A grueling challenge from NEO today that I got through after a long struggle, battered and bruised. Thanks NEO, for making me feel good about the week until today, retrospectively! 🙂
FF: 8 DD: 10+
| Across | ||
| 8 | SATORI | Awakening back when given to religious instruction (6) |
| SA (when = AS, reversed) TO RI (Religious Instruction) | ||
| 9 | EGOMANIA | In time soon over obsessive self-love (8) |
| IN-A-MO (soon) in AGE (time), all reversed | ||
| 10 | CHIN | Endless crack in part of mug (4) |
| CHINk (crack, endless) ; mug referring to face . | ||
| 11 | EDNA OBRIEN | Dane rambling on about cheese writer (4,6) |
| EDNA (DANE*) [ ON around (about) BRIE (cheese) ] – needed help from google to parse and confirm | ||
| 12 | BLUE | Down and dirty (4) |
| double def | ||
| 13 | HORNBLENDE | He pens new book to contribute on gold mineral (10) |
| HE containing (pens) [ {N (new) B (book) LEND (contribute)} after (on) OR (gold) ] – new word for me. | ||
| 17 | ARIA | Song Frau von Trapp won’t start (4) |
| mARIA (frau von trapp, without first letter) – wrote a book which later inspired the sound of music. | ||
| 18 | WHEAT | Grain’s item removed from chicken or veal? (5) |
| WHite mEAT (chicken or veal, without ITEM) – had to think for a while before i managed to parse this. | ||
| 19 | SARK | Second rescue boat finds island (4) |
| S (second) ARK (rescue boat, noah’s) | ||
| 21 | TINKER BELL | Pan’s character’s gypsy taking call (6,4) |
| TINKER (gypsy) BELL (call) – another new word i learnt today {alternate meaning of TINKER} | ||
| 23 | SACK | Push wine level (4) |
| triple def | ||
| 24 | HAMMERHEAD | Shark attack experienced involving sweetheart (10) |
| HAMMER (attack) [ HAD (experienced) containing E (swEet – heart i.e. middle character) ] | ||
| 28 | RUNT | Control temperature for weakling (4) |
| RUN (control) T (temperature) | ||
| 29 | MULLIGAN | Stew from two islands gran’s right to decline (8) |
| [MULL (island) I (island) {hence two islands} GrAN (without R – right) ] | ||
| 30 | REEFER | Smoking habit? (6) |
| cryptic doubl def? could mean either a cannabis cigarette or a jacket | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | BACHELOR | Composer’s part upset matchless fellow (8) |
| BACH (composer) ELOR (part = ROLE, reversed) | ||
| 2 | MOUNTEBANK | Card game in which universal inclination for fraud (10) |
| [MONTE (card game) containing U (universal)] BANK (inclination) | ||
| 3 | EISENHOWER | Where one is misused in general (10) |
| WHERE ONE IS* | ||
| 4 | BEAN | Pulse started with heart bypass (4) |
| BEgAN (without central character i.e. bypassing the heart) – clever construction !! | ||
| 5 | TOGO | Value in warmth and love in republic (4) |
| TOG (value in warmth, unit of thermal insulation) O (love) – another on that i didnt know and needed google’s help | ||
| 6 | LAIR | Landowner wasting day in retreat (4) |
| LAIRd (landowner, without D – day) | ||
| 7 | BIG END | Info gathered in order to make engine part (3,3) |
| GEN (info) in BID (order) | ||
| 14 | REEVE | Official tempted woman after scripture class (5) |
| RE (scripture class, Religious Education) EVE (tempted woman) | ||
| 15 | BATTLEDORE | Struggled again losing thousand in racket (10) |
| BATTLED (struggled) mORE (again, without M – thousand) – new word for me. | ||
| 16 | EASY STREET | English setter, say, barking in comfortable situation (4,6) |
| E (englisgh) SETTER SAY* – nice surface | ||
| 20 | RECANTED | Grass full of hypocrisy renounced former practice (8) |
| REED (grass) containing CANT (hypocrisy) | ||
| 22 | ICARUS | Sun exposed this high-flier’s mistake (6) |
| cryptic def, from greek mythology; wings made of wax which melted when he flew too close to the sun. | ||
| 25 | MILD | Beer leads to melee in local diner (4) |
| starting letters of “..Melee In Local Diner” | ||
| 26 | RAGE | Tease European showing violent emotion (4) |
| RAG (tease) E (european) | ||
| 27 | ETNA | Constant smoker worried about inhaling gas (4) |
| ETA (worried = ATE, reversed) around N (gas, nitrogen) | ||
*anagram
Tough indeed. Had to cheat with a word fit to get HORNBLENDE and MOUNTEBANK, but managed the rest. Dredged up BATTLEDORE from the remote recesses of my memory. Pleased to parse WHEAT, which was my LOI. Thanks to Neo and Turbolegs.
A tricky puzzle for a Neo – you never know what words lurk at the back of your memory until you meet a crossword like this one Although if you’d asked me before today, I’d have said 21a was one word but it turns out I’m wrong
Thanks to Neo for the challenge and Turbolegs for the explanations
Crypticsue@2 I thought Tinkerbell was 1 word too. Like you, I did check and saw Neo was correct. No surprises there.
In 15d, wouldn’t it be a racquet? Anyway, BATTLEDORE also shows up in today’s Guardian.
Coby@4 not to mention that Paul’s was a much better clue.
Thanks to NEO and Turbolegs. I did get through after several tries but did not parse BEAN, TOGO, and WHEAT and took a long time before spotting ETNA as smoker, my LOI. I did dredge up HORNBLENDE and SATORI, but BIG END was new to me. Yes, quite a workout.
Do setters like NEO derive some perverse pleasure from clueing words that almost nobody has a hope of solving?
Mountebank?
Horneblende?
Battledore?
Mulligan?
FFS!
Excellent demonstration of the range of this compiler, this time turning up the difficulty for a Friday puzzle, as is not uncommon generally in Crosswordland. Tight clues throughout, and very well executed. I hadn’t a single problem with it.
Thanks Neo and Turbolegs
This was tough and took several sittings to eventually get it out. Â A good mix of new words, some interesting word plays and a difficulty factor that was ratcheted up from his usual offerings – and none the worse for that !
Hadn’t known about TOG, EDNA O’BRIEN, HORNBLENDE or BATTLEDORE before sitting down to this one. Â Particularly liked the trick with the WHite mEAT at 18.
Finished up the top with TOGO, SATORI and that HORNBLENDE as the last few in