A genuinely accessible puzzle from Klingsor.
Unusual for a Saturday.
Compared to many other puzzles by this setter this one was on the easy side but still had a good selection of solid clues which were most enjoyable.
I’m not suggesting it was a complete write-in but I had most written in by the end of the first pass. Those remaining that needed more thinking were all in the bottom half.
I’ll nominate one of those as my favourite clue: 26 Spirally. It gave me the best PDM when I understood the slightly cryptic definition.
I had to check afterwards of course but at 16 it is always nice to have ones assumption, that a Sand Dab is a fish, confirmed.
Just one query on 25 Nugget, where “Rev” appears to be clueing “Gun” – is that acceptable? Maybe it’s Rev(s)/Revolutions as in an internal combustion engine – in the verbal sense “revving” the engine could be said the “gun” the engine?
I have probably said this before: If there is a theme here that I’ve missed I will be a bit miffed myself.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | DEADLINE | Time limit is reason you can’t phone? (8) Definition plus cryptic def. playing on the phrase “dead line”: You cannot call if your line is dead. |
| 5 | TESTER | Examiner is more irritable without one (6) TEST[i]ER |
| 9 | FLINTLOCK | Pirate gets a bit of a shock, finding gun (9) FLINT (Pirate, Captain J. Flint from Treasure Island) LOCK (a lock of hair is part of a shock of hair) |
| 11 | CAROL | Primarily Christmas air, “Noel” regularly featured? (5) C[hristmas] A[i]R [n]O[e]L. half the wordplay is also the definition, so semi-&Lit Edit: After thought prompted by Blah at Comment #9 I agree this is fully &Lit |
| 12 | ADMIRAL | Not all respect a large naval officer (7) ADMIR[e] (respect, not all) A L[arge] |
| 13 | SPARING | Fighting half-heartedly, being merciful (7) SPAR[r]ING (fighting, with only half the middle letter pair) |
| 14 | SELF-ABASEMENT | When out, English batsman feels humiliation (4-9) (E[nglish] BATSMAN FEELS)* AInd: out. |
| 16 | DRIBS AND DRABS | Bird, back by river, tucked into fish little bits at a time (5,3,5) BIRD< then R[iver] inside SAND DABS (fish, a small flounder from the Pacific) Edit: S sneakily included after Eileen’s Comment at #10 |
| 20 | PUCCINI | He scored 100 batting in international trophy, making comeback (7) C (100) IN (in) inside (I[nternational] CUP (trophy))< |
| 21 | ANIMATE | Secured by advance payment, I start to make a living (7) I M[ake] A inside ANTE (advance payment) |
| 23 | IDIOT | Expression tense for Mike and Wally (5) IDIOM (expression) swap M[ike] for T[ense] |
| 24 | GREATCOAT | Cast get a car to Petersham? (9) (GET A CAR TO)* AInd: cast. A Petersham is a type of greatcoat |
| 25 | NUGGET | Rev returned to fetch something small and valuable (6) GUN< (Rev, revolver(?) returned), GET (fetch). I am not sure about shortening Revolver to “Rev”. Edit: See Comments #6 and #7 where Simon S and Postmark confirm that gun and rev are synonymous in the sense of giving an engine a bit of welly. (Rev is not a valid abbreviation for revolver.) |
| 26 | SPIRALLY | Knowing about April being stormy as spring proceeds? (8) SLY (knowing) around (APRIL)* AInd: being stormy. Metal springs are often formed in spirals. |
| Down | ||
| 1 | DEFEAT | Heads of dodgy enterprise exploit loss (6) D[odgy] E[nterprise] FEAT (exploit) |
| 2 | AXIOM | Man wants a vote on principle (5) A X (a vote) IOM (Man, Isle of Man) |
| 3 | LATERAL | A £50 rate, working on the side (7) (A LL RATE)* AInd: working. LL from £50 |
| 4 | NO OIL PAINTING | Unattractive and plain, I go into salon finally for makeover (2,3,8) (PLAIN I GO INTO [salo]N)* AInd: for makeover. |
| 6 | ENCLAVE | Isolated area in French grotto containing lake (7) EN (in, french) CAVE (grotto) around L[ake] |
| 7 | TARDINESS | On retirement, I blast head for unpunctuality (9) (I DRAT)< (I blast, on retirement) NESS (head) |
| 8 | RELEGATE | At the end, demote member in rank? (8) [th]E LEG (member) inside RATE (rank). The definition, demote, is half-way through the wordplay – in fact I will declare this an &Lit clue and treat the whole clue as the definition – after all, relegation most usually happens “at the end” of a round or season, and changes the “rank” of an affected member. Edit: See Comment #5 where Hovis provides the correct parsing: [demot]E LEG inside RATE |
| 10 | KISS AND MAKE UP | Fool around in class, needing slap to restore peace? (4,3,4,2) KISS (fool around) MAKE UP (slap) Edit: See Comments #3 & #4 where Blah and Panthes provide the correct parsing: ASS (fool) reversed (around) inside KIND (class) Make-up is called “slap” particularly in theatrical circles. |
| 14 | STITCHING | Long to have smart clothing? Sewing is required (9) ITCH (long) inside (clothing, clothed by) STING (smart) Last one in: I could not see ITCH in STING |
| 15 | ADOPTION | Approval of choice of commercial? (8) AD (commercial) OPTION (choice) |
| 17 | SPITTLE | Saliva test involved with lip (7) (TEST LIP)* AInd: involved. |
| 18 | AVIATOR | One who flies from Scandinavia to Russia (7) Hidden in scandinAVIA TO Russia |
| 19 | GENTRY | Posh folk gradually changing sides (6) GENTLY (gradually) swap L for R |
| 22 | ATOLL | Bikini for one adult comes with cost (5) A[dult] TOLL (cost). |
10 A
I was thinking this way:
KISS AND (SLAP): fool around in class (needing slap)
MAKE UP: restore (double duty?)
Didn’t know Makeup meant Slap. ‘in class’ seems to be redundant…
10a is KI (SSA) ND MAKE-UP
A reversal of ass (fool) inserted in kind (class) and slap is slang for make up
ASS( idiot) coming up in KIND( class ) giving KISS AND followed by MAKEUP (slap)is how we parsed it?
Parsed 10a as Blah. Took RELEGATE as an &lit with E coming from demotE.
Thanks Klingsor and beermagnet
To gun or rev an engine is a standard expression.
I was with Blah and Panthes on KISS AND MAKE UP and agree with our blogger that Rev=gun in the sense of pressing hard on the accelerator. Nothing to do with revolver. Likewise, I saw RELEGATE as an &lit – the clue perfectly describes the definition and every word is playing a part. Very nice.
SPIRALLY for the definition, GENTRY for the device and NO OIL PAINTING for the surface are the stand outs for me.
Thanks Klingsor and beermagnet
Thanks both. I took Rev to be short for revolver, but will bow to the superior knowledge of those who have already commented
Have a bit more time to comment properly now, agree with SimonS & PM about gun, and Hovis, PM, and beermagnet about the &lit or cad nature of 8D.
I had a similar experience to beermagnet, top completed, bottom sparse after two run throughs.
I can see why Eileen raves about Alberich now, I think that’s my first Klingsor and it was excellent. I had the same likes as PM but would also add CAROL which I think one could justify as another &lit, not just semi.
Thanks Klingsor and beermagnet!
Hi Blah @9
Glad you’re enjoying Alberich / Klingsor. 😉
I didn’t find this puzzle as much of a write-in as our blogger did. In fact, I found it quite a challenge – a very absorbing and enjoyable one, too. My favourite clues were SELF-ABASEMENT, PUCCINI, IDIOT, NO OIL PAINTING, KISS AND MAKE UP and AVIATOR.
I found the same satisfaction as beermagnet after checking SAND DAB – I think it was lurking somewhere in the memory bank. (The parsing needs an S on the end of it.)
Many thanks to Klingsor and to beermagnet.
Thanks to all commenters. I have made some corrections
Not too difficult for a Saturday puzzle, but even so I missed the parsing of DRIBS AND DRABS, which I bunged in from the def and didn’t go back to, as well as RELEGATE which I just couldn’t work out. New word of the day was a ‘Petersham’ as a type of GREATCOAT.
We’ve had it as an answer before, but I’m another who liked the surface for NO OIL PAINTING.
Thanks to Klingsor and beermagnet
I’ve not done many Klingsor crosswords and have generally found them trickier than this. Maybe I’m improving, ha ha. Like others, I made slower progress on the bottom half. Spirally was my last one in and a penny-drop smiler. I was tempted to cheat a couple of times, given my expectation that I’d struggle with this one, but I’m glad I didn’t. Thanks to Klingsor, to beermagnet for the blog and the updates, and to everyone else for the explanations.
I’ve said before that I’ve found Saturday puzzles vary greatly. Some weeks they go straight in, some weeks I hit a roadblock. This was the former for me, but it does seem there is also a lot of variability in how solvers find any particular puzzle, and it doesn’t seem to be the case that solver X and solver Y will always agree on which puzzles are hard and which difficult.
We usually get on fairly well with Klingsor/Alberich and found this very enjoyable. One or two blind spots – for example we couldn’t see DEADLINE for ages and it didn’t help that we saw that an unparsed ‘dialling’ – implying the opposite of not being able to phone – would fit the crossers. Highlights were DRIBS AND DRABS, GREATCOAT and SPIRALLY.
Thanks, Klingsor and beermagnet.
Yes, dialling fitted the crossers but not the clue. Clever
SE corner was tricky I found. Couldn’t be anything other than GREATCOAT but had no idea why & SPIRALLY also gave me problems. Otherwise reasonably plain sailing & enjoyable.
Thanks all.