (affair)
13 Similar cultured pearl everyone collected (8)
PARALLEL
An anagram (cultured) of PEARL round ALL (everyone)
14 Decoration 28 lost – hard cheese! (9)
LEICESTER
LEI ( a Hawaiian garland of flowers – decoration) + C[h]ESTER (answer to 28ac) minus h (hard) – one of my favourites: great misleading (lift and separate) construction – and it’s only a bus stop away from me here
16 Salts – keep some supplies (5)
EPSOM
Hidden in keEPS OMe
see here for the salt
19 City team huddle together around first toilet (9)
NEWCASTLE
NESTLE (huddle together) round WC A (whimsically, first toilet) – reference to Newcastle City football team
23 Speedy festival, gash maybe (8)
GOODWOOD
This was puzzling to begin with: I got the answer by analogy with the construction at 1ac – G (good) + ASH (wood); I knew about ‘Glorious Goodwood’, the annual five-day horse racing event but when I googled to check that it was called a festival I found that Goodwood is also the venue for the Festival of Speed, which I don’t think I’d ever heard of – but, thankfully, it made sense of the first word of the clue (not just an event for fast horses!)
24 A race with one French condition (6)
ATTUNE
A TT (a race – Tourist Trophy + UNE (one French)
26 Picture technique of former PM not dealing with American Jobs (10)
CAMERAWORK
CAMER[on] (former Prime Minister) minus on (not ‘dealing with’) + A (American) WORK (jobs)
The capitalisation of Jobs made me wonder if there was a reference to this
27 Fish, once head is removed, is best (4)
ROUT
[t]ROUT (fish) minus the first letter (head) – rout as a verb
28 Former president shows way to shout about (7)
CHESTER
CHEER (shout) round ST (street – way)
Chester A. Arthur was the 21st US President
29 This makes Ruby appear in market town (7)
NEWBURY
An indirect anagram: ‘NEW BURY’ gives RUBY
Down
2 Puzzle over, is working overtime entertaining? (7)
AGONISE
I’m not absolutely sure of this and would welcome your thoughts: it seems we need to separate over time, then I think it’s IS (from the clue) with ON (working) over it – in a down clue (?) all inside (entertained by) AGE (time)
3 Ones that block terminal keyboard shift keys (5)
DYKES
[keyboar]D + an anagram (shift) of KEYS
4 Scrubbers’ rings (7)
WASHERS
Double definition
6 Rogues’ gallery, content to contribute (6)
IMPART
IMP ART (rogues’ gallery)
7 Authors plot roles to be developed (9)
TROLLOPES
An anagram (to be developed) of PLOT ROLES for two authors:
Anthony TROLLOPE
and his fifth-generation niece Joanna TROLLOPE, writer of so-called ‘Aga sagas’, which sometimes crop up in crosswords
8 Artist and composer cutting a green (2,5)
EL GRECO
ELG[a]R (composer) minus a + ECO (green)
9 Police omitted alteration, a waste of space! (8,5)
COMPLETE IDIOT
An anagram (alteration} of POLICE OMITTED
15 Fine, but lacking a server? (9)
CLOUDLESS
Double definition – computer servers
18 Put up with dashing moustache, but not posh face of emperor (7)
STOMACH
An anagram (dashing) of MO[u]STACH[e] (minus u – posh and e – first letter {face} of emperor)
20 Laugh, eating end of ginger snap (7)
CRACKLE
CACKLE (laugh) round [ginge]R – snap and CRACKLE (and pop) are the words used onomatopoeically for the sound made when milk is added to Kellogg’s Rice Krispies
21 A gun destroyed by soldiers after conclusive metal fatigue (7)
LANGUOR
[meta]L + an anagram (destroyed) of A GUN + (by) OR (Other Ranks – soldiers)
22 Spooner’s refusal of engagement present (6)
DONATE
NO DATE (refusal of engagement) – hurrah for a meaningful Spoonerism
25 Pulse in borscht served up, self-catering failed (5)
THROB
A reversal (served up) of BOR[sc]HT
Parsing of AGONISE looks correct. Good job on the rest, too.
Nice blog, Eileen.
Didn’t see the racing theme until it was too late – for me, that’s par for the course (sorry!).
The similarity in the separating of the parts of sown (SANDOWN) and gash (GOODWOOD) spoiled the second aha moment.
Tried to find Trump in the clue for 9d, but somehow he only showed up in the answer.
Liked LANGOUR.
Thanks Eileen. An enjoyable challenge and for once I managed to recognise the theme before completion but a bit late to be of much help. I agonised over 2d too but reached the same conclusion. Have to confess LOI was 22d, I’d been fixated on accommodating ‘ring’ somehow. I made the same spelling mistake or typo as Dr WhatsOn which held me up for a while too.
Had solved all but 1a, 23a and 2d on Saturday. But they remained unsolved through the week. I cannot suggest a better parsing for 2d. Liked many clues in this great puzzle, but missed the theme.
Thanks Kite and Eileen
Meant to say I agree with Eileen’s parsing of AGONISE. Pretty self-referential, as it turns out.
Thanks Eileen. I too concur with how you’ve parsed AGONISE. I wonder if NEWBURY could be considered an inverse, rather than an indirect, anagram. Kudos to Kite.
Odd cultural mix in this one — race courses sprinkled with a Renaissance artist, a Victorian novelist and the sound of Rice Bubbles! Fun though, and not too hard. Camerawork gave me the most pause (don’t overthink: not Cinemascope, much less chiaroscuro). Enjoyed it, thx Kite and Eileen, now for a large (cafe) latte and today’s.
19a The main football team in Newcastle is called Newcastle United, although they are often just referred to as Newcastle, so you could say it’s two definitions plus word play?
Even as an antipodean and a solver generally blind to themes, I picked this one early, Googled English Racecourses and eureka!
[Note to self: look up whether any of the many great tv adaptations of Trollope — one of my favourites — is streamable; love to see them again …]
Something wrong with NEWCASTLE surely? Its football team is United, not City. I took the definition to be simply ‘city’, but then couldn’t parse the rest.