Imogen gives your blogger a fairly tough workout with this Prize-slot puzzle – which it seems is also my first chance to blog an Imogen…
…and it took a few returns, with the first pass just after midnight publication last Saturday; the second some time in the night, when my ‘older man’s bladder‘ woke me up, and then a couple of re-visits the following morning before things fell into place.
There doesn’t seem to be any theme or Nina that I can divine, but it just took me a while to get on the wavelength of this one, with 12A HAZARD LIGHTS and 6A BROW among the last to fall, and 16D LUCRATIVE the LOP (last one parsed).
I enjoyed the COLERIDGE anagram (El Greco I’d) at 19A, the sporting misdirection of 11D SIGHT-READING, and 10A JUNO/d’you know…which reminded me of that other homophone, ‘D’you know, the capital of Alaska’… 22D KOAN needed a dictionary check, just to be sure, and 23D -ISMS reminded me, tangentially, of the Maureen Lipman BT advert where she proudly announced that her grandson had got ‘an -ology’ in his O-level (GCSE?) results…
So, in the absence of any ‘ta da!‘ revelation below of a theme-ette or Nina that I have missed, that seems to be that – a relatively tough challenge that was (IMHO) worthy of a prize spot.
My thanks to Imogen (looking forward to locking horns again) and I trust all is clear below.
[I would like to add one small anecdote: When I first entered the Times Championships, many years ago – 2012/2013? – when it was held in conjunction with the Cheltenham Literary Festival, my parents happened to be staying with us at the time. My father, a lifelong Grauniad solver, offered to drive me there and provide moral support. Richard Browne – for Imogen is he – was involved with the organisation (as a former Times Crossword Editor at that point?) and was hovering around the entrance pointing people in the right direction, etc. Anyway, once we had all sat down and started solving, my father ended up chatting with Richard for a while, on the periphery of the action, about matters cruciverbal. And to this day, whenever I mention the latest Times Champs that I have jousted and come up short at, he never fails to remind me of the trip to Cheltenham and what a lovely chat he had with ‘that nice man’ who had no idea who he was (and vice versa) but was just so friendly and kind to spend some time with a complete stranger talking about this thing that we all love (and spend/waste so much time!) doing.]
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
| 1A | METABOLISM | Satisfied, virtually cancel mass chemical processes (10)
MET (satisfied) + ABOLIS( |
| 6A | BROW | Poet Robert missing half the summit (4)
half of poet Robert BROW( |
| 9A | CROP CIRCLE | Cut round field pattern (4,6)
CROP (cut) + CIRCLE (round) |
| 10A | JUNO | Are you aware of speaking badly of goddess? (4)
homophone, i.e. speaking badly – ‘D’YOU KNOW?’, or ‘are you aware…?’, could sound like JUNO! |
| 12A | HAZARD LIGHTS | Take a chance on answers here: two blinking indicators (6,6)
HAZARD (take a chance) + LIGHTS (entries in a crossword, so answers here!) |
| 15A | ARMADILLO | On branch, notice sick old animal (9)
ARM (branch, limb) + AD (advert, notice) + ILL (sick) + O (old) |
| 17A | HORSE | Heard husky in bay perhaps (5)
homophone, i.e. heard – HOARSE (husky) can sound like HORSE (bay, perhaps) |
| 18A | INTRO | Opening passage, repaint Roman walls (5)
hidden word in, i.e. walled by, ‘repaINT ROman’ |
| 19A | COLERIDGE | El Greco I’d mistaken for a poet (9)
anag, i.e. mistaken, of EL GRECO ID |
| 20A | COURT MARTIAL | Proceeding in field to woo maiden, not complete? No pressure! (5,7)
COURT (woo) + M (maiden, cricket notation) + ( |
| 24A | RAIN | Bucket needing great physical effort? No way (4)
( |
| 25A | MIGRANOUS | Creature of the harvest endlessly eating one crop, such a headache (10)
M_OUS( |
| 26A | ECHO | Another chance to hear letter on the radio (4)
double defn. – an ECHO can be another chance to hear something; and ECHO is used in the phonetic alphabet, so maybe on the radio, for E |
| 27A | BELONGINGS | Show keenness to break into people’s stuff (10)
BE_INGS (people) around (broken into by) LONG (show keenness) |
| Down | ||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
| 1D | MACE | One way to control rioting staff (4)
double defn. – MACE, a type of tear gas, can be used to quell rioting; and a MACE can be a ceremonial staff |
| 2D | THOU | So briefly, there’s nothing in that for you (4)
TH_U( |
| 3D | BACK AND FORTH | Not hard for stroke on river, the way the oar moves (4,3,5)
BACK_( |
| 4D | LARVA | Grub is hot stuff, with a pinch of rosemary in (5)
LA_VA (hot stuff!) around R (first letter, or a pinch, of Rosemary) |
| 5D | SALAD BOWL | Sorry to engage a pupil to deliver cold meal here (5,4)
S_AD (sorry) around (engaging) A + L (learner driver, student) + BOWL (deliver, the ball, in cricket) |
| 7D | ROUGH TRADE | Violent partners rule over trembling daughter (5,5)
R (rule) + O (over, cricket notation) + UGH_TRADE (anag, i.e. trembling, of DAUGHTER) |
| 8D | WHOMSOEVER | All those that somehow managed to upset priest (10)
WHOMSOE (anag, i.e. managed, of SOMEHOW) + VER (Rev, reverend or priest, upset) |
| 11D | SIGHT-READING | Playing without knowing the score? (5-7)
CD – so SIGHT_READ is to play music without reading the notes (score)! |
| 13D | MARIE CURIE | As chemist I must twice intervene in equine therapy (5,5)
MAR_E (horse, equine) + CUR_E (therapy), both ‘intervened’ in by I, so twice |
| 14D | AMATEURISH | Some friend you are, I would say, sort of sloppy (10)
A (some) + MATE (friend) + UR (homophone/text speak – you are/UR) + ISH (sort of) |
| 16D | LUCRATIVE | Rewarding to be touring capitals, rapidly attracting trade from the beginning (9)
L_IVE (to be) around (touring) UC (upper case, capitals) + RAT (beginning letters of ‘Rapidly Attracting Trade’) |
| 21D | TURBO | Regularly burn out defective power source in car (5)
anag, i.e. defective, of B( |
| 22D | KOAN | Riddle to floor a number (4)
KO (knock out, floor, e.g. in boxing) + A + N (number) |
| 23D | ISMS | Doctrines compressed into one text (4)
I (one) + SMS (text message) |
Imogen is another setter I have difficulty with but although it took several attempts I managed to complete all but one (22d – never heard of KOAN) and parse all but one of those I solved (Why are LIGHTS crossword answers?).
I am not a huge fan of homophones but I did like this one; JUNO. Also liked: THOU, MARIE CURIE, ARMADILLO, COURT MARTIAL, ECHO
Thanks Imogen and mc_rapper67
Thanks both.
THOU (should have got) and KOAN (nho but it was clear enough) defeated me. UC in LUCRATIVE was impressive. Altogether an enjoyable puzzle, not unusual for Imogen.
Fiona@1: ‘Lights’ are (I think) the blank squares on the grid into which we enter our crossword answers; the dark one are called ‘unches’ (something like that anyway).
Thanks Imogen for an enjoyable crossword and mc_rapper67 for the blog – great story. I couldn’t account for the U in LUCRATIVE and didn’t understand the letter on the radio – thanks for the explanations. My favourites were JUNO, ARMADILLO and MARIE CURIE (I tried to figure out whether she had anything to do with arsenic – apparently not). I raised eyebrows over “two”in HAZARD LIGHTS – there’s definitely more; the driver behind only sees two though
I enjoyed this as I tend to with the Prizes as I’m ununable to cheat with the check button which seems to make me better at solving (eventuallly). Can’t remember if or how much I resorted to wildcard word-searching but I don’t think it was much.
I guessed BACK AND FORTH but didn’t enter for a long time as I couldn’t parse it, seeing ‘Not hard for’ as potential anagram fodder. I don’t think I parsed 16d LUCRATIVE at all so thanks for that.
I was a bit surprised about ROUGH TRADE – I know the London record label/shops but didn’t know that particular definition(!)
Alphalpha @2 – I think unches refers to unchecked/uncrossed letters in words in the grid – considered bad or unfair if they make up a majority of the word’s letters.
Thanks Imogen & mc_rapper67.
I thought this was a worthy Prize, which had me coming back for several mini-sittings during the week. I can only nod in agreement withe the comments so far, as I too failed on the nho KOAN (alas KO as K.O. didnt occur to me as I quickly ran through possibilities for -OAN), couldn’t account for the U in LUCRATIVE (good one), and took a while to justify the first half of BACK AND FORTH. I also shared the faves mentioned.
CROP CIRCLE took me a while, which was funny because it was the first image that occurred to me when I tried to make sense of the surface (which I always aim to do before tackling the parse, and usually enjoy the images they provide), but I immediately decided that the definition would be just “pattern” and that the parse would be an envelope, so it didn’t occur to me that crop circle would be the actual solution! When it became obvious from the checkers, there was a moment of confusion immediately followed by a facepalm.
Thanks both