I found this puzzle harder than usual. There is not much that is very obscure in here, I just took me a long time to spot everything. Thank you Gozo.
All the across solutions are geographical features or terms.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | DEFILE |
Canyon subject to pollution (6)
|
| double definition – read subject to pollution as a verb. The first definition appears to be thematic, contradicting the instructions. | ||
| 4 | MILLRACE |
A grind for competitors (8)
|
| cryptic definition – a flour grinding competition perhaps | ||
| 9 | STRATH |
Fruity pastries returned before end of lunch (6)
|
| TARTS (fruit pastries) reversed (returned) then luncH (end letter of) – a wide river valley in Scotland | ||
| 10 | CATARACT |
Tom – artist in performance (8)
|
| CAT (a tom perhaps) then RA (Royal Academician, artist) inside ACT (performance) | ||
| 12 | SNOWLINE |
Small hooter in square (8)
|
| S (small) then OWL (hooter) inside NINE ( a square number, 3×3) | ||
| 13 | DESERT |
Leave course, disheartened (6)
|
| DESsERT (course, of a meal) missing middle letter (dis-heartened) | ||
| 15 | DALE |
Light Programme doctor who was diarised during red alert (4)
|
| Found inside (during) reD ALErt – Mrs Dale’s Diary (written by the wife of Doctor Dale) was a radio program formerly aired on the Light Programme (now called Radio 2) | ||
| 16 | CHERSONESE |
Stormy shore scene (10)
|
| anagram (stormy) of SHORE SCENE – a poetic word for a peninsula | ||
| 19 | PERMAFROST |
Poor farmer in job (10)
|
| anagram (poor) of FARMER inside POST (job) | ||
| 20 | GULF |
After end of spring, illness returns (4)
|
| sprinG then FLU (illness) reversed (returns) | ||
| 23 | LAGOON |
No goal, sadly (6)
|
| anagram (sadly) of NO GOAL | ||
| 25 | MERIDIAN |
Iron Maiden, on leaving, running riot (8)
|
| anagram (running riot) of IRon MAIDEN missing (leaving) ON | ||
| 27 | RIVER BED |
Base of flower? (5,3)
|
| the bottom of something that flows (a flower) | ||
| 28 | MIRAGE |
“Now you see it! Now you don’t!” (6)
|
| definition | ||
| 29 | SAND DUNE |
Nudes prancing around joiner (4,4)
|
| anagram (prancing) of NUDES contains (around) AND (a joining word) | ||
| 30 | FOREST |
Hinder – but not everything (6)
|
| FORESTall (hinder) missing all (everything) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | DISUSED |
Sailor left, freed of notion that’s wrong and obsolete (7)
|
| DISabUSED (freed from a notion that is wrong) missing (…having left) AB (able seaman, sailor) | ||
| 2 | FUR COLLAR |
Could be a boa for four pounds, Carl designed (3,6)
|
| anagram (designed) of FOUR L (pounds, currency symbol) and CARL | ||
| 3 | LITTLE |
Tell it wrong. It’s not important (6)
|
| anagram (wrong) of TELL IT | ||
| 5 | IMAM |
One leads in mosque, aiding Muslims (4)
|
| I (one) then first letters (leads in) of Mosque Aiding Muslims – definition is &lit | ||
| 6 | LEANED ON |
Applied pressure and depended upon (6,2)
|
| double definition | ||
| 7 | ADAGE |
Old saying from the present day era! (5)
|
| AD (the present day) AGE (era) | ||
| 8 | ENTITLE |
Give right putting printer’s mark on header (7)
|
| EN (a printer’s mark, a hyphen of one en width) on TITLE (header) | ||
| 11 | ANCHORS |
Confines to bed (7)
|
| cryptic definition – tethers to the sea or river bed | ||
| 14 | DRESDEN |
Chinatown (7)
|
| As a cryptic definition DRESDEN is a town famous for producing china. Reading CHINATOWN as CHINA + TOWN (the so-called lift-and-separate) we have a double definition as DRESDEN is both a type of china and a town. | ||
| 17 | ELUCIDATE |
Explain and edit a clue cryptically (9)
|
| anagram (cryptically) of EDIT A CLUE | ||
| 18 | LABOURED |
Worked a double shift. That’s about right (8)
|
| anagram (shift) of A DOUBLE containing (that is about) R (right) | ||
| 19 | POLARIS |
Back in French capital, behold a star! (7)
|
| (LO (behold) A all reversed inside (back in) PARIS (French capital) | ||
| 21 | FONDEST |
Most loving female doesn’t change (7)
|
| F (female) then anagram (change) of DOESN’T | ||
| 22 | AIKIDO |
In which there is commotion about one kick. Not half! (6)
|
| ADO (commotion) containing (in which there is…about…) I (one) KIck (not half of) – a defensive martial art generally not using kicks | ||
| 24 | GIVEN |
It’s known info about classical quartet! (5)
|
| GEN (info) containing (about) IV (four in Roman numerals, in classical notation) | ||
| 26 | DEAN |
College official – idle, vain, regularly absent (4)
|
| every other letter removed (regularly absent) from iDlE vAiN |
10 and 23 gave me a sneaky suspicion I’d seen this before. A quick check revealed, happily, not a repeat but a second geography lesson from Gozo (the first appearing on Jan 27, no.16,694)!
Like 10, 25 makes a reappearance but with a better surface this time around. Also ticked 9 and 29 among the themed clues. Needed online help, however, for the unknown 16 without which I might not have spotted the clever 11d; the best I could manage here was SCHERONESE. This in turn helped with that ‘Chinatown’ where I’d pencilled in ‘Limoges’ till 19a came along.
Other ticks included 2 and 18.
15 left me scratching my head; such a long clue for a four-letter word. Saw the hidden answer late in the solve and after another online check, made a new discovery about a radio show from before my time.
There’s another well-known geographical feature hidden in the grid though whether intentional or not, I’m not sure.
Playful, informative and time well spent.
Thanks to Gozo and PeeDee (especially for 30a which I guessed but couldn’t parse and now it’s added to my favourites .
Hi Diane, Gozo has set lots of puzzles with a geographical theme over the years, I have blogged many of them. I assumed for a long while that Gozo must be a geography teacher, but he actually taught modern languages.
Oh, thanks PeeDee. It’s probably just the second such grid I’ve done.
This was a fun puzzle which I struggled with as I was determined that the Chinatown was Meissen, a town outside Dresden which is of course a city.
Thanks to Gozo and the PeeDee for a most helpful blog.
I like these despite occasional frustration at the clues. Today, CHERSONESE was unknown, and made very difficult by the crossing ANCHORS and DRESDEN. There are many china towns, Meissen & Limoges as mentioned, even Chelsea & Bristol. For ANCHORS I had borders which seemed perfectly reasonable, in fact more reasonable than anchors for which the definition seems very iffy. All the first ones I got were watery, which also made the later dry ones harder.
Base of flower also a thematic definition.
I liked AIKIDO, SNOWLINE and MILLRACE
Thanks PeeDee, Gozo
Thanks for the blog, made a bit of a mess of my grid Did not have CHERSONESE and put in Burslem for Chinatown, two letters did fit. Not until I returned to 10Ac did I realise the U was not in the anagram, took a bit of sorting out.
Defeated by this one. Would never have solved CHERSONESE but should have got ANCHORS and possibly DRESDEN, though was also thinking of a ‘town’, not a city. Missed AIKIDO where I couldn’t identify the def. Any clues as to your hidden geographical feature, Diane @1?
I’m not convinced, but I thought of 1a as a double wordplay clue, even if one of the components is a geographical feature itself.
I parsed IMAM as ‘One’ (= I) + ‘leads in mosque, aiding Muslims’ (= first letters of ‘mosque, aiding Muslims’ = MAM) so it would do as an &lit in my book. Probably wrong again.
Thanks to Gozo and PeeDee
WordPlodder – I think you explanation of IMAM is a good one. I will update the blog.
IMAM is fixed now. I thought it was &lit when I solved it, but when I came to write up the blog entry I couldn’t remember why.
Thanks PeeDee for the blog.
I stopped with 12ac, 16ac, 11dn, and 14dn unsolved. I could, perhaps have spotted OWL and hence had a chance at 12ac. I do not think I could have got 16ac without having already solved 11dn and 14dn, and I do not think I could have got either of those from a cryptic definition clue without having already solved 16ac. May I suggest that one part clues are out of place for the down answers in a puzzle where the across answers are selected from such a broad theme? Therefore, I can only say thanks to Gozo for the rest of the puzzle.
5dn: I parsed it the same way as Pete’s original answer, but agree that WordPlodder’s explanation is much better.
Wordplodder @7,
It’s volcanic, though as I said, I’m not sure if it was intended.
Possible spoiler alert!
Diane@11: And, unlike the theme answers, it’s a proper name.
Edk@ 12
Yes, I know. Still, you can’t deny it’s a geographical feature and it amused me to see it there.
Thanks Diane @11. Got it. The crossword setters’ go-to geographic feature of that type. As you say, not sure if it’s intended or not.
Yes we had it very recently. Also an abbreviated sea has appeared
Generally I enjoy a Gozo challenge but I found this more of a slog than anything else. Despite solid clues like POLARIS and the &lit IMAM as well as clever surfaces for FONDEST and DEAN I found little amusement in this crossword. It was a DNF even though I resorted to a word finder to get an oddity like CHERSONESE and I never could get DRESDEN or ANCHORS, both beyond my solving abilities. Thanks to both.
@Tony – I’m not 100% sure about ANCHORS myself. It strikes me that SUNK would be a more accurate description of “confined to bed”. I expect ANCHORS is right, but we shall have to wait until tomorrow to know for sure.
Tony @16
Your comment triggered more musing: it’s a pity 26 and 30 don’t intersect to form one of England’s oldest woodlands, FOREST [of] DEAN.
Started this rather enthusiastically, as I generally enjoy themed puzzles. Much of it was fine, but it eventually became frustrating: I share all the reservations above about ANCHORS, which I think is just wrong, and especially the infuriating DRESDEN, which I had as the much more reasonable Meissen for a long time – and it could have been right apart from the fairly desperate CHERSONESE. So that did spoil the experience.
I made a real mess of this one. Primarily by entering BORDERS for 11d (it fits “confines” and, to some extent, “bed”. And GENRE for 24d (info about) and, at a stretch, “Classical Quartet”. To cap it off, CHERSONESE, was above my pay grade>
I have to admit that I got very lucky on CHERSONESE. I was getting a bit desperate trying to fill the empty region in the middle of the grid.
I knew there was a geographical feature in Greece called the PELOPONESE (sic) with similar letters to the anagram and ended O?E?E. I thought there might be another similar feature in Greece ending ?????ONESE. I guessed CH (Greek letter chi) as the starter so that only left the letters ERS to rearrange for the anagram.
Bingo! I made completely erroneous assumptions but stumbled on the correct solution by a fluky accident. I hadn’t even remembered how to spell Poloponnese correctly either.
Thanks Gozo and PeeDee
Had to chip away at this one across most of the day on Wednesday with CATARACT and MILLRACE the first couple of themed answered leading the thinking to a water-based theme. GULF as next enhanced that thought with SAND DUNE sowing seeds of doubt and MERIDIAN a bit later confirming that it was something more generic.
STRATH was a new terrain term as was CHERSONESE and the British radio soap serial ‘Mrs Dale’s Diary’.
Finished in the SE corner with FOREST, the trickily straightforward MIRAGE and AIKIDO.