My second Peter blog and a nice gentle start to the crosswording week
There seems to be a bit of a food/eating/hunger sub theme although I might be imagining it, the grid is one that shouts out for a Nina but I can’t see one. The grid is not really solver friendly with quite a few answers having less than 50% checking letters -I know this always rankles my fellow blogger John.
Thanks Peter.
Across
9 Little bear in Surinam trained to get gold (4,5)
URSA MINOR
Stargazing time, SURINAM* trained & OR (gold in heraldry)
10 Stove popular once more? (5)
AGAIN
AGA (stove) & IN (popular)
11 US estate agent finds central Surrey accommodation for English singer (7)
REALTOR
E(nglish) & ALTO (singer) in central (su)RR(ey)
12 Greek deity suffering in style (7)
PANACHE
PAN (deity) & ACHE (suffering)
13 Endless lament about part of crossword (4)
GRID
DIRG(e) – lament – reversed
14 Very holy carcass not damaged (10)
SACROSANCT
[CARCASS NOT]* damaged
16 Stop ignoring North American insect (7)
TERMITE
N(orth) A(merican) removed from TERMI(na)TE
17 Cover found in gamekeeper’s heather (7)
SHEATHE
Hidden answer indicated by found
19 Menu is changed around since end of restaurant’s bad luck (10)
MISFORTUNE
FOR (since) & end of (restauran)T all in [MENU IS]* changed
22 Tool box? (4)
FILE
Double def-ish
24 Graduates tucking into tortilla with relish (7)
TABASCO
B.A. & S inside TACO for tortilla
25 Salesman forced Tina to put another coat on (7)
REPAINT
REP (salesman) & TINA* forced
26 Tea cooked in space is consumed (5)
EATEN
TEA* cooked inside EN – a space the size of an N in printing
27 Ask for job at university before lecturer gets put away (9)
POSTULATE
POST (job) & U(ni) & L(ecturer) & ATE (was put away, eaten). Was Peter hungry when he wrote some of the clues?
Down
1 Shut great room designed by queen’s birth parent (9,6)
SURROGATE MOTHER
[SHUT GREAT ROOM]* designed & E.R. (her maj)
2 Tree with special powers found by newly-cast Ariel (8)
ESPALIER
Def refers to a fruit tree grown on stakes, E.S.P. (special powers) & ARIEL* re-cast
3 Old hit set in Vegas motel (5)
SMOTE
Another hidden
4 Debilitated cook never dined (8)
ENERVATE
NEVER* cooked & ATE (dined) – yet more food/cooking/eating
5 Rugby player extremely eager to be polite (6)
PROPER
PROP (rugby player) & extremes of E(age)R
6 Mistreated hair tends to get discoloured (9)
TARNISHED
[HAIR TENDS]* mistreated
7 Tintin’s dance (6)
CANCAN
CAN (tin) twice
8 Sick of being out in the rain? (5,3,7)
UNDER THE WEATHER
Def/cryptic def – seen very similar clues to this a few times before
15 Emulsion thrown over top of informer’s car (9)
LIMOUSINE
EMULSION* thrown over top of I(nformer). Nice surface to this
17 Garment seen in cartoonist’s penultimate strip (8)
SUNDRESS
second to last letter of cartooniSt & UNDRESS. Liked this one too
18 Island where secretive Chinese society adopts new identity (8)
TRINIDAD
N(ew) & ID(entity) inside the TRIAD (chinese gang)
20 Small sailor turning up to get special footwear (6)
SABOTS
S(mall) & A.B. (sailor) & TO reversed & S(pecial)
21 Leaders of tank regiment given acknowledgement of mistake by soldiers (6)
TROOPS
Leaders of T(ank) R(egiment) & OOPS!
23 Notice about You Tube? (5)
SPOUT
U (txt speak) inside SPOT (notice)
I’m well chuffed with the mensh at 9a.
Thanks to Peter & flashling
@Baerchen surely the name check is for your son, as you’re The Great Bear 🙂
A pleasant coffee-time diversion in the Monday tradition. I didn’t find the few instances of less than 50% checking too much of a problem in this instance as everything was straightforward enough – in fact I didn’t really notice them.
No real CoD, but I liked PANACHE for the misdirection: before I had any crossers I thought it might be an anagram of ‘in style’ – but the only possibility would be ‘Yeltsin’ who hardly fits the bill.
Thanks, Peter and flashling.
Don’t mind an easy one (especially after Saturday), perhaps this one a little too easy to race through in single figures. Agree with flashling that 15 & 17D nicely clued.
Cannot fathom the connection between “ask for” and POSTULATE; is it the 27th definition in some famous dictionary?
Thanks to Peter and flashling.
gwep
“Cannot fathom the connection between “ask for” and POSTULATE; is it the 27th definition in some famous dictionary?”
Yes, in at least two of them (I’ve not checked Oxford):
Collins: “2. to ask, demand, or claim”
Chambers: “to make demands”
I’d have a lot less trouble finishing crosswords if I could read my own writing.
gwep@4: Chambers does give to demand as a definition of postulate.
Enjoyable solve with a few that gave me pause for thought. Missed and hadn’t heard of sabots (at least can’t recall having heard of it), but now stored in my brainbanks for later use. Fave was 11a, which I thought neatly done so thanks to Peter for the puzzle and to The Flash for the blog.
Hoskins@7: Sabot is one of those words I remember after hearing how, supposedly, the French equivalent of the Luddites used to wreck machines by throwing their wooden shoes into the works, an action known as sabotage.
Thanks Dormouse@8 – excellent bit of background info that’s helped lodge the word in my mind, too. Now I just have to employ it in a sentence somewhere …
Alternatively:
The etymological idea behind the word ‘sabotage’ is ‘clattering along in noisy shoes’. ‘Sabot’ is French and means ‘clog’. From it originated the word ‘saboter’ which means ‘walk along noisily in clogs’, which gives the notion of ‘clumsiness’ or ‘to do work badly’, and finally it came to be associated with the idea of ‘destroying tools, machines etc deliberately’. Over time there was a broadening out of the concept to include ‘any deliberate disruptive destruction’. The word was acquired in the English language around 1910.