A chewy challenge this week from Vlad.
Timon and I found this puzzle enjoyable but on the difficult side, with a certain amount of general (or even specialist) knowledge required and a use of both UK and USA idiom. We appreciated the political comment at 5 across, although the clue was almost impossible to solve without most of the crossers in place and we raised our eyebrows at 18 across. I am slightly dubious about the parsings of a couple of answers, particularly 10 across and 16 down, so comments are, as always, very welcome.
If there was a theme, it eluded us, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t one!
Thanks to Vlad for a good mental workout.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | DOT BALL |
Doctor told lab nothing will come from it (3,4)
|
| *(TOLD LAB). A cricket term: a dot ball is one off which the batsman scores no run, nor are any extras, such as byes or wides, awarded. | ||
| 5 | PORKIES |
Corporate body running risk over start of enquiry – revealing these? (7)
|
| P(ost) O(ffice) (a corporate body), E(nquiry) inside *RISK. A reference to the Horizon computer scandal which led to hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters being prosecuted by the Post Office, and the subsequent public enquiry (whose final report is awaited). “Porkies” is a form of rhyming slang; pork pies/lies. | ||
| 9 | CHINO |
Punch’s old material (5)
|
| CHIN (punch) O(ld). We didn’t know that chino refers to the material, and chinos are the trousers made from it. | ||
| 10 | TESTIFIER |
Dummy trial for Trump rejected witness (9)
|
| In American usage a pacifier is what we in the UK call a baby’s dummy; so I think the wordplay here is to replace PAC with TEST (trial). A PAC (Political Action Committee) in the USA is a tax-exempt organisation that collects funds for political candidates, but not exclusively for Republicans. An alternative parsing is to read “trump” in the sense used in card games, meaning to outrank a card of another (non-trump) suit, or to cap it, but I think that is stretching the synonym a little. Anyone have a better parsing? | ||
| 11 | NIGHT-LIGHT |
Easy to pick up, Sir said previously (one’s not very bright) (5-5)
|
| Homophone of “knight” (Sir), LIGHT (easy to pick up). | ||
| 12, 28 | WINE TASTING |
Point to neat gin – it’s wrong drink for test (4,7)
|
| W(est) (point of the compass) *(NEAT GIN ITS). | ||
| 14 | UP TO SCRATCH |
Preceding score no more than satisfactory (2,2,7)
|
| UP TO (preceding) SCRATCH (score). | ||
| 18 | URBAN LEGEND |
Timeless Punjabi superstar being fanciful? It won’t be true (5,6)
|
| (T)URBAN LEGEND (Punjabi superstar?). Not all inhabitants of Punjab wear a turban, of course. | ||
| 21 | KNIT |
Come together shouting ‘Booby!’ (4)
|
| A homophone of “nit”, or fool. | ||
| 22 | RIDING CROP |
Pricing rod for ‘guidance’ – it may be used for beating (6,4)
|
| A simple anagram of (PRICING ROD). | ||
| 25 | ARTEMISIA |
Herb Alpert releasing record – aim is to get hit (9)
|
| *(A(lp)ERT AIM IS). An LP is a record. | ||
| 26 | OMANI |
Arab returning very soon (5)
|
| IN A MO (rev). | ||
| 27 | DISMISS |
Badmouth teacher getting sack (7)
|
| DIS(respect) MISS (teacher), | ||
| 28 |
See 12
|
|
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | DECENT |
Want to accommodate Charlie round town, OK? (6)
|
| This took us a long time to parse, and to decide between DECENT and DECANT. Eventually Timon spotted that NEED = want, and so we got C inside NEED (rev) (the reversal indicator being “round”) followed by T(own). | ||
| 2 | TRIAGE |
What often awaits you at A&E? Visit with no parking taking a very long time (6)
|
| TRI(p) (visit with no parking), AGE (a very long time). Some may feel that this clue has a semi-&lit quality. | ||
| 3 | ABOUT-TURNS |
Reverses, so doing showing hesitation (5-5)
|
| I think that this is just a cryptic definition, unless someone can point out the wordplay. | ||
| 4 | LATHI |
‘Stick with it!’ Fail occasionally getting upset (5)
|
| Alternate letters reversed (“upset” – this is a down clue) in “wItH it fAiL”. | ||
| 5 | POST-HASTE |
Following bad feeling second intervenes quickly (4-5)
|
| POST (following), S(econd) inside HATE (bad feeling) | ||
| 6 | RAIL |
Train flier (4)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 7 | INITIATE |
Why I went to Pizza Express for a starter? (8)
|
| IN IT I ATE. An old chestnut, with no connection with Pizza Express: any word for restaurant would do. | ||
| 8 | SCREECHY |
Grating a lot of cheese, cry after mishap (8)
|
| *(CHEES(e) CRY). | ||
| 13 | PRODIGIOUS |
Promises to provide funding for archaeologist’s work upfront – that’s great (10)
|
| An archaeologist is a PRO who DIGs; IOUs are promises to provide funding. | ||
| 15 | THE MISSUS |
‘So, about young woman on the internet?’ (Think she may be getting suspicious) (3,6)
|
| EMISS (electronic young woman) inside THUS (so). The term is redolent of a past era of British comedians who made misogynistic jokes about wives and mothers-in-law. | ||
| 16 | AUCKLAND |
Caught in Scotland, maybe the biggest city in the country (8)
|
| The auk is a seabird which may be seen in Scotland (but also elsewhere), so if we describe Scotland as “auk”land, and insert a C we have the largest city in New Zealand. | ||
| 17 | OBVIATES |
Prevents originally one motelier having sex (8)
|
| O(ne), VI (Roman numeral six, or sex in Latin) inside BATES (the owner of the motel in the film Psycho). We spent some time looking for a word containing IT, on the assumption that sex = IT in crosswords, which it usually does, but not here. | ||
| 19 | ARGALI |
Threatened horny individual, one bothering a girl (6)
|
| A *(A GIRL). A species of wild sheep with horns, most of whom are listed as endangered. | ||
| 20 | SPRING |
Pop up in bookies’ enclosure? (6)
|
| SP is short for Starting Price, which is determined by the bookies who gather in the ring, their enclosure at a racecourse, so the SP RING is a plausible if fanciful description (hence the question mark). | ||
| 23 | INAPT |
Not the done thing to sleep through it (5)
|
| NAP inside IT. | ||
| 24 | IMPI |
Content to clear Zulu fighters (4)
|
| (l)IMPI(d) (clear). |
10. Trump is CAP and rejected is a reversal indicator, to give PAC which as you say is replaced by TRIAL.
Thanks bridgesong – definitely chewy, but that’s what I want from a Prize. (I parsed 16 as Scotland = ‘A UK land’, with the c included.)
Comment #3
I parsed 14a as UP TO (no more than) preceding SCRATCH (score), and 13d as PRO (for) + DIG (archaeologist’s work) upfront, then IOUS.
No ideas on the others I’m afraid.
Thanks to bridgesong & Vlad.
Agree with the above comments.
ABOUT TURNS
RE turns ~~~~~~>ER (hesitation)
UP TO SCRATCH:
I agree with the blogger.
1d. I noted that the single letter abbreviation T for town is not given in either Chambers or Collins. However, it is given in the ODE with a very specific reference to its use in designating sports clubs, they even cite “Mansfield T(own)” as an example (Grimsby would be just as good as we saw today!).
PRODIGIOUS
I think it would be better if we take the ‘Promises to provide funding for archaeologist’s work upfront ‘ as
one block to indicate PRO DIG IOUS.
INITIATE
Looks like the def should be ‘for a starter’.
Thanks bridgesong and Vlad.
INITIATE
Apologies
The underlined ‘a starter’ works considering ‘INITIATE as a noun.