An excellent challenge from WANDERER this Friday. Rarely see so many interwoven clues in a single crossword. Needed dictionary verification for a couple of new words for me.
Not sure if this qualifies for a nina, but the compass directions are appropriately located on the grid.
FF:10 DD:9
| Across | ||
| 1 | FRAPPE | Chilled fellow – one like Ice Cube, mostly (6) |
| F (fellow) RAPPEr (ice cube, mostly) | ||
| 4 | TERMINUS | End of semester, arguably (8) |
| semi &lit; TER (end of semesTER) MINUS (~arguably); can this parsing be improved upon? | ||
| 10 | ONTARIO | Working sailor is given this clue for a lake (7) |
| ON (working) TAR (sailor) IO (this clue – 10a) | ||
| 11 | ECLOGUE | Poem from Spain (nothing good in this) (7) |
| E (spain, espana) [ {O (nothing) G (good)} in CLUE (this) ] | ||
| 12 , 3 | WESTPORT | Rainy after sun’s gone in, having left Irish town (8) |
| [S (sun) in WET (raining)] PORT (left) | ||
| 13 | STEPSISTER | Group administered rites for relative after marriage (10) |
| STEPS (group) RITES* | ||
| 15 | RUINED | Bankrupt union, regularly overdrawn? (6) |
| cryptic def; UnIoN in RED (~overdrawn) | ||
| 16 | See 23 | |
| 20, 9 | COLONEL NORTH | Former US Marine officer shortly to take off 26 from Colne (7,5) |
| cryptic def; 26ac is east side; if you remove the east side of colnE, you get coln; read as col n and expanded upon | ||
| 21 | TRUISM | Brief president about Islamic State platitude (6) |
| TRUMp (president, brief) around IS (islamic state) | ||
| 24 | CONVICTION | Firmly held belief of prisoner with one leg (10) |
| CONVICT (prisoner) I ON (leg, cricket) | ||
| 26, 27 | EAST SIDE | Part of US city partner of 12 left? (4,4) |
| EAST (partner of 12, answer to 12ac is WEST, referring to bridge) SIDE (left) | ||
| 28 | AUGMENT | Increase in use of foreign agents during season’s first half (7) |
| G-MEN (foreign agents) in AUTumn (season, first half of) | ||
| 29 | TRINITY | Hear about hot sex in threesome (7) |
| TRY (hear) around [IN (hot) IT (sex) ] | ||
| 30 | ON THE SLY | In secretive fashion, just tours the 23 (2,3,3) |
| ONLY (just) around [ THE S (south, part of the answer to 23d) ] | ||
| 31 | RENNET | After reflection, note what curdles milk (6) |
| reverse of TENNER (note) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | FOOTWORK | Dance moves briefly shown by fop? (8) |
| crptic def; fop read as f [FOOT] op [WORK] | ||
| 2 | ALTISSIMO | Very high and rising somewhat – so miss it, lamentably (9) |
| hidden, reversed in “..sO MISS IT LAmentably” | ||
| 3 | See 12 | |
| 5 | EXEMPLAR | Former member of religious order is topless model (8) |
| EX (former) tEMPLAR (member of religious order, topless – without starting letter) | ||
| 6 | MILLILITRE | Such a small volume includes Hamlet? On the contrary (10) |
| cryptic def; on the contrary -> hamlet includes small volume -> haMLet | ||
| 7, 25 | NIGHT NIGHT | Two things possibly said just before bedtime? (5-5) |
| THING THING* (2x thing) | ||
| 8 | SHERRY | Drunk heading off after “quiet” drink (6) |
| SH (quiet) mERRY (drunk, without heading i.e. first letter) | ||
| 9 | See 20 | |
| 14 | VELOCIPEDE | Old bike cop lied about in letter (10) |
| COP LIED* in VEE (letter) | ||
| 17 | IMITATION | Mocking restriction left by Liberal leader (9) |
| lIMITATION (without L – Liberal, first letter) | ||
| 18 | TEETOTAL | Support model that’s drunk a lot becoming this? (8) |
| TEE (support) T (model) [A LOT]* – would this qualify for an &lit? | ||
| 19 | AMETHYST | Stone me! Your old deserted sweetheart is under arrest, for a start (8) |
| [ ME THY (your, old english) ST (SweethearT, deserted i.e. without inner characters) ] after A (Arrest, starting letter) | ||
| 22 | OCTAVO | Book of the month – a third volume (6) |
| OCT (month) A VOlume (one third, of) | ||
| 23, 16 | SOUTH PACIFIC | Musical partner of 9 still (5,7) |
| SOUTH (partner of 9dn, NORTH) PACIFIC (still) | ||
| 25 | See 7 | |
| 27 | See 26 | |
*anagram
29ac was a particularly wicked clue!
TL
I think Wanderer may have put on his Sunday best to appear on the same day as Enigmatist.
So many good clues here and not that easy either.
And all the better for it.Thanks to him and turbo.
I parsed TERMINUS as TERM IN US, even though semesters are often used here as well. Small point in 20,9: 26ac is just EAST, so it is removal of E for East.
Thanks to Wanderer and Turbolegs.
Thanks for the blog, Turbolegs.
I found this harder than the usual Wanderer but enjoyable, as always. One of the many things I admire about Wanderer’s puzzles is how multiple answers usually run on in the grid, so I admit to being mildly irritated at having to dot around and cross-reference all over the place with this one. All was completely forgiven when I saw what was going on – I should have known better.
I’m kicking myself for having been bamboozled so long by 6dn – that kind of clue has caught me out too often.
Many thanks, Wanderer, as always.
Thanks, Wanderer and Turbolegs. Hovis, I had the same parsing as you. Is TERM used more in the UK so a semester would be the US equivalent of term? I think it depends partly on how long the term is – a semester would be a full length term.
A number of these I figured out from crossers but couldn’t parse. I’m still getting used to cricket terms so thanks for explaining CONVICTION.
Memories of the 1980s with COLONEL NORTH …
Jeff@5. I think UK Universities probably still talk mainly about terms but several have moved over to a semester system. The latter usually differ from the former by having two semesters (rather than three terms) and having two sets of exams per year (usually, but not always, just one set in a term based system).
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
Great crossword that I found pretty tough going, taking over the hour to get completed. Was initially slightly irritated with the connected clues when I couldn’t get a break into them – but finally plumped for a place called WESTPORT and was happy to see that there indeed was an Irish town of that name, which promptly gave me EAST SIDE. Funny thing, I had to work out NORTH and SOUTH from first principles again !!! 😮
Parsed COLONEL NORTH a little more simply by just removing E (EAST) from ‘Colne’. Made up for that by using TRUMAN as the president rather than TRUMP though. Didn’t get to parse TERMINUS properly.
Finished with IMITATION, RENNET (which I’ve seen clued similarly before) and the difficult FRAPPE as the last one in.