Monday and regular setter Filbert once more to strike fear into the heart of unwary bloggers
Quite tricky in places, certainly 7 down I could do with help and a query on 11. Thanks Filbert for the workout.
Well they’re pointless in scrabble. L(arge) in BANKS for the sides of say a pool or river
E(nglish) & AN all in MING – china
A ground [NOT MINCED]*
PAST – history & start of A(griculture). It’s more a case of shaped wheat flour methinks
RATS – bother reversed & SANDS – beach & TRIP – outing & a naked (b)ES(t). I think so but SANDS implies beaches though
OPT – I’ll plump for that one & I a single & MUM – mother
Reversed (flipping) hidden in flexiblE TILEs
A bone in the ear CU – copper in 7 – INS
PIN – leg & W(ith) removed from (w)HOLE – not broken
Debbie Reynolds this time – a forged [ANN IS INHERITING]*
RANG & back of (apologis)E
SUOMI – Finland reversed into LINE – field as in what’s your line, work, field
MON – first day of the week & EYE – looker & D(ate)
OUTLET with first letter changed to C.
L – fifty & CAST – actors in a butchered NARNIA*
SNAIL with the S cycled to the back
STERN – back & UM – that’s doubtful
An overhauled [MISS TEA]* Matisse often used pieces of paper cut into shapes in his works hence paper cutter, not the most obvious definition I’ll grant you.
AS PER – according to & I imprisoned by SON
Perhaps I’m being a bit slow today, I see W(omen) removed from (w)INS but INS for the successful party, they’re the INS the ones now in government maybe.
Top of L(ighthouse) in GASSY for WINDY
All in one cum cryptic def. A gutted C(reationist)S with OS – very large & MO – a flash, instant inserted
EVITA (peron) old first lady & (al) GORE – the v.p. & RP – estuary english all reversed
CHINE backbone especially in joints of meat inside MARY for madonna
SEAN – common Irish name & C.E.
End of (witnes)S & KILLED – rubbed out
POT – vessel & O(rdinary) & MAC coat
HAS* converted & RAM – part of a flock
PURE – clean reversed & top of T(oby)
Sounds like none
Phew! Had to cheat a little in the SE and was defeated by BLANKS. Thought the clue for CUTLET was very clever, although the answer could easily have been OUTLET. Great setter. A bit too hard for me today but that’s how one improves.
Super SKILLED. ‘Estuary English’ is new for me. Google says RP and London speech. I couldnt parse PREROGATIVE. I was stuck on GORE and PAT for Nixon. Didn’t read the clue. Where to start with a favourite. Crossword of the week so far. STERNUM, LIMOUSINE, STARS AND STRIPES, and BLANKS (‘of a pool or river’). Thanks.
Anyone else have ERUCT at 22d?
Hadn’t thought of you as an unwary blogger, flashling! As far as 7d goes, I am an equally unwary solver – nho INS in that context but Chambers has A member of the party in office as one of just three nounal defs for IN. Sands is less contentious – there are plenty of single eg Saunton (and even one shingle – Camber) beaches around the UK called *** Sands.
This was a splendid test for a Monday as always with Filbert. CONDIMENT, OPTIMUM, LIMOUSINE, CUTLET, the &littish STERNUM and the very &littish COSMOS were my faves.
I was defeated by ERUPT having concluded ERUCT being a reversal of ‘cure’ followed by the T. Cure can mean eliminate and, having assumed our setter had made that connection, I moved on without giving it another thought until the software told me at the end that I’d made an error. ERUPT is far better, of course.
Thanks Filbert and flashling
Muffyword – Yes! But it took me longer to write my missive …
@muffyword, I’ve just checked online and ERUPT seems intended – ERUCT certainly fits too to me. Bit unfortunate that.
I could really have re-written Post Mark’s comment, even down to his thoughts on Saunton Sands, a favourite place of mine. I too had eruct not erupt initially too.
I can’t say this was my favourite puzzle with some less than convincing surface reads mixed with some clever stuff. Still, plenty to like including PINHOLE, GLASSY, NAILS, COSMOS and my definite favourite, the super ASPERSION.
Many thanks to Filbert and flashling.
Estuary is most definitely not RP, though I am newly informed by Googling that the term I have mostly seen used derisively has elements of RP. One description I read was midway between RP and cockney.
As PostMark@4 I was held up by the app until I twigged that ERUCT didn’t quite parse.
Loved the COSMOS &lit. Great surface.
MATISSE’s The SNAIL mentioned in 3a NAILS recalled Sundays in the Tate (now Britain), doing activities with the kids.
!’m pleased to see they’re still available:
https://www.tate.org.uk/kids/make/cut-paste/collage-matisse-snail
Sorry, 3d NAILS
I enjoy the fortnightly Monday tussle with Filbert, even though I had to admit defeat today with an incorrect BLANKS, for which I put in a nonsense word (“plands”), an unparsed MATISSE (no idea) and a bunged in from the def STARS AND STRIPES. Spoilt for choice for my favourite, but I’ll go for the not Sir Joshua ‘Reynolds picture’ for SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN as my pick.
Thanks to flashling and Filbert
I drew a BLANK on 1ac, but I think it’s very clever now I have seen it. ASPERSION and PREROGATIVE were both very good, but COSMOS was my favourite. Thanks, both.
Thanks both. Also defeated by BLANKS which is simpler than I was making it, though I would not refer to the sides of a pool as banks. Parsing of PREROGATIVE was incomplete, as didn’t know the RP piece, and could dispute the ‘old’ element, where I would prefer ‘former’, as Eva Peron died aged 33
We couldn’t fully parse STARS AND STRIPES or PREROGATIVE but otherwise we found this fairly easy going for Filbert. We likes LIMOUSINE, CUTLET, LANCASTRIAN and ASPERSION.
Thanks, Filbert and flashling.
Thanks to Filbert for the stretching of the grey matter, and to flashling for filling in where I didn’t have quite enough elasticity. Completed online without error but was nowhere near parsing STARS AND STRIPES, PREROGATIVE or PINHOLE which were all filled in from definitions only. I did parse 1a, but needed all the crossers and only then was I able to fill in the BLANKS.
As with plenty of others I really liked STERNUM and CUTLET.
TFO @ 14 I would agree with you about the sides of a swimming pool, but I think a natural pool has banks not sides.
Superb puzzle. I hope Filbert becomes a Monday fixture.
Thanks Filbert for your customary excellence. I too had eruct instead of ERUPT, maybe because eruct was recently in another crossword. I also missed CUTLET but all else fell into place more easily than I expected. My top choices were MEANING (for once China was not rhyming slang), RANGE, and POTOMAC. Thanks flashling for the blog. I second what gsolphotog @18 said.
Excellent puzzle, thanks, Filbert. Tricky in places but fun. Particularly liked CUTLET. And thanks for the blog, flashling.
I’m another who had ERUCT until the app told me it was wrong.
“No accent is intrinsically good or bad, but it has to be recognized that the way we perceive accents does play a role in our attitude to others. Different people have differing perceptions. So there are significant numbers of young people who see Estuary English as modern, up-front, high on ‘street cred’ and ideal for image-conscious trendsetters. Others regard it as projecting an approachable, informal and flexible image. Whereas RP, Queen’s English, Oxford English and Sloane Ranger English are all increasingly perceived as exclusive and formal.” —Paul Coggle, 1993, in Do you speak Estuary?
https://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/estuary/