Gemelo is settling down into an Observer routine and I am getting onto his wavelength a bit more.
To my mind, there were fewer really obscure words this week, even though I still had to do a bit of searching in Chambers and the web to understand everything.
The wordplay I struggled with most, was that for EPIC derived from TELEPIC, a word I would be happy never to meet again.
It was good to see ‘without’ being used in the sense of ‘outside’ in the wordplay for SISTRA at 4 down, even though Chambers describes that usage as archaic.
I wasn’t sure about CAPO, at 27 across, being defined as a musical instrument, as I have always understood it to be an accessory used by guitar players rather than a musical instrument in its own right. I can’t find a dictionary that defines it as a musical instrument. Perhaps someone can give a reference to its definition as an instrument.
| No | Detail |
| Across | |
| 1 | Repeatedly covered emergency, dropping one Gemelo, perhaps to save news editor (12)
CRISSCROSSED (drew a network of CROSSed lines; repeatedly covered) CRISiS (emergency) excluding (dropping) I (Roman numeral for one) + CROSSword (a Gemelo is an example of a crossword) excluding (to save) WORD (news) + ED (editor) CRISS CROSS ED |
| 10 | Support special pitch (5)
STILT (any tall support, e.g. for keeping a house above water level) S (special) + TILT (lean; pitch) S TILT |
| 12 | Representative of Delhi peeled fruit (4)
AKEE (the edible fruit of a small African sapindaceous tree of the same name, now common in the W Indies. A fruit often used in Caribbean cookery) vAKEEl (an Indian [Delhi] agent, representative, or pleader) excluding the outer letters V and L (peeled) AKEE |
| 13 | Cliff Richard’s foolishly ignoring HR, I’d suspect (4)
SCAR (cliff) Anagram of (foolishly) RiChArdS excluding (ignoring) the letters in an anagram of (suspect) HR I’D SCAR* |
| 14 | Prior puts down beer, right? (6)
ALEYES (a former [prior] word for allays [puts down]) ALE (beer) + YES (correct; right) ALE YES |
| 15 | Skin disease specialist ultimately wears uniforms from the front line? (9)
MILITARIA (weapons, uniforms, and other things connected with wars past and present) T (last letter of [ultimately] contained in (wears) MILIARIA (prickly heat; skin disease) MILI (T) ARIA |
| 17 | Pile of rubbish cut from small-screen movie such as Ben-Hur (4)
EPIC (a long film such as Ben-Hur) telEPIC (film made to be shown on television; small-screen movie) excluding (cut from) TEL (in Arab lands, a hill or ancient mound formed from the accumulated debris from earlier mud or wattle habitations; pile of rubbish) EPIC |
| 18 | Asian dish’s rim spun with gold (5)
PILAU (highly spiced Asian dish of rice with a fowl or other meat, or fish, boiled together or separately) LIP (edge; rim) reversed (spun) + AU (chemical symbol for gold) PIL< AU |
| 21 | Flowering plants transformed slums, say (8)
ALYSSUMS (flowering plants) Anagram of (transformed) SLUMS SAY ALYSSUMS* |
| 22 | Outpouring shifting New Hampshire’s capital, almost (8)
WELLNIGH (almost) WELLING (outpouring) with N (new) moving one character position left (shifting) to form WELLNIG + H (first letter of [capital] Hampshire) WELLNIG H |
| 25 | Mountains and plains in southwest France overlooked at first (5)
ANDES ([a range of] mountains) lANDES (heathy plains or sandy tracts [now forested] along the coast in South West France) excluding the initial letter L (overlooked at first) ANDES |
| 27 | Band leader’s musical instrument? (4)
CAPO (leader of any band or organisation) CAPO (a movable bridge secured over the fingerboard and strings of a lute or guitar, to alter the pitch of all the strings together; musical instrument) – I’m not sure it is a musical instrument, it’s more like a tool or instrument for creating a change the pitch of a musical instrument) double definition CAPO |
| 29 | Female upended Ministry of Defence with Hong Kong, Italy, and UAE? (9)
SHEIKHDOM (The United Arab Emirates [UAE] is federal semi-constitutional monarchy made up of seven Emirates, headed overall by a SHEIKH) SHE (female) + (MOD [Ministry of Defence] + HK [International Vehicle Registration for Hong Kong] + I [International Vehicle Registration for Italy]) all reversed (upended) SHE (I KH DOM)< |
| 30 | Two months in Italian places of worship (6)
DUOMOS (Italian cathedrals; places of worship) DUO (two) + MOS (months) DUO MOS |
| 32 | Fat Duck brought back savoury dish with different meats (4)
OLIO (savoury dish of different sorts of meat and vegetables) (OIL [fat] + O [character representing zero [duck score at cricket]) all reversed (brought back) (O LIO)< |
| 33 | Encouragement from Valencian lowland (4)
DALE (low ground between hills; lowland) DALE (a Spanish [Valencian] term expressing encouragement) double definition DALE |
| 34 | Variable weights of Indian prophets (5)
SEERS (Indian weights of widely ranging amounts, officially about 2lb) SEERS (prophets) double definition SEERS |
| 35 | Tune of 1% once? (12, 2 words)
OLD HUNDREDTH (a famous tune set in England about the middle of the 16th century to Kethe’s version of Psalm 100, marked Old Hundredth in Tate and Brady [1696]) OLD (former; once) + HUNDREDTH (one part in a HUNDRED; 1%) OLD HUNDREDTH |
| Down | |
| 1 | Half of field covered by lettuce plant from America (6)
COSMEA (a flowering plant of the American genus Cosmos, related to the dahlia) COS (type of lettuce) + MEAdow (field) excluding 3 of the 6 letters DOW, therefore leaving the other half MEA) COS MEA – as this is a down entry, the letters COS are above or covering the letters MEA |
| 2 | Getting late to engage independent detective (9)
RECIPIENT (receiving; getting) RECENT (late) containing (to engage) (I [independent] + PI [private investigator; detective]) REC (I PI) ENT |
| 3 | Head of security filmed taxi driver avoiding Avis B level (8)
STRICKLE (to level a measure of grain or shape the surface of a mould with an instrument of the same name) S (first letter of [head of] Security) + TRavis BICKLE (name of the title character of the film Taxi Driver [1976]) excluding (avoiding) AVIS B S TRICKLE |
| 4 | In worship, they rattled African- American woman without rector (6)
SISTRA (ancient Egyptian wire-rattles used in Isis worship) SISTA (an African-American woman) containing (without; outsider) R (rector) SIST (R) A |
| 5 | Purity of thin marriage certificate adopted by Christian Science (11)
CLEANLINESS (purity) (LEAN [thin] + LINES [reference ‘marriage LINES {a certificate of marriage}]) contained in (adopted by) CS (Christian Science) C (LEAN LINES) S |
| 6 | Naked exploit worried Primrose (5)
OXLIP (originally a hybrid between primrose and cowslip; now, a species of the genus Primula (P. elatior), like a large pale cowslip) Anagram of (worried) eXPLOIt excluding the outer letters (naked) E and T OXLIP* |
| 7 | Scotsman’s accordingly prepared letter-carrier? (3)
SAE (Scottish form of ‘so’ [accordingly]) SAE (Stamped Addressed Envelope, a prepared letter carrier) double definition SAE |
| 8 | Scottish island containing spot mostly in shade (7, 2 words)
SKY BLUE (a shade of blue) SKYE (Scottish island) containing (containing) BLUr (smear, smudge, spot) excluding the final letter R (mostly) SKY (BLU) E |
| 9 | Losing badly, take expertise from bureau? (4)
DESK (bureau [desk with drawers]) DESKill (remove the element of human expertise from a process through automation, computerisation etc.) excluding (losing) ILL (badly) DESK |
| 11 | Did Ratty age terribly, no longer unhurried? (11)
TARDYGAITED (archaic [no longer] word for ‘slow-paced’; no longer unhurried) Anagram of (terribly) DID RATTY AGE TARDYGAITED* |
| 16 | Mistakenly gain tempo – you might stop playing after this (9, 2 words)
GAME POINT (the stage at which the next point may end the game; you would stop playing if the person holding GAME POINT won the next point) Anagram of (mistakenly) GAIN TEMPO GAME POINT* |
| 19 | When volume is constant, curve is ordinary and routine (8)
ISOCHORE (curve representing variation of some quantity under conditions of constant volume) IS + O (ordinary) + CHORE (routine) IS O CHORE |
| 20 | Tone to maintain for Eastenders, repeatedly holding good (7, 2 words)
OLD GOLD (dull GOLD colour; tone) (‘OLD [Eastender’s pronunciation of HOLD [maintain] + ‘OLD [Eastender’s pronunciation of HOLD [maintain] giving maintain for Eastenders repeatedly) containing (holding) G (good) OLD (G) OLD |
| 23 | Increasingly contrived fine that is accepted by Croatia (6)
HOKIER (increasingly contrived) (OK [okay; satisfactory; fine] + IE [id est; that is]) contained in (accepted by) HR (International Vehicle Registration for Croatia) H (OK IE) R |
| 24 | Man books hotel in flier (6, 2 words)
IO MOTH (a large North American moth; flier) IOM (Isle of Man; Man) + OT (Old Testament; books [of the Bible]) + H (hotel is the international radio communication codeword for the letter H) IO M OT H |
| 26 | Almost fired Jade for flavouring sauce (5)
SHOYU (a rich soy sauce made from soya beans naturally fermented with wheat or barley, used as flavouring in oriental, especially Japanese, cookery) SHOt (fired) excluding the final letter (almost) T + YU (precious jade) SHO YU |
| 28 | Feature of slimmed-down tuber (4)
EDDO (the tubers of various plants, especially taro) EDDO (hidden word in [feature of] slimmED-DOwn) EDDO |
| 31 | Raised edge not moved (3)
MEH (a word used to express indifference or boredom; said by someone not moved) HEM (edge) reversed (raised [down entry]) MEH< |
I originally entered EPIC and AKEE from the definitions, and I eventually managed to think of TELEPIC myself but I searched through Chambers to find VAKEEL which annoyed me because I could then remember seeing it somewhere recently. There were few other guesses that I needed Chambers to confirm because I didn’t know LANDES, the Spanish meaning of DALE or the marriage certificate meaning on LINES. It didn’t occur to me that 3d was referring to the film Taxi Driver until I had guessed the answer and then I was only pretty sure De Niro’s character’s name was Travis Bickle.
It took me a while to think ‘Gemelo perhaps’ could give CROSSWORD because I usually think of Gemelo as the name of the setter rather than the puzzle, but I suppose, like Azed and Everyman, it’s both.
For 27a, I eventually decided that ‘musical instrument?’ could be a (slightly) cryptic definition since it’s an instrument that’s used in the playing of music
Thanks, duncanshiell and Gemelo.
Found this easier than normal, though I entered costus for 1d, leading to the entire top left unsolved. Thanks to both.