Good fun for a Tuesday, simple enough but with a few pleasantly laboured jokes thrown in.
One parse at 15 that I wasn’t sure of. Look forward to being proved wrong about a clue for the 3rd week in a row. Thanks to Crux.
| Across | ||
| 1 | SHABBY | Unkempt, quiet kind of cat, with little time left (6) |
| SH (‘quiet!) + tABBY cat minus Time. | ||
| 4 | RYE BREAD | A dry beer drunk with pumpernickel (3,5) |
| Anagram (‘drunk’) of A DRY BEER. | ||
| 9 | HYENAS | Spotted carnivores with a sense of humour? (6) |
| Not-terribly-cryptic whole clue def. | ||
| 10 | BLUE CHIP | Risqué golf shot that usually pays off (4,4) |
| BLUE (‘risqué) + CHIP, a ‘golf shot’, although almost any ball-game would do, so the ‘golf’ seems a tad redundant. A blue chip investment is boring but generally ‘safe’. | ||
| 12 | OVERTURN | Upset by obvious run-out (8) |
| OVERT + anagram (‘out’) of RUN. | ||
| 13 | ITALIC | One’s inclined to be emphatic (6) |
| Not just a cryptic but a whole-clue cryptic definition. | ||
| 15 | SHOP | Talking posh may also be frowned upon (4) |
| An anagram (‘may also be’) of POSH, ‘talking shop’ being generally seen as a socially Bad Thing. Cryptic def., sort of, and that’s my best shot but I’m unhappy with the grammar of the whole thing. Am I missing something? | ||
| 16 | SCRIVENERS | Old copyists representing mostly river scenes (10) |
| Anagram (‘representing’) of (most of) RIVeR & SCENES. Actually, you can drop whichever ‘E’ you like, I think. | ||
| 19 | OPEN SESAME | Frank’s English likewise said to gain entrance (4,6) |
| OPEN (‘Frank’) + S (has to be there) + E[nglish] + SAME (‘likewise’) | ||
| 20, 19 down | BATH OLIVERS | You need to soak Goldsmith’s biscuits (4,7) |
| BATH (to ‘soak’) + OLIVER (Goldsmith)’S (the playwright, ‘Stoops to Conquer’ and all that). | ||
| 23 | IN LEAF | Stirring finale recalling 24 eg at springtime (2,4) |
| Anagram (‘stirring’) of FINALE, the spring being when the lilac at 24 down starts showing off. | ||
| 25 | ONE-PIECE | Slimmer’s chocolate ration, perhaps, if she’s to look good in it! (3-5) |
| Whole clue cryptic, whimsically re woman’s bathing cossie. | ||
| 27 | ENLISTED | Wiggly lines young Edward joined up (8) |
| Anagram (‘wiggly’) of LINES + TED. | ||
| 28 | OCELOT | A month without Leo playing the cat (6) |
| OCTober around anagram (‘playing’) of LEO. | ||
| 29 | SICK NOTE | It can explain to teacher why you don’t appear to be educated (4,4) |
| Whole clue cryptic again. Means ‘why you don’t show up to be taught”. | ||
| 30 | SEND UP | Take the mickey when seconds finally arrive (4,2) |
| S[econds] + END UP. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | SCHOOLS | Trains some sea creatures altogether (7) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 2, 3 | AGE BEFORE BEAUTY | It’s said ironically to give precedence (3,6,6) |
| And another whole-clue not-so-cryptic. | ||
| 5 | YOLK | The yellow tie mentioned (4) |
| Homophone (‘mentioned’) of YOKE (‘tie’). | ||
| 6 | BREATHED | Inspired article welcomed by staff of Life (8) |
| THE (‘article’) included in BREAD (‘staff of life’). | ||
| 7 | ETHEL | She’s not completely above the law (5) |
| Woman’s name included in (therefore ‘not completely’) ‘abovE THE Law’. | ||
| 8 | DEPICTS | Shows what Roman policy does in Scotland? (7) |
| Double def, the Romans having rid the place of those pesky Picts. Well, almost. | ||
| 11 | PRECISE | Accurate summary given poor grade (7) |
| PRECIS (‘summary’) + ‘E’ (‘poor grade’). That’s the 3rd time in a fortnight (to my knowledge) that ‘précis’ has turned up in the dailies. | ||
| 14 | FILMING | Shooting in Dynasty following endless row (7) |
| MING dynasty after FILe without end. | ||
| 17 | ENAMELLED | Strange tail-less male with needle-like teeth? (9) |
| Anagram (‘strange’) of (endless) MALe & NEEDLE. You have to ignore the hyphen. H’m, controversial. | ||
| 18 | ASSASSIN | Stupid pair join in naming the killer (8) |
| A pair of ASSes with IN. | ||
| 19 | See 20 | |
| 21 | HEELTAP | The pale sort of liquor seen at bottom of glass (7) |
| Anagram (‘sort’) of THE PALE. “No heeltaps!” is a frequent cry in the Aubrey/Maturin tales and other such swashbuckling stuff. | ||
| 22 | APACHE | Dad’s in pain, pehaps being brave (6) |
| PA in ACHE. Squaws & papooses were (and are, presumably) also Apaches. P.C. linguistic minefield. I’ll stop there. | ||
| 24 | LILAC | For Olive’s relation ring up about one (5) |
| CALL (‘ring’, reversed upwards) around 1. Didn’t know Olive & Lilac were related. | ||
| 26 | DEBT | Starts to drive everywhere by taxi? You’ll soon get into it! (4) |
| First letters of words 3-6 in clue, plus another jocular cryptic whole-clue def. | ||
*anagram
One of those mixed-bag offerings for me. I am kind of hoping 16a was a mistake by Crux. Although technically correct, clueing the dropping of an intermediate letter (as opposed to a final letter) using ‘almost’ is terrible imo. Setters can easily come up with a phrase such as ‘wanting an early start’ to clue a missing E.
Failed to get SHOP but I think you are correct, Grant. I bunged in an unparsed SNOB relying on some enlightenment here so thanks for that. This seems to be another weakish clue. 9a and 2,3d didn’t appeal either. Ah well, I’m sure some folk out there will disagree with my dislikes.
To Hovis:
I agree about ‘scriveners’ althoughI got it on first pass, it being the name of a beautiful 2nd-hand bookshop here in Buxton. I quite enjoyed the other clunky jokes, the whole thing bringing some light relief from Sunday’s grinding Azed which is this week’s back-burner chez nous.
I had the same uncertainties about SHOP but I suppose it ‘sort of’ works as a ‘sort of’ cryptic def. as you say. Missed out on YOLK for which I put in the pathetic and unparsed ‘yell’.
No real complaints from me though – I’ll even excuse the old ASSASSIN chestnut – and clues such as SICK NOTE and ONE PIECE made it worth the effort.
Thanks to Crux and Grant.
15ac got me too. Last one in and I guessed SNOB. Got hung up on SH A (mo)GGY for 1ac
Thanks Crux and GB
Thanks to Crux and GB. I too dithered over SHOP vs. Snob but chose the former owing to the anagram of “posh” and “talking shop.” I did not parse DEPICTS (I enjoyed it when explained) and was slow to get ENAMELLED (the hyphen threw me off). My favorite was OPEN SESAME.
As a regular Monday blogger, I had numerous Crux puzzles under my radar in the past 5+ years.
The two main characteristics of this setter are, in my opinion, a fair share of inventiveness and adventure and too often under par cryptic definiitions.
In the latter category we had quite a few today of which Hovis @1 already mentioned some.
I don’t think 25ac is a ‘whole clue cryptic’ etc. For me, it’s a sort of double definition, although one can indeed interweave the two. What I actually didn’t like that much here is that the second part (“she’s to look in it!”) is rather sexist, isn’t it? No way a female setter would have written this clue. Fun? Perhaps, and I am not prudish either. Still, I’d like to use Jermey Hunt’s favourite word of the week: ‘inappropriate’.
16ac (SCRIVENERS) seems like an oversight from either Crux or the editor (or both) to me. I cannot believe Crux meant to have ‘mostly river’ meaning RIVR.
17d controversial? Well, times have changed.
Thanks Grant & Crux.
ps, the previous comment displays two of my main ‘typos’, day-in day-out: skipping the odd word (‘good’ after ‘look’ in the 4th line) and swapping consecutive letters (I’m afraid there is no Jermey Hunt).
Sil, I thought the same thing as you initially about sexism in 25ac, but then I realised that I always consider a one-piece swimsuit to be a female garment. A male swimsuit is generally in one piece as well, but since (broadly speaking) men tend to cover up one section of each body and women tend to cover up two sections, “one piece” and “two piece” are used to disambiguate in the female case. In other words, I’ve not personally come across “one piece” for men’s swimwear, but I’ve heard it for women’s swimwear and so it was enough for me to make the connection when solving.
Thanks to Grant and Crux.
SNOB has a, now, obsolete meaning of those of the lower orders (hence “frowned upon”) as well as its current, opposite, meaning (“Posh”). Only found that out after giving up and heading for dictionary though!
Thanks Crux and Grant
The last Tuesday of the June backlog – and an entertaining puzzle to get through. Was able to complete the grid in relatively good time with the only a minor holdup with that SHOP (so glad that it wasn’t just me ) !
Did like AGE BEFORE BEAUTY … it was one of my later entries and brought a wry grin. Thought that DEPICTS was very clever as well.
Was pleased to dredge up SCRIVENERS from the depths of the grey matter and would be interested in seeing what a BATH OLIVER actually tastes like having seen them a few times now in crosswords.