Wire fills the Thursday spot this week
As expected this was an enjoyable challenge, with some good surfaces and crafty wordplay – some might say a little too crafty?
We’re on our way home from Norfolk today, so we won’t be able respond to any comments until this evening.
A potential clue for ‘a girl’ could be an anagram (MAD) of RIGAL
A homophone (‘on the radio’) of A CHORD (‘what could be struck’, as in ‘strike a chord’)
GOTH (barbarian) round or ‘enthralling’ LIAr (‘storyteller’) missing the ‘r’ (right) – ‘right away’
O P U (first letters or ‘bits’ of oily pizza unwise) LENT (fasting)
IN (‘a la mode’) TRiO (group) missing ‘I’ (one)
Hens could possibly be described as LADY BIRDS
MADE (produced) MOSELLE (wine) round I (Italy)
N (new) CHANTING (‘Order music’ – as in monastic orders) in or ‘filling’ ELY (city)
EX (old) O (old) PLANE (craft) T (last or ‘final’ letter of left)
K (vitamin) in (‘infused’) SODA (drink)
A reversal (‘turning’) of GNAT + mELOn (fruit) without the first and last letters or ‘peeled’
An anagram (‘bust’) of RODIN ‘fronting’ ER (middle letters or ‘centre’ of ConciERgerie)
RAYS (sunshine) after S T (last letters or ‘backs’ of kennels burnt)
A (American) eGoIsTs (alternate or ‘regular’ letters) PROP (forward – in rugby)
A reversal (‘rolling’) of GEM (stone) + RIM (edge) – a new word for us – apparently, this is the ‘scaldfish’ – it can also be a migraine, but you don’t catch a migraine
D I (first or ‘initial’ letters of diviner irritated) LUTE (instrument)
Hidden (‘some’) and reversed (‘recalled’) in threAT A ROMAN Issued
An anagram (‘sick’) of DANE’S NOTE round CHILL (cold)
MB (doctor) after CRU (vineyard) – as in ‘a crumb of comfort’
hERo missing the outer letters or ‘naked’ in or ‘framed by’ an anagram (‘artfully’) of LOUVRE
Two EDs (editors), one reversed and one forwards (‘facing one another’) round TEST (trial)
To change ‘orating’ to ‘grating’ you put ‘g’ (GOOD) FOR ‘o’ (NOTHING)
LASH (whip) in or ‘aboard’ SPOUT (jet)
Hidden (‘collected’ by) in soME MEN TO Start – are all fridge magnets mementos?
An anagram (‘shaken’) of CORE SHONe missing the last letter or ‘briefly’
CON (gull, as in cheat) + O (egg) in a reversal (‘upset’) or RD (Road)
This must be: SAT (put) RAP (‘words to instrumental backing’), but it seems to be stretching the synonyms a bit too far – Chambers Thesaurus does have ‘put’ as a synonym for ‘sit’ in the sense of ‘settle’, but can anyone put the alternatives into a sentence?
LEE (Bruce Lee, ‘martial artist’) + ReadY without the middle letters or ‘on vacation’
Thanks Wire and BnJ
“I put / sat the teapot on the placemat”?
1D was new to me as well, but far from making me grim, this puzzle cheered me up, with 1A my favourite.
I wonder if the clue to 18A is Wire’s nod to Ian Curtis, who took his own life on this date in 1980, after which the remaining members of Joy Division reinvented themselves as New Order.
Much to appreciate in this offering from Wire. It took me a while to get onto the wavelength but the second pass through cleared up those that had puzzled me on the first so all ended well. I’m another for whom MEGRIM was new but it was clearly clued and a quick dictionary check confirmed that there was such a word – though I was happy to discover the second definition lurking beneath the first. What a lot of fish there are in the sea!
Favourites of many include MADRIGAL, GOLIATH, LADYBIRDS, MADEMOISELLE, the aforementioned MEGRIM, DILUTE, GOOD-FOR-NOTHING, MEMENTOS and CONDOR.
Thanks Wire and B&J (at least you won’t be tired from tramping up and down hills!)
I didnt know MEGRIM but followed the instructions-shouldve been a band-or was it the Megrim Brothers?
Fine puzzle and blog
Struck ACCORD. Liked MADRIGAL and SKODA. Entertaining. Thanks.
Wordplay can never be “too crafty”.
Liked DILUTE where you had to lift-and-separate the “Water” from the “Water diviner”
and LADY BIRDS where you had to do the opposite.
Quizzy_Bob@2 you must be right about Ian Curtis.
27a “American egoists regularly forward fake news” – yes they do.
I’m puzzled by the capital W for “Whip” in 15d.
Defeated by 1D which was a nho. Squinted at the wordplay and bunged in “MEGLIP”
Thanks both
Thanks both. Beaten by the unknown SATRAP though I guessed the ‘rap’ part notwithstanding that I wasn’t convinced by its definition. Came close but cigarless with MEGRIM for which I entered ‘magrim’ as in Rolling Stone mag(azine) and there are I was once reassuringly informed plenty of fish in the sea….
Not too difficult, but some thought required in places.
MEGRIM was one of our last ones in. We got it from the wordplay and looked in Chambers to confirm; the first definition was dizziness or vertrigo and we thought you don’t exactly catch them – then we saw the second entry as a fish. Well, it makes a change from the ubiquitous ide of Crosswordland.
And, curiously, we got 4dn from barking up the wrong tree as it were. We had a crossing L and took a wild guess that it might be part of ‘ill’ from ‘sick’ in the clue; then an even wilder guess suggested ACHILLES TENDON.which turned out to be correct. Actually that’s not the first time something like that has happened – do other solvers sometimes get the right answer for the wrong reasons?
Thanks, Wire and B&J
QB@2 and FG@6 I wish I could confirm, alas it’s a fluke. A glass will be raised to Ian Curtis tonight. He was a bit before my time, although I’ve seen New Order a couple of times, superb.
MEGRIM eh! This was on the menu in a fish plaice down in Royal Tunbridge Wells that we found on the way back from Kent to County Durham (in the middle of the petrol shortages, stressful!). I had to ask the waiter about it, as it was nho for me. One surfaced recently in a Listener puzzle, I think.
FG@6 the title Chief Whip was what I had in mind: only a senior Whip would be afforded travel by jet at the taxpayers expense, surely…
Thanks B&J and to all who have contributed today.
SATRAP I had S, A, T, soprano alto tenor as in sheet music with parts for three voices. Not really instrumental though.
Also 1D gave up trying to turn Jagger into Jagged.
Thanks Wire. The NW corner was my undoing. I failed with 1ac, 1d, and INTRO. I liked ENCHANTINGLY, EXOPLANET, and GOOD-FOR-NOTHING in particular. Thanks B & J for parsing.