Imogen makes one of his fairly infrequent visits to the Prize slot – only the third this year, I think and I blogged the first one.
I’m finding myself with much the same things to say as before: a nice combination of clue types, generally meticulous cluing, ingenious constructions, clever anagrams, an interesting and (for me) evocative spread of GK, some neat misdirection and, this time, just one unfamiliar word, which was the bird.
I had about a dozen ticks and found it impossible to whittle them down but I’m sure you’ll include them all in your favourites – and I’ve commented on some of them in the blog.
Many thanks to Imogen for a very enjoyable puzzle.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 Saint brings to church cat and a bear (7)
STOMACH
S (saint) + CH (church) round TOM (cat) + A from the clue
5 Small stroke that’s hard to interpret (6)
SCRAWL
S (SMALL) + CRAWL (swimming stroke)
9 Facing work, adopt an attitude about it (8)
OPPOSITE
OP (work) + POSE (adopt an attitude) round IT
10 Address of house I left Imogen’s taken over (6)
HOMILY
HO (house) + MY (Imogen’s) round I L (I left)
12 Hinting madam wasted all her strength (5,3,4)
MIGHT AND MAIN
An anagram (wasted – slang for drunk) of HINTING MADAM: a classic example of hendiadys ,
‘main’ being an old word for great strength, now only usually found in this expression – great surface
15 Welcoming people came down with a roly-poly empty of nourishment (10)
ALIMENTARY
ALIT (came down) round (welcoming) MEN (people) + A R[oly-pol]Y – I liked the wordplay and the well-disguised definition
17 Attack is in good shape (3)
FIT
Double definition
19 Sink vessel, a trophy (3)
POT
Triple definition – sink and POT are both snooker terms for getting the ball into the pocket and a POT is a vessel and a trophy
20 Underrate Victor, wild daredevil (10)
ADVENTURER
An anagram (wild) of UNDERRATE V (Victor – NATO phonetic alphabet) – another fine surface
22 Alter accounts of consigning literature to the flames? (4,3,5)
COOK THE BOOKS
Cryptic definition, plus literal interpretation, ‘cooking the books’ indicating financial chicanery
26 Leaderless priest from America who took the plunge (6)
ICARUS
[v]ICAR (priest) + US (American = from America) – Icarus flew too close to the sun, thus melting the wax securing the wings fashioned by his father Daedalus as a means to escape from the Cretan Labyrinth and fell into the sea
27 US singer died, over in a flash (8)
BOBOLINK
OB (abbreviation of Latin obiit – died, in genealogical records) + O (over) in BLINK (flash – blink of an eye) – here’s the US singer – a neat construction and a lovely word
28 Melon cut with axes: that’s inspired (6)
OXYGEN
X Y (axes) in OGEN (a type of melon) – I always enjoy ‘axes’ used this way
29 Step on to platform and run into arrest (7)
DETRAIN
R (run) in DETAIN (arrest) – one of my least favourite types of word
Down
1 Without poles, climbing in high altitude conditions (4)
SNOW
A reversal (climbing, in a down clue) of W/O (abbreviation of without) + N S (poles)
2 Bends down, dropping stone: my mistake (4)
OOPS!
[st]OOPS (bends down) minus st (stone) – amusing surface
3 Patronage gives first-class benefits still to be received (8)
AUSPICES
A (first class) + USES (benefits) round PIC (still picture)
4 Once has to employ canine to break egg (5)
HATCH
HATH (old form – once – of ‘has’) round C (abbreviation for canine, in dentistry)
6 Concert at first at high volume, finally very dull (6)
CLOUDY
C[oncert] + LOUD (at high volume) + [ver]Y
7 Satire’s main failing: fear to introduce female (6,4)
ANIMAL FARM
An anagram (failing) of MAIN + F (female) in ALARM (fear) – reference to George Orwell’s satirical novella – another fine surface
8 Rewriting a storyline was to be expected (3,2,5)
LAY IN STORE
An anagram (rewriting) of A STORYLINE – a neat anagram and a smooth surface
11 Unreal, being first to fly over a lake (6)
FAERIE
F[ly] + A ERIE (a lake) – lovely word, with distant echoes of two of my A Level set texts: Spenser’s ‘The Faerie Queene’ and Keats’ ‘faerie lands forlorn’ (‘Ode to a Nightingale’, one of my favourite poems)
13 Gangster welcomes man of note, not one for a hot drink (10)
CAPPUCCINO
CAPO (gangster) round PUCCIN[i] (man of note – a change from ‘scorer’ or ‘barman’ – though I always like both of them) minus i (one) – I enjoyed the construction and surface
14 Look up here, wandering in City Road (10)
DICTIONARY
An anagram (wandering) of IN CITY ROAD – I smiled at the definition and the picture of any of us wending our way along Charing Cross Road, consulting Collins and/or the Big Red Book
16 Arranged to pick up computer business and failed (6)
TIDIED
A reversal (to pick up, in a down clue) of IT (computer business) + DIED (failed) – I liked the fact that ‘arranged’ was not an anagram indicator and ‘to pick up’ not a soundalike
18 Do surveillance on second date (5,3)
STAKE OUT
S (second) + TAKE OUT (date)
21 A thousand buried – let us change physician (2,4)
ST LUKE
K (a thousand) buried in an anagram (change) of LET US: St Luke, writer of the third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, is known as ‘the beloved physician’ and is the patron saint of physicians and artists – an amusing, rather gruesome surface
23 For a long time congregation understood nothing (2,3)
OF OLD
It seems that we need the Shakespearean meaning (‘stand under’) of ‘understand’ here, so I think it’s FOLD (metaphorical congregation) under (in a down clue) O (old)
24 Examination of insurance company that sacked head (4)
VIVA
[a]VIVA (insurance company) minus its initial letter
An abbreviation of Latin VIVA voce – ‘with the living voice’ – so an oral examination – see here
Other university websites are available 😉
25 Like creating, ignoring the boundaries (4)
AKIN
[m]AKIN[g] (creating)
Bo Bo Link, wasn’t he the great American blues singer?
This seemed very hard until about halfway through, and then I started to get the hang of it. Nice puzzle, and good job on the blog.
Thankyou Eileen. Agree with your preamble and, thanks to your informative blog, I’ve learned more now, especially hendiadys in MIGHT AND MAIN. Not being well-schooled in Shakespeare the term was new to me. I see from your link that alternatives are figure of twins and pseudo coordination. They sound quite pathological, but then apparently so was Shakespeare in his use of the device, at least obsessive.
I parsed OF OLD, as did you, although again not knowing the Shakespearean language reference, I just thought it was Imogen being clever.
My favourite ALIMENTARY, also for the wordplay and definition.
BOBOLINK last one in. Thanks for the pic. And here’s a 30sec clip of its call.
Oh, I didn’t scroll down far enough. I see Eileen’s link for BOBOLINK had several recordings of its call.
I had the opposite experience to Cineraria@2. I found this a mix of very easy and very difficult clues so I made quick progress at first then slowed considerably. I finished in one sitting, but it took quite a while.
I ticked 2 clues: TIDIED and OOPS
I was not overly bothered by the GK that Eileen mentioned. I did wonder how many solvers know ogen melon, and I do not share a vast vocabulary of terms for criminals and gaols with the English, so I did not know capo in 13d. So saying, BOBOLINK & MIGHT AND MAIN were jorums.
I solved but could not parse SNOW, HATCH and AUSPICES. Thanks for the steers, Eileen..
Thanks Imogen and Eileen
I very rarely do the prize but I spent an unlikely sunny Saturday morning on Hove seafront completing this, and enjoyed the lovely surfaces and different devices. Thought there might be a theme with STOMACH, POT and ALIMENTARY lurking but that was it. Lots of ticks as well but my favourites were ANIMAL FARM, COOK THE BOOKS, SNOW, AUSPICES, CAPPUCCINO and DICTIONARY. My first text at uni was The Faerie Queene, which I thought was wonderful. Thanks for flagging up hendiadys, what a fabulous word.
Ta Imogen & Eileen for the super blog.
(And Eileen, and Martyn@ 5. Did you see that Filbert clued JORUM as Task getting bottom off strange drinking bowl in Independent 12185 just this week? Wouldn’t have known it except for 15sq)
Antonknee@1, a nice one 🙂
After last Saturday, I had three left, which I’ve only done a few days later; one was the insurance company I recalled, then I constructed the bird remembering OB for “obiit”, and POT was missing due to my incorrect spelling of CAPPUCCINO. Many favourites, including OOPS, SNOW, FAERIE, ANIMAL FARM, OF OLD. Thanks a lot Imogen and Eileen!
4D HATCH also reminded me about the egg tooth many fledglings use to hatch out, so I read this as a CAD or &lit.
I thought this would be a challenge as Imogen can be, but sailed through this puzzle – just on the right wavelength, I guess.
Thank you to Imogen and Eileen.
Nice to see a full strength Imogen. I was enjoying this, but came back to it this morning to find three still unsolved: TIDIED, ALIMENTARY (couldn’t find that definition – I was looking for some “welcoming people”) and AUSPICES (a definition I could find, but didn’t know). I liked BOBOLINK (both clue and songbird) and STOMACH; did not like DETRAIN, though it’s a legitimate word.
I agree with you Eileen that this was a really nicely balanced puzzle. Great set of clues, from which I couldn’t select favourites either! Good surfaces, misdirections, and challenges. I just fell two short — 1d SNOW and 3d AUSPICES, neither of which I could even parse when revealed. Though solved correctly, I also couldn’t parse 4d HATCH, and 27a “died over” for OBO in BOBOLINK. Thank you for clearing those up for me, and for a wonderful annotated blog!
19a POT I initially had CUP, and wonder if anyone else did