A fun challenge from SLEUTH this Friday.
FF: 8 DD: 7
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | REFRESHMENT ROOM |
Place for fuel in a station? (11,4)
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cryptic def |
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| 9 | DRIFTER |
Tramp less sodden after covering feet (7)
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DRIER ( less sodden ) containing FT ( feet ) |
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| 10 | ELASTIC |
Accommodating fifty taken with wine in City (7)
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[ L ( fifty ) ASTI ( wine ) ] in EC ( city ) |
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| 11 | MAINE |
Troop overlooking river in US state (5)
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MArINE ( troop, without R – river ) |
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| 12 | RIGOLETTO |
Doctor, Eastern European, in heart of good opera (9)
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RIG ( director ) [ LETT ( eastern european, from latvia ) in OO ( gOOd, heart of ) ] ; needed internet help to solve this |
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| 13 | NIGHT OWLS |
Those enjoying the dark now lights are off (5,4)
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[ NOW LIGHTS ]* |
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| 15 | SIENA |
Regular features of spires near Italian city (5)
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alternate letters of "..SpIrEs NeAr.." |
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| 16 | ARCED |
Wild cedar in a curved shape? (5)
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[ CEDAR ]* |
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| 18 | INDONESIA |
Asian country individual’s probed — or another? (9)
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INDIA ( asian country ) containing ONE'S ( individual's ) |
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| 20 | IRRITATED |
Irish woman and priest subject to bother? (9)
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IR ( irish ) RITA ( woman ) TED ( priest, from father ted, british sitcom ) ; i had to google for the ted reference but still not sure if i have this right |
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| 23 | ANGLE |
Use a line, perhaps, that could be obtuse (5)
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cryptic def |
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| 24 | EMBARGO |
Ban doctor on board English ship (7)
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MB ( doctor ) in [ E ( english ) ARGO ( ship ) ] |
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| 25 | IMITATE |
Copy computing etc in India and China? (7)
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IT ( computing etc ) in [ I ( india ) MATE ( china, cockney ) ] |
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| 26 | SPUR OF THE MOMENT |
Impulsive way to work by chaps in furthest op in battle (4,2,3,6)
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[ MO ( way to work , Modus Operandi ) MEN ( chaps ) ] in [ FURTHEST OP ]* |
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| DOWN | ||
| 1 | RUDIMENTARINESS |
Sued minister ran off showing primitive quality (15)
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[ SUED MINISTER RAN ]* |
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| 2 | FAILING |
Fellow out of sorts has weakness (7)
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F ( fellow ) AILING ( out of sorts ) |
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| 3 | ENTREATED |
Solicited admission to trap a tense director (9)
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[ ENTREE ( admission ) containing { A T ( tense ) } ] D ( director ) |
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| 4 | HIRER |
One employing some Yorkshire residents (5)
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hidden in "..yorksHIRE Residents" |
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| 5 | ENERGISED |
Working in degrees in a peppy state? (9)
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[ IN DEGREES ]* |
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| 6 | TRAWL |
Search country path having week to cover island (5)
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TRAiL ( country path, with W – week replacing I – Island ) |
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| 7 | OCTETTE |
Group improved when free of trappings after month (7)
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OCT ( month ) bETTEr ( improved, without end characters ) |
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| 8 | MICROMANAGEMENT |
Knight, say, seen in memo reacting badly has undue control? (15)
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MAN ( knight, say ) in [ MEMO REACTING ]* |
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| 14 | WAISTCOAT |
Garment unwanted, it’s said, on shoreline lacking in sun (9)
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WAIST ( sounds like WASTE, unwanted ) COAsT ( shoreline, without S – sun ) |
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| 15 | SAN MARINO |
Airman and son straying in landlocked republic (3,6)
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[ AIRMAN SON ]* |
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| 17 | CARIBOU |
One hunted a guy taking part in chorus on and off (7)
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[ A RIB ( guy ) ] in COU ( ChOrUs, alternate letters of ) |
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| 19 | SIGNAGE |
Start to survey awfully ageing commercial displays? (7)
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S ( Survey , starting letter ) [ AGEING ]* |
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| 21 | TORSO |
Temperature approximately in body (5)
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T ( temperature ) OR SO ( approximately ) |
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| 22 | DRIVE |
Approach organised campaign (5)
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double def |
I would reverse your rankings Turbolegs. DD is higher and FF is much lower for me.
I really liked NIGHT OWLS, ANGLE, IMITATE and TORSO. On the other hand I had several clues I could not parse. So thank you for your brilliant explanations. A couple of clues just do not work for me.
Thanks Sleuth and Turbolegs
I arrived at MAINE a different way. I discovered that there’s a river AIN in France, and thought that ME was one of those British initialisms that probably meant a troop. But on second thoughts, I vaguely recall it was some kind of engineer, so clearly I was barking up the wrong tree.
Why is rib guy? I looked everywhere.
And I thought ENTREE meant a prawn cocktail, not admission.
Thanks Sleuth and Turbolegs!
Faves: REFRESHMENT ROOM (a simple but elegant cryptic def), SPUR OF THE MOMENT (great surface), WAISTCOAT (another great surface, incidentally a beach) and DRIVE (straightforward but liked it thinking about an array of meanings DRIVE has).
IRRITATED
I parsed it as in the blog. I think the question mark is applied to the ‘priest’ in the cryptic reading.
ANGLE
Should the def 1/cryptic def be ‘Use (a) line perhaps’?
Def 2: ‘That could be obtuse’ (or acute another day).
GDU@2
CARBOU
to rib is to guy (tease)
Hi Geoff,
Rib and Guy can both mean to taunt. Chambers has Entree meaning Admission.
Regards,
TL
Ta.
I thought this a very enjoyable and cleanly clued crossword. My picks were IRRITATED (liked [Father] Ted), ANGLE and SPUR OF THE MOMENT.
Like KVa, I thought of ANGLE as a subtle double definition with the first def (angle/fish) being cryptic.
Many thanks to Sleuth and Turbolegs.
Especially liked 20a IRRITATED for referencing Father Ted(1995-8):
‘Several quotes from the series have entered the popular lexicon, such as “These are small, but the ones out there are far away. Small … Far away … Ah forget it.”, “Down with this sort of thing”, and “I hear you’re a racist now, Father”‘
Thanks for the blog, good set of neat clues. I think the very friendly gfid made it seem easier , long answers around the perimeter and every answer had the first letter checked.
A very enjoyable crossword time well wasted
Nothing too difficult and most enjoyable.
Apart from 26ac the perimeter entries did take us a little while to get and we wondered, when we got REFRESHMENT ROOM, how many are actually called that these days – they seem to be mostly franchises of various high street chains.
Anyway, back to the puzzle, we liked OCTETTE and, although we’re not opera lovers, RIGOLETTO.
Thanks, Sleuth and Turbolegs.
Roz@8 I got RUDIMENTARINESS early, but the other perimeter clues took time and crossers to solve. Never heard of a REFRESHMENT ROOM at a station – is it an English thing? (perhaps one in the past judging by what allan_c wrote)?
And now that Allan_c@10 mentioned it, does anyone use OCTETTE and not octet? My OED does not even mention the former, although of course Chambers does. I would agree with Allan_c that it is a nice clue if the spelling were known to me
Thanks Turbolegs as I couldn’t parse MAINE, having always thought the constituent units of “troops” were “troopers”. Nice to see Father Ted (“a child has become lodged in the tunnel of goats”) and the the refreshment room a blast from even further back, thanks Sleuth. PS octette new for me too, unsurprisingly.
Martyn@11 the most famous REFRESHMENT ROOM is at Carnforth railway station ( Brief Encounter ) , quite near to us. We visit sometimes if we are going to the Lake District on the train.
Roz@13 – It even has its own website – https://refreshmentroom.com/ – [Edit: I see the edit time has gone up to four minutes]
oed.com has 3 ‘Variant forms: 1700s octett, 1800s OCTETTE, and 1800s–octet.’ and 4 definitions: ‘
1. 1799- Music.(a) A composition for eight instruments or voices. (b) A group of eight singers or instrumentalists.
2. 1879– A group of eight lines of verse; spec. the first eight lines of a sonnet.
3. 1894– gen. A group of eight persons or things.
4.a. 1919– Physics and Chemistry. A stable group of eight electrons filling an electron shell of an atom.
4.b. 1961– Particle Physics. A multiplet (multiplet n. 2b) of eight subatomic particles.’
Let’s see what GeneratePress makes of this citation for 4.b. – I had to paste in the superscript zero (⁰) from elsewhere… ‘
1968 Here [i.e. in SU(3) theory] the basic octet of states is identified with the nucleon, the Σ-particle triplet, the Λ⁰ particle, and the Ξ-particle doublet. M. S. Livingston, Particle Physics xii. 213′ – [It worked!]
Thanks S&T
Frankie@15 in Paricle Physics it is more usually called the Eightfold Way , Gell-Mann was good at naming things. The first model led to the theory of quarks but it was a decuplet which led to the prediction of the Omega-minus and the acceptance of the model.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/decuplet has ‘decuplet …2. (physics) A collection of spin-3/2 baryons described in the eightfold way.’ Well done Wiktionary. oed.com
has only ‘decuplet Music. ‘A group of ten notes played in the time of eight or four’ (Stainer & Barrett Dict. Mus. Terms).’ even though there’s this citation under omega:
‘1964 The multitude of resonances which have been discovered recently..can be arranged as a decuplet with one member still missing… This particle (which we shall call Ω−, following Gell-Mann) is predicted to be a negatively charged isotopic singlet with strangeness minus three.’
How remiss.
I have a large print of the very “famous” bubble chamber photograph for the first Omega-minus discovery.