A great puzzle, full of misdirection. I have not blogged a puzzle from Loroso for years, so I am very pleased indeed to get this one. Sorry the blog is delayed but I had Internet connection problems all morning and the puzzle wasn’t easy! Thank you Loroso.
There is one clue I cannot solve, any help would be appreciated.
| Across | ||
| 1 | SPRAY CAN | Container I ask you to fill in medical examination (5,3) |
| PRAY ( ask you) in SCAN (medical examination) | ||
| 6 | BITCHY | Nasty irritation, according to nurses (6) |
| ITCH (irritation) inside (nursed by) BY (according to) | ||
| 9 | SIT VAC | Broadcaster apparently bagged small job? (3,3) |
| 10 | NICOTINE | Rosberg can finally see something in smoke (8) |
| NICO (Nico Rosenberg, F1 driver) then TIN (can) and seeE (final letter of) | ||
| 11 | HYMN | Spiritual piece that man heard (4) |
| sounds like (heard) “him” (that man) | ||
| 12 | AIR HOSTESS | She is a sort to go flying (3,7) |
| anagram (to go flying) of SHE IS A SORT – definition is &lit | ||
| 14 | WEREWOLF | People come out in retreat, finding monster (8) |
| WE (the people) and FLOWER (come out) reversed (in retreat) | ||
| 16 | MOOT | What cows go through, initially open (4) |
| MOO (what cows go) and Through (initial letter of) – e.g. an open question | ||
| 18 | FINE | Magnificent ground (4) |
| double definition | ||
| 19 | SWAN SONG | Pen a final ditty? (4,4) |
| cryptic definition? A pen is a swan. I can’t quite get thios to work. It feels to me that it should be “Pen’s final ditty” | ||
| 21 | CISTERCIAN | Order tank to carry spies (10) |
| CISTERN (tank) contains CIA (spies) | ||
| 22 | QUIT | Stop rather short (4) |
| QUITe (rather, short) | ||
| 24 | CASHED IN | Murderer, about 25, liquidated (6,2) |
| CAIN (murderer, in Bible) contains SHED (hut) | ||
| 26 | ANADEM | A new cook made fillet (6) |
| A N (new) and anagram (cooked) of MADE | ||
| 27 | VESTAL | Sister loves talent shows (6) |
| found inside (shown by) loVES TALent | ||
| 28 | LINGERIE | Underwear that is put on last? (8) |
| cryptic definition. Lingerie is nightwear, what one puts on last. I spent a long time trying to make this something to do with shoes: worn under one’s feet and put on a cobbler’s last. UPDATE: another (and better) explanation is: IE (that is) following LINGER (last) – definition is “underwear” | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | PLINY | Roman author’s home on board ferry? (5) |
| IN (home) inside (on board) PLY (to ferry) | ||
| 3 | ADVANCEMENT | Plug lead – something to fix in upgrade (11) |
| AD (plug) VAN (lead) and CEMENT (something to fix) | ||
| 4 | CACHALOT | Heartlessly ensnare many a whale (8) |
| CAtCH (ensnare, heartlessly) and A LOT (many) | ||
| 5 | NON-PROFESSIONAL | Spooner’s “inn loaf” must be cooked ham (3-12) |
| anagram (cooked) of SPOONER’S INN LOAF – an anagram masquerading as a Spoonerism | ||
| 6 | BECKON | Call a stream “flowing” (6) |
| BECK (a stream) and ON (flowing) | ||
| 7 | TOT | The only thing monogrammed for baby (3) |
| (first letters (monogrammed) of The Only Thing | ||
| 8 | HANDS DOWN | Simply leaves (5,4) |
| double definition | ||
| 13 | TIMES SQUARE | XXXX part of Manhattan (5,6) |
| X is “times”, but I can’t see why XXXX is “times square” | ||
| 15 | ELIMINATE | Murder sounds good to me in lift (9) |
| I’M IN (sounds good to me) in ELATE (lift) | ||
| 17 | MAINTAIN | State finance (8) |
| double definition – to speak and to pay for | ||
| 20 | BRIDAL | Through speech, control wedding (6) |
| sounds like (through speech) “bridle” (control) – as an adjective e.g. bridal gown vs wedding dress | ||
| 23 | ICENI | Kill province’s rebellious tribe (5) |
| ICE (kill) and NI (Northern Ireland, province) | ||
| 25 | HUT | Heading off to cabin (3) |
| sHUT (to, of a door) missing first letter (heading off) | ||
definitions are underlined
I write these posts to help people get started with cryptic crosswords. If there is something here you do not understand ask a question; there are probably others wondering the same thing.
7 ac: I had this down as air (broadcast) vac (small job as in sits vac); don’t get the bagged bit – something to do with bags in a vacuum cleaner?
Thanks Paul
9ac puzzled me too for a while. It’s SIT VAC (small job) – ITV (broadcaster) in SAC (apparently bagged).
I parsed 28ac as LINGER (last) IE (that is) with the def. simply ‘underwear’.
Sorry I can’t help with 9 PeeDee. Hope someone can!
But, by accident or design, 17 is exactly the same clue (and answer) as Dean had in his Sunday Times Cryptic from January 29th. And as it happens I met it only two days ago at Leicester’s monthly Solve a Dean Over Lunch Club, with Ali and Eileen.
I believe 9ac is Sit Vac (abbreviation of Situation Vacant) which may be parsed as Sac (bagged) around ITV (Broadcaster) and is a ‘Small job’.
This was my last one in!
Really enjoyed the challenge of this one. Thanks Loroso and PeeDee.
It has been a very long time since we last saw Loroso but this one was well worth the wait. Lots to enjoy so thank you to both setter and blogger. Hopefully we won’t have to wait quite as long for the next appearance.
Thanks to all for the help with 9 and to Gaufrid for the improved explanation of 28.
What a surprise to see a Loroso after such a long time.
Too long a time, actually.
And what a joy to solve.
Unlike you, PeeDee (and perhaps others) I did not find this extremely hard.
That said, I couldn’t finish the NW, where 2d and 9ac defeated me (although, in the end, WordWeb helped me out of my misery).
4d (CACHALOT) and 26ac (ANADEM) I had never heard of but no problem to find them.
Agree, PeeDee, SWAN SONG (19ac) does not fully work.
The four crosses in 13d?
Perhaps, Loroso meant there are four of them and four’s a square?
However, the teacher is me would have said “X squared“.
And you might have expected a question mark.
Dunno – there’s probably something else going on.
I had the same deja vu as Conrad @3 [17d].
I buy The Sunday Times only every now and then and Sunday a week ago it was Dean’s turn.
Another wonderful puzzle which makes you realise what we are missing since Anax seems to have disappeared.
It’s since the Independent’s gone online and that’s perhaps not a coincidence?
Thanks PeeDee & Loroso
Sil – I thought of times squared too. My conclusion was that, apart form the missing “d”, this would require 5 Xs. XX is “times” so “times squared” would be “XX times XX” or XXxXX
Lovely blog, PeeDee – many thanks!
Pity about the MAINTAIN clue repetition. While puzzles may be chronologically close in publication, their setting can be several months apart. My copy of Crossword Compiler doesn’t seem to add clues to its database, so while the clue felt familiar I had no ready access to its previous use. Thankfully it’s mitigated by this one being a straightforward DD which I’d guess has been used many times before.
Didn’t envisage TIMES SQUARE causing confusion. It’s just X (times) and X x X (which results in a square).
Don’t worry about the Indy, Sil – I’ll be back. In fact I emailed Eimi recently to say I was starting more puzzles, but my promise went to pot because I’m still getting used to the time factor in setting the Sunday Times Jumbo GK puzzles, which can be very challenging in terms of grid fill. Anax will return, I promise.
Thanks PeeDee and Loroso – good to see you back [and thanks for the good news about Anax, too. 😉 ]
I failed by an embarrassingly long chalk to finish this, so I don’t feel qualified to comment, except to say that, as one whose heart does not leap at the sight of ‘Spoonerism’, I just loved 5dn!
I should have said ‘Spooner’, of course.
Thanks Loroso and PeeDee
A tough puzzle that took several solid sessions to finally nut out with plenty of digital help along the way to do it.
There were quite a number of clues that when I got the answer, there was still a lot of work to do to fully understand the word play part of it – BITCHY, WEREWOLF (working with FLOW instead of FLOWER initially), AIR HOSTESS (which I ended up not seeing the anagram) and TIMES SQUARE (now that the clever ruse with the XXXX has been fully explained).
There were others where it was just hard to get the word in the first place – SIT VAC (which just sat there vacant for ages and was my last one in), SWAN SONG (in which I was trying to justify the SING SING prison initially) and the well-hidden and well-misdirected definition of VESTAL.
It had been a while (March 2016 was my last one of his that I had done) since I had tackled one of his crosswords and look forward to his next one.
Thanks PeeDee and Loroso. Started this one late last night and didn’t finish very quickly! I thought TIMES SQUARE was X4 (or 4X!) – so TIMES (a) square. The actual explanation is even more convoluted. A tremendous puzzle, I thought, even though I share the slight doubt about SWAN SONG. Please, more LOROSO and ANAX asap.
I will concur with Dean about the challenge of compiling the Sunday Times general knowledge — and my commitment is only one every six weeks, I don’t complain for a moment however, as this is a very different and so equally enjoyable challenge as compiling my Generalist puzzles for Prospect magazine.