We had the pleasure of blogging the most recent Hob puzzle last month, and fate has landed him at our door again this week.
The theme to today’s puzzle became fairly obvious early on in the solve, so this didn’t have us scratching our heads too much. There are however some crafty uses of the theme at 25A and 12D to keep the grey matter fizzing.
| Across | ||
| 7 | Knife from Switzerland, ultimately made in China (7) | |
| MACHETE | CH (Switzerland) |
|
| 8 | 16A 12A of type found in print these days (7) | |
| ROMANCE | ROMAN (font, or ‘type found in print’) CE (common era – ‘these days’) | |
| 9 | Dressed as college boy (4) | |
| CLAD | C (college) LAD (boy) | |
| 10 | 16A 12A in which stubborn English king gets screwed? (10) | |
| BONKBUSTER | An anagram of STUBBORN E (English) K (king) – anagrind is ‘gets screwed’ | |
| 12 | Kind of news to note (5) | |
| GENRE | GEN (news) RE (note) | |
| 13 | Fergus, a fellow that’s spoilt his vote? (8) | |
| SUFFRAGE | An anagram of FERGUS A F (fellow) – anagrind is ‘spoilt’ | |
| 15 | Criminal tendency (4) | |
| BENT | Double definition | |
| 16 | Ground-breaking North London dwelling place? (5) | |
| NOVEL | N (north) ‘OVEL (‘hovel’ – dwelling place – pronounced as it might be in London, dropping the ‘h’) | |
| 17 | Short reading for one in the nick (4) | |
| CURT | R (reading – one of the three Rs) in CUT (nick) | |
| 18 | Break of 19 by male or female (8) | |
| INTERVAL | INTER (entomb – 19d) VAL (name that can be either male or female) | |
| 20 | 16A 12A with second chapter providing something imaginary (3-2) | |
| SCI-FI | S (second) C (chapter) IF (providing) I (something imaginary – the square root of -1) | |
| 21 | Length given to note in second part (10) | |
| INSTALMENT | L (length) ME (note) in INSTANT (second) | |
| 23 | Christopher Lee’s wingless plane (4) | |
| KITE | KIT (Christopher) |
|
| 25 | 16A 12A with many stripped off for war (7) | |
| CRIMEAN | CRIME (a ‘novel genre’ – the theme, 16A 12A) + |
|
| 26 | Affected liberal writing style (7) | |
| BRAILLE | An anagram of LIBERAL – anagrind is ‘affected’ | |
| Down | ||
| 1/24 | 16A 12A – it’s hard to believe it could involve a short story (4,4) | |
| TALL TALE | Cryptic definition – a TALL TALE could be said to be the opposite of a ‘short story’ | |
| 2 | 16A 12A featuring dog with tail moving centrally during wag (8) | |
| WHODUNIT | HOUND (dog) with the last letter or ‘tail’ moving to the middle, in WIT (wag) | |
| 3 | Extremely short story, female having fled the Trotters’ home (6) | |
| STABLE | S |
|
| 4 | Iffy party, but drunk and mostly satisfied (8) | |
| DOUBTFUL | DO (party) + an anagram of BUT (anagrind is ‘drunk’) + FUL |
|
| 5 | Rope essential to GB Shaw’s erotica (6) | |
| HAWSER | Hidden in (‘essential to’) ‘SHAW’S ERotica’ | |
| 6 | Spots odd bits of balconies are missing (4) | |
| ACNE | ||
| 11 | Poet with six lines on what’s essential to every state capital (9) | |
| NASHVILLE | NASH (poet) VI (six) LL (lines) + E |
|
| 12 | Common 16A 12A (5) | |
| GREEN | An anagram of GENRE (12A) – anagrind is ‘novel’ (16A) | |
| 14 | Writer using alternative spelling of Drakensberg or Kilimanjaro (5) | |
| GORKI | Hidden in, or part ‘of’ DrakensburG OR KIlimanjaro – the refernce to ‘alternative spelling’ is that his name is more often spelt ‘Gorky’ | |
| 16 | 16A 12A in which partners eat duck, heading off before everything comes back up (8) | |
| NOVELLAS | N and S (partners in bridge) round or ‘eating’ |
|
| 17 | 16A 12A in which yokel is seduced by literary companion (5,3) | |
| CHICK LIT | HICK (yokel) in or ‘seduced by’ C LIT (Companion of Literature). We wonder if Hob was persuaded to use this definition of the insertion rather than the more risqué but obvious one? | |
| 19 | Bury a little kitten (tom, Burmese) (6) | |
| ENTOMB | Hidden in or ‘a little’ of ‘kittEN TOM Burmese’ | |
| 20 | 16A 12A in which English girl’s mounted (6) | |
| SATIRE | E (English) RITA’S (girl’s) reversed or ‘mounted’ | |
| 22 | Fate of One Direction, if Hobson’s choice? (4) | |
| NORN | N (north) OR N (north) – Hobson’s choice of only one direction | |
| 24 | See 1 | |
Really good fun. Had a blind spot and couldn’t parse NOVEL until after I’d completed the puzzle. Tend to get despondent when the gateway clue doesn’t fall immediately, but worked it out from other answers.
Parsing query – I thought the last letter in 11D came from ev(e)ry, this being the usual interpretation when the “essential” material of a word is clued.
Thanks to Hob and Bertandjoyce.
I did have to scratch my head a bit for this one and had problems with NOVEL like gwep @1. Completely missed the parsing of the clever GREEN but managed to work out CRIMEAN. Never heard of the Norse Fate at 22 and have set myself some homework to remember the three individual ones for future reference. I liked BONKBUSTER, both the clue and the word itself.
Thanks Hob and B&J.
An ingenious theme and an amusing solve. I struggled to get Norn until I remembered that there are three of them in Götterdämmerung.
Just couldn’t get on with this. Couldn’t get the gateway clues, and couldn’t get enough of the theme answers to work out the theme. Ended up using the check facility on the online version just to see if some wild guesses were right. Ironically, the gateway clues were about the last I got.