One doesn’t tend to expect an easy ride if you happen to draw an Anax on a Saturday.
I have to put my hands up and admit this one was far beyond me. There was a great deal of stuff I’d never heard of, and plenty where even seeing the answer and reading the supplied hints for the wordplay, I don’t think I’d solve even if I saw the same clue again.
Oh well, over to you lot. And apologies to Anax: this may not be a vintage blog post.
| Across | ||
| 1 | ALSO | Too involved in cultural sociology (4) |
| Hidden in [cultur]AL SO[ciology]. | ||
| 3 | DOUBLE THIN | Extra fat in toast recipe? (6,4) |
| DOUBLE + THIN. I assume this to be something similar to Melba toast, but I can’t seem to prove it so I could be miles away. | ||
| 10 | PRIMITIVO | Grape for wine, particular thing I order (9) |
| PRIM + IT + I + VO. | ||
| 11 | BURNT | Service parts only went up (5) |
| RN in BUTs. | ||
| 12 | ARENA | Patch covering new bowl? (5) |
| N in AREA. | ||
| 13 | GLENDOWER | Prince of Wales dying to block dirty look (9) |
| END in GLOWER. | ||
| 14 | SIMPLE FRACTURE | Break camp – result, fire put out (6,8) |
| Anagram of (CAMP RESULT FIRE). | ||
| 18 | STARTING PISTOL | Banger racing uses … (8,6) |
| A cryptic definition: it goes “bang” and it’s used in racing. One of those deceptively simple CDs that can take (me) ages to spot. | ||
| 20 | CAMERA-SHY | … cars he may crash, avoiding shots (6-3) |
| Anagram of (CARS HE MAY). | ||
| 23 | LEEDS | City lights using extra energy (5) |
| An extra E inserted into LEDS. | ||
| 24 | ADEPT | An office expert (5) |
| A + DEPT. | ||
| 25 | ALDIS LAMP | Supermarket make-up hiding spymaster’s code device (5,4) |
| ALDI + (M in SLAP). One of these sorts of things. | ||
| 26 | ON SCHEDULE | Cryptic clues honed as expected (2,8) |
| Anagram of (CLUES HONED). | ||
| 27 | NEXT | Succeeding by breaking clear (4) |
| X (times, multiplied by) in NET. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | APPLAUSE | Software – so before this, use hand (8) |
| APP + LA + USE. “So” comes before “la” in musical situations. Another one that took me a fair while to quite grasp the wordplay. | ||
| 2 | SHIVER ME TIMBERS | Crumbs of old salt (6,2,7) |
| A cryptic definition. This is “crumbs” as in “goodness me”, and “salt” as in “sailor”. | ||
| 4 | OWING | Outstanding golf after everyone loses (5) |
| 0 + WIN + G. | ||
| 5 | BOOMERANG | “Come back”, partner number one called (9) |
| BOO + ME + RANG. I think “boo” is a US slang term for “partner”. | ||
| 6 | EMBED | She comes out with me to turn over plant (5) |
| (DEB + ME), all reversed. | ||
| 7 | HEREWARD THE WAKE | Outlaw‘s ‘manly pay’ cut into revenue (8,3,4) |
| Well done at home if you’d even heard of him. I think the wordplay is along the lines of HE + REWARD + (HEW in TAKE). | ||
| 8 | NOTARY | Clerk never hides books (6) |
| OT in NARY. | ||
| 9 | PIS ALLER | Is everyone splitting a last resort? (3,5) |
| (IS ALL) in PER. Even with the generous wordplay, there was no way I was going to be able to solve this. It means “a course of action followed as a last resort”, rather than some nice place you might go skiing, for example. | ||
| 15 | FRIESLAND | Dutch province‘s butcher briefly seen in China (9) |
| SLA[y] in FRIEND. From rhyming slang: China plate = mate. | ||
| 16 | TAILLESS | Docked as sea still rough (8) |
| Anagram of (SEA STILL). | ||
| 17 | FLESHPOT | Will put up pressure in sexy strip club (8) |
| Will SELF< + (P in HOT). | ||
| 19 | OCTAVO | Old firm receives box containing a book (6) |
| VAT in (O + CO). | ||
| 21 | RETCH | Rat not with cat (5) |
| [w]RETCH. | ||
| 22 | YODEL | Hey Derek, make an off-peak call (5) |
| YO + DEL. | ||
* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; underlined = definition; Hover to expand abbreviations
Well done, Simon!
Completing this puzzle was not the hardest bit [I know a bit about Anax and the wavelength you should be on] but some solutions went in unparsed (or, at least not fully parsed).
10ac (PRIMITIVO): I still don’t see why prim = particular, and I also think VO = order is stretching my braincells a bit.
But then I’m not British.
In 1d (APPLAUSE) I couldn’t explain LA but hey, that’s clever! Really clever!
5d (BOOMERANG), hmm. Even if boo = partner where does ‘me’ fit in?
Overall very enjoyable stuff, topnotch.
I think 3ac should be DOUBLE CHIN.
With ‘extra fat’ as the definition and the wordplay referring to ‘chin chin’ (a toast).
And now I am going to spend some time reading about Hereward The Wake ……
Thanks Simon
I agree with Sil re 3ac and to answer his query re 5dn, Oxford On-line defines ‘boo’ as “a person’s boyfriend or girlfriend”, so ‘partner’, with ‘number one’ = ME.
In 2dn I think it should be MY, not ME, as this is supported by both Chambers and Oxford On-line.
19dn is O (old) CO (firm) around (receives) A in TV (box).
Before reading more. I also had double chin as in “chin chin”
Thanks for rest of blog-the by=x beat me as Anax can wear those brain cells-and I had burst instead of burnt-not good enough.
Anax is great
Re 7d, on my bookshelf is a much loved copy of Charles Kingsley’s novel of the same name.
Fantastic stuff Dean, many many thanks. Commiserations to Simon, though: I hope you feel better soon.
I concur With Sil about10a, and hope for a bit of elucidation.
Re. 10a PRIMITIVO…
‘Prim’ is ‘prissy’ or ‘(over-) particular’, I think, and VO is for Victorian Order about which I know zip except that it’s in Chambers.
What a great puzzle. Can’t pretend I didn’t need help, but some of the surfaces were the best crozzers’ jokes we’ve had in ages. Thanks to Anax, and to the very-short-strawed Simon for a dashed game blog.
10a prim, prissy, particular, seems fair enough. ‘order’ = Victorian Order, there’s a Royal Victorian Order. I suppose as it’s in dictionaries it’s OK.
Great blog, Simon – thank you very much.
Have to admit I took a risk with 2d, although all but one of the usual dictionaries goes for the ME spelling. I honestly wanted to beef it up with wordplay but just couldn’t find anything!
As for BOO=partner, I think it’s mostly American and predates the awful BAE. Although I’m familiar with it in numerous contexts, it was particularly popular in the sitcom Parks & Recreation, being Tom Haverford’s preferred word for a partner, male or female.
I thought this was a beauty. Very difficult, though with a combination of thinking hard, persistence (ie it took me a very long time!) and just plain guesswork it was possible. I ended up not getting the VO bit of PRIMITIVO and had never heard of BOO for ‘partner’ – thanks for the explanation, Anax. Hard to pick out the highlights but the clues for DOUBLE CHIN, PIS ALLER, YODEL and STARTING PISTOL stood out for me.
Thanks to Simon (I don’t envy you having had to blog this one) and to Anax.
I don’t understand the explanation of 21 where the definition is cat and the answer is retch.
David @10: ‘to cat’ can apparently mean ‘to vomit’ which explains the solution.
I guess, you see the construction (colloquial use of ‘rat’ for ‘wretch’, minus w (with)).
Thanks, Sil. Apparently is an apposite choice of word. I’ve seen the term used in the sense of raising an anchor, or prowling about looking for people of the opposite gender, but never in the sense of upchucking. I’d love to see an example.
Well, I finished it and only needed help (an electronic word search) on 10ac, which I’d not heard of and couldn’t parse when I did get it.
Never read the Kinglsley’s novel, but I do remember a BBC Sunday classic serialisation of it in the sixties.
Is there anything in the clue for 2dn to indicate whether it is ME or MY? I entered the former, as I’m sure it’s the form I’m familiar with, even if it isn’t in Chambers.
Great puzzle. Thanks anax for the fun and simon for blogging. Oddly, I got the long solutions (with some help) but found some of the 5 letter words challenging. Had RETCH but couldn’t explain it. And couldn’t see the embed in BURNT. Favourites were 2 and 3.
19 is still puzzling me. VAT for box? and I’m looking for a reversal indicator.
dormouse @13. Anax himself dropped in to comment re ME/MY at @8.
@PaddyMelon re 19, it’s [“A” inside T(ele)V(ision) (box colloq.)] all in O(ld) & CO(mpany)
paddymelon@15: Yes, I’d read the comment, but there was nothing there to say what in the clue indicates that it should have been MY, leastwise, nothing I can see.8
Re 21d: ‘Shoot the cat’ is colloquial for ‘vomit’, which is probably connected.
Thankyou flashling@16 for TAV I was a bit confused from the explanation above that it was VAT.
Dormouse @17. I inferred from Anax’s comment that he realised that was a possible flaw/risk. But then I might be missing something else.
Didn’t get round to this till yesterday afternoon and then struggled a lot. Then with about half the grid completed I suddenly realised 18ac was STARTING PISTOL and that was the the metaphorical one for me to finish it in a rush. PRIMITIVO was my LOI; Not in Chambers, but I must have heard of it as it’s what came to mind – and I found it in Collins.
Thanks to Anax and Simon
PS: An interesting aside that the abbreviation for Royal Victorian Order should be simply VO and not RVO – can anyone explain why?
Sorry but 3AC has to be double chin i.e. ‘extra fat’, doesn’t it ? Two chins is also a recipe for a toast i.e. chin + chin.