Maybe I am just tired tonight, but I really struggled with this puzzle, and consequently, did not enjoy it very much. From an objective assessment, I cannot fault the clues, many of which really are inventive. Please let me know if I missed any nuances.
After a J, K, Q, and X appeared, I thought certainly a pangram was in the offing, but in the end, no Z.
I am pretty sure that 7D is correct, but I do not understand what Aardvark is getting at there.
I have a leftover word in my parsing of 10A, so something is not right (hmmm) there.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | CHOUGH |
Bird seeing rat around entrance to hole (6)
|
| COUGH (rat, in the sense, e.g., of informing to the police) around H[OLE] (first letter of or “entrance to”) | ||
| 4 | MARBLING |
Ruin jewellery that’s seen in joint? (8)
|
| MAR (ruin) + BLING (jewellery), referring to meat | ||
| 10 | BACK PAY |
Overdue funds to support annual party not right (4,3)
|
| BACK (to support) + PA[RT]Y (minus [“not”] RT [right]). I cannot figure out what “annual” is doing here? | ||
| 11 | SIRLOIN |
Master with circus animal, essentially switching piece of meat (7)
|
| SIR (master) + LION (circus animal) reversing internal letters (“essentially switching”) | ||
| 12 | IKEA |
Fickle lad oddly ignored retailer (4)
|
| Alternate letters of (“oddly ignored”) [F]I[C]K[L]E [L]A[D] | ||
| 13 | VIETNAMESE |
Asian celebrity interrupts Stevie performing (10)
|
| NAME (celebrity) inside (interrupts) anagram of (performing) STEVIE | ||
| 15 | LITANY |
List books, it doesn’t matter which (6)
|
| LIT (books, i.e., literature) + ANY (it doesn’t matter which) | ||
| 16 | JAVELIN |
Athletics event broadcast live during start of year (7)
|
| Anagram of (broadcast) LIVE inside (during) JAN (start of year, i.e., January) | ||
| 20 | GATEAUX |
Sweet things Georgia and mate, possibly united, kiss (7)
|
| GA (Georgia) + TEA (mate, possibly) + U (united) + X (kiss) | ||
| 21 | SLUTTY |
Loose liquid waste, tons taking over rivers (6)
|
| SLURRY (liquid waste) with Ts (tons) replacing (taking over) the Rs (rivers) | ||
| 24 | GLENEAGLES |
Chap with score below par succeeded here? (10)
|
| GLEN (chap, i.e., a man’s name) + EAGLE (score below par) + S (succeeded) &lit., referring to the golf course. Thanks to KVa@4. |
||
| 26 | TRIP |
On which one’s wasted time with farewell message (4)
|
| T (time) + R.I.P. (farewell message), referring to drugs | ||
| 28 | NAIROBI |
Rain dancing which sorcerers perform somewhere in Africa (7)
|
| Anagram of (dancing) RAIN + OBI (which sorcerers perform) | ||
| 29 | ELATION |
Leading story reflected joy (7)
|
| NOI (leading, i.e., “No. 1”) + TALE (story) all reversed (reflected) | ||
| 30 | GRASSFED |
Informed about fine method of beef production? (8)
|
| GRASSED (informed) around (about) F (fine) | ||
| 31 | WIGWAM |
Old party band from 1980s, repeatedly trashing hotel lodge (6)
|
| W[H]IG (old party) + W[H]AM[!] (band from 1980s), in both instances (repeatedly) deleting (trashing) the H (hotel) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | CABRIOLE |
Type of leg spinning ace maintaining zip and length (8)
|
| Anagram of (spinning) ACE around (maintaining) [BRIO (zip) + L (length)] | ||
| 2 | ORCHESTRA |
Players from promoted Barrow lacking wingers around box (9)
|
| [B]ARRO[W] (outside letters ignored or “lacking wingers”) inverted (promoted) around CHEST (box) | ||
| 3 | GAPE |
Good mimic’s facial expression (4)
|
| G (good) + APE (mimic) | ||
| 5 | ALSATIAN |
Article supports test probing boxer dog (8)
|
| SAT (test) inside (probing) ALI (boxer) + AN (article) | ||
| 6 | BARBARELLA |
Spike, every time, sent up 1960s film (10)
|
| BARB (spike) + [ALL (every) + ERA (time)] inverted (sent up) | ||
| 7 | IN ONE |
Method of drinking at home over lunchtime? (2,3)
|
| IN (at home) + ONE (lunchtime, possibly, thus “?”). I do not understand this clue. Does this mean “in one big gulp”? | ||
| 8 | GANNET |
Greedy type with good news: meal turning up outside (6)
|
| G (good) + TEA (meal) inverted (turning up) around (outside) N + N (“news,” i.e., the word “new,” plural) | ||
| 9 | EYRIE |
Perhaps infant class in Edale’s outskirts finding avian habitat (5)
|
| YRI (perhaps infant class, i.e., “Y[EA]R 1”) inside (in) E[DAL]E (outside letters of or “outskirts”) | ||
| 14 | UNGENEROUS |
A Gallic rocker Vincent awfully sour and mean (10)
|
| UN (a “Gallic,” i.e., in French) + GENE (rocker Vincent) + anagram of (awfully) SOUR | ||
| 17 | INTERVIEW |
Struggle in winter relocating conference (9)
|
| VIE (struggle) inside (in) anagram of (relocating) WINTER | ||
| 18 | QUAGMIRE |
Slough’s yearly meeting written in paper (8)
|
| AGM (yearly meeting, i.e., annual general meeting — I have never seen this abbreviation before, but it is in Chambers) inside (written in) QUIRE (paper) | ||
| 19 | TYMPANUM |
Drum Terry emptied with cooking vessel in silence (8)
|
| T[ERR]Y (“emptied”) + PAN (cooking vessel) inside (in) MUM (silence) | ||
| 22 | EGGNOG |
Award lifted after, say, strong punch? (6)
|
| E.G. (say) + GONG (award) inverted (lifted) | ||
| 23 | SEVEN |
Number of small flat (5)
|
| S (small) + EVEN (flat) | ||
| 25 | EVITA |
Musical European full of life mostly (5)
|
| E (European) + VITA[L] (full of life “mostly”) | ||
| 27 | SARI |
Heard American apology maybe for attire (4)
|
| Homophone of (heard) SORRY (American apology maybe) |
10a – me neither
7d – yes. AKA chuggalugging in USA and sculling in Oz.
I only half finished and wasn’t enjoying it either, Cineraria, so I gave up. Too many obscurities, and the clues I did solve (or thought I solved) often contained something iffy which elicited a groan.
Hard going. CHOUGH and CABRIOLE to start with and things didn’t become much easier after that. I wonder how many post baby-boomers remember BARBARELLA; not your stock standard ET crossword ‘film’.
In keeping with a couple of other year-related clues – YRI in EYRIE and AGM in QUAGMIRE – I lazily parsed ‘annual’ as PA (per annum) for BACK PAY, but you’re right in that it doesn’t work. I agree with your parsing of 7d and wait to hear the UK equivalent of the US and Aust. terms mentioned by Michael @1.
I felt a bit uncomfortable about SLUTTY which is not a very nice word; I’ll leave it at that. Favourites were GLENEAGLES and the terrible = good SARI / sorry homophone.
Thanks to Aardvark and Cineraria
Thanks, Aardvark and Cineraria.
BACK PAY
I tried PA for annual as WordPlodder@3 did, but it didn’t work. Then thought it could be a word like ‘righty’ for ‘party’, but righty means a party person (not a party). Back to square one. The ‘annual’ seems redundant or all of us are missing something.
IN ONE
I think the parsing is fine.
GLENEAGLES
A minor correction:
GLEN+EAGLE+S (succeeded)
Not too many holdups for me so I found it more enjoyable than others seem to have. I suspect 10a is in error. Perhaps two attempts at a clue have got melded together.
I’m with Hovis on this one. I did really enjoy it but needed an afternoon reset since it was tough?going at first; managing to dredge up CHOUGH helped.
I liked the three beefy clues and though I was surprised at 21a, I confess, it made me laugh. I also liked BARBARELLA (too young to have seen the film when released but it’s cheesily iconic for the biting dolls and kinky boots), TYMPANUM, QUAGMIRE and WIGWAM.
I needed Cineraria’s explanation for OBI which I only knew as a Japanese belt. ‘Down in one’ is a phrase that will be oft heard at the forthcoming Sevens tournament here.
Thanks to Aardvark and Cineraria.
Re 20A: can someone explain how “mate” and “tea” are synonyms?
I agree with Ceneraria and Michael about the redundancy of “annual” in 10A.
Re 1D: I seem to remember from woodwork lessons at school (a long time ago) that this was “capriole”.
Re 18D: I come from a business background and “AGM” was routinely used to refer to the event. I cannot recall anyone ever saying the words in full.
mayoclinic.org
Yerba mate, also known as mate, is an herbal tea. It’s a traditional drink in Latin and South America.
QU(AGM)IRE seemed straightforward (comparatively)
Tough=Rat seemed OK even if its not in the CCD
I rather liked SLURRY/SLUTTY
It had to be ALSATIAN which on parsing indicated that there was some sort of test or exam called SAT(Mr Google to the rescue)
Wasnt that a wartime term as an alternative to German Shepherd?
When it came to WIGMAN I was just about parsed out
I could see W(H)IG so it had to be WIGWAM Ah W(H)AM Wasnt that where we heard of George Michael?
Three great puzzles all on a Tuesday!
Thanks everyone!
Peter@7 CHINA PLATE=MATE and CHINA TEA
Now I know why I couldn’t do most of this . . . Even some of the experts struggled.
I think that I be feeling as uncomfortable as WordPlodder was in the use of “slutty” in this forum. I recall being this uncomfortable some weeks ago with the use of “cherry” and “losing one’s (female) virginity.
Re: “mate”: My reading agrees with KVa@8.
copmus@9 and Peter@12: In the interest of decorum I have edited the joke and further references from the comments. To my sensibility, it has a confrontational tone in the nature of something that a Gloria Steinem Era feminist might have said, but it is arguably off-color for this forum.
copmus@9: Chambers (13th) defines “cough”: “to confess to a crime or to give information (sl.).”
Peter@7: Thanks for that background. I assumed that AGM was commonplace jargon somewhere, but I did wonder whether it was general knowledge. For me personally, it was not a term that leapt to mind in solving.
For GATEAUX I parsed mate (with KVa@8) as maté (with an accent):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_(drink)
But copmus@10’s MATE = CHINA = TEA works as well, if not better.
I wonder which version AARDVARK had in mind.
Thanks Aardvark and Cineraria
20ac: Thank you to KVa@8 for an explanation that makes sense. I cannot accept Mate = China = Tea. That is using two completely different meanings of the word “China”.
I liked SLUTTY for the R[iver]s toT[on]s schtick, and for the surface, alluding to the scandal of the water companies polluting Britain’s rivers with sewage.
What should we call that – Watergate?
Determined to find a less offensive meaning of slut I went here:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/slut#English
and found the phrases “press slut” and “job slut”‘
and that older meanings include “untidy person” in Shaw’s Pygmalion and “maidservant” in Pepys’ Diary.
Thanks Aardvark. I found this a mixed bag — I finally revealed GANNET, GLENEAGLES, CHOUGH, and UNGENEROUS and I was only familiar with the latter. Sometimes I can solve an unknown word with crystal clear wordplay but that didn’t happen for me with this crossword. I did like many of the clues, however, including IKEA, SLUTTY, TRIP, ELATION, and GRASSFED. Thanks Cineraria for the blog.
Thanks for the blog , really enjoyed this. IN ONE is used in student drinking games as a forfeit. SLUTTY not a nice word, maybe nothing else would fit. The word play is neat and the definition is about as neutral as possible.
The CHOUGH is a lovely bird, they have such red beaks and legs. There was a bit of a bird theme.
21ac: GLITZY would have fitted (and completed the pangram, for those interested in that sort of thing). Perhaps Aardvark has used it recently.
Steady progress was the order of the day, but we got it all in the end, although one or two parsings escaped us. We suspect the clue for 10ac may have been changed and ‘annual’ accidentally left in fom the earlier version – these things do happen.
Thanks, Aardvark and Cineraria.
I laughed out loud re Nairobi, what a surface, he he, it might be offensive but it’s only a crossword, after all.