Another excellent offering from WANDERER who serves up a delightfully witty and innovatively clued crossward. Liked the nice mix of long and short solutions, as well as a couple of the cluing devices used. Thanks , WANDERER.
FF: 10 DD: 8
| Across | ||
| 1 | BEHOLD | See what? (6) |
| cryptic def / See comments below | ||
| 4 | DISJOINT | Dislocate a girl’s shoulder, say (8) |
| DI’S (girl’s) JOINT (shoulder) – not a great fan of this clue with the ‘DIS’ in both definition and solution. | ||
| 9 | CHOIRS | Singers collectively are rarely so rich (6) |
| SO RICH* | ||
| 10 | APOSTLES | During affairs, initially the French letters hide John Thomas and the like (8) |
| A (Affairs, initially) [ LE (the, french) in POSTS (letters) ] | ||
| 12, 13, 14 | PAGE THREE GIRL | Telegraph given endless grief, reworking former Sun feature (4,5,4) |
| TELEGRAPH GRIEf* (endlessly) | ||
| 17 | COWARDLINESS | What actors learn, getting sucked into playwright’s lack of courage (12) |
| LINES (what actors learn) in COWARD’S (playwright’s) | ||
| 20 | EVOLUTIONARY | Showing gradual development, redhead’s away (12) |
| rEVOLUTIONARY (red, without its head i.e without starting letter) – very witty on the cluing! | ||
| 23, 24, 25 | HAVE A GOOD TIME | Own advanced GT? Enjoy oneself! (4,1,4,4) |
| HAVE (own) A (advanced) GOOD (G) TIME (T) | ||
| 28 | PERVERSE | Contrary dirty old man, Irish (8) |
| PERV (dirty old man) ERSE (irish) | ||
| 29 | FIESTA | Car that is fast, going round about (6) |
| IE (that is) FAST* | ||
| 30 | NEOPLASM | Abnormal growth of one new sort of TV curtailed (8) |
| [ONE*] PLASMa (sort of tv, curtailed) | ||
| 31 | TEA SET | Guy takes time providing drinks service (3,3) |
| TEASE (guy) T (time) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | BACKPACK | Bag second set of suits (8) |
| BACK (second) PACK (set of suits) | ||
| 2 | HOOSGOWS | After stripping off, choose gowns not originally needed in US prisons (8) |
| cHOOSe (stripping off, without end characters) [GOWnS (without ‘N’ – Needed, originally) ] | ||
| 3, 15, 26 | LORD PRIVY SEAL | Off-duty senior cabinet member seen in toilet in cricket ground, having drunk ale (4,5,4) |
| [ PRIVY (toilet) in LORDS (cricket ground) ] ALE* | ||
| 5 | IMPREGNATION | Remaining with top off when putting bun in the oven (12) |
| REMAINING TOP* | ||
| 6, 16, 27 | JUST AS YOU LIKE | Only drama, no sex? Please yourself! (4,2,3,4) |
| JUST (only) AS YOU LIKE it (drama, without IT – sex) | ||
| 7 | INLAID | Current number bedded or embedded (6) |
| I (current) N (number) LAID (bedded) / See comments below | ||
| 8 | TUSSLE | Struggle if lust’s uncontrolled? To a point (6) |
| LUSTS* E (point, East) | ||
| 11 | PHILOLOGISTS | Linguistic specialists corrected slight lisp, with two separate intakes of oxygen (12) |
| SLIGHT LISP* containing O , O (two separate intakes of O – oxygen) | ||
| 15 | See 3 | |
| 16 | See 6 | |
| 18 | RADIUSES | Plurality of bone marrow, essentially (8) |
| expansion of the RR in maRRow (essentially); R – radius, RR – radii or radiuses | ||
| 19 | TYPECAST | Scatty about taking exercise? An actor might be (8) |
| SCATTY* containing PE (exercise) | ||
| 21 | CHIP IN | Make a contribution after Polish scorer gets rid of clean sheet for Italy (4,2) |
| CHoPIN (polish scorer) with O (clean sheet, nil) replaced by I (italy) | ||
| 22 | OVERDO | Rings about barman detailed as cook for too long (6) |
| OO (rings) around VERDi (barman, without last letter – detailed) | ||
| 26 | See 3 | |
| 27 | See 6 | |
*anagram
Most enjoyable, but two queries: I still don’t understand where 1ac BEHOLD comes from; and I believe the answer to 7dn is INLAID — if I’ve bedded a woman I’ve laid her.
Thanks for the blog, Turbolegs.
I parsed 12ac as POST [letters] in A LES.
I think the answer to 7dn is INLAID: I N + LAID, past tense of ‘lay’, transitive, rather than ‘lie’, intransitive. [I see now Hornbeam agrees.]
6,16,27: I don’t know of a TV drama – I took AS YOU LIKE IT as being Shakespeare’s comedy.
There seems to be something awry with the clue for 1ac: I took the parsing as being something like EH [what] ‘in bold’.
Many thanks to Wanderer for an enjoyable puzzle, as usual.
Interesting puzzle with a couple of unknowns though, as a Times solver who only occasionally flirts with the FT, the multi-light answers caused a few butterflies. I’ve seen something similar to 1A before, where the “what?” was in boldface, leading to the parsing EH (what) in BOLD – maybe that was the intention here but the boldface was somehow omitted?
Thanks, Querulous @3 that was the interpretation I was trying to suggest. 😉
I agree with Eileen on all points. I also parsed 1a as EH in bold, assuming a typographic error.
In 2d, the missing N is surely from Needed, rather than Not.
Bit of an embarrassing typo in 21d, methinks.
Thanks to Wanderer and Turbolegs.
Thanks all for stopping by. I meant to add @1, that the parsing could be improved upon as I could only come up with a tangential justification of what someone would say when presenting a spectacle etc .. doesn’t make much sense now. Also thanks for the correction on 7d. All embarrassing typos have been fixed.
Regards,
TL
Thanks to Wanderer and Turbolegs. I did not get RADIUSES and could not parse BEHOLD. Here in the US I did know PAGE THREE GIRL but was initially stymied by the UK spelling of HOOSGOWS as opposed to hoosegows.
Interesting puzzle, not helped by the missing emboldment in 1a. Does anyone know why ‘off-duty’ appears in 3d? Good fun nevertheless.
Hi Jay Dee ,
Ref your query on 3d, A Lord Privy Seal is without specified duties hence “off-duty”.
Regards,
TL
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
A pretty solid workout ending with an error with APOSTLES (had written in EPISTLES – notwithstanding having difficulty finding any written by Thomas and not fully equating EPIS to affairs). Was also unable to properly parse BEHOLD. Liked all four of the long answers, especially JUST AS YOU LIKE.
New terms in HOOSGOWS and LORD PRIVY SEAL.
Finished in the SE corner with TYPECAST, FIESTA and the very clever RADIUSES.