I had a much easier time filling in this entertaining Bobcat grid than I have had explaining some of the clues. I hope this provides some elucidation.
The customary feline nina appears across the middle.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | EFFACE |
Remove restaurant retrospectively charging uncapped fee (6)
|
| CAFF (restaurant) reversed (retrospectively) inside (charging) [F]EE minus first letter (uncapped) | ||
| 5 | POLITICO |
Cut back relations with company controlling international minister? (8)
|
| LOP (cut) reversed (back) + {IT ([sexual] relations) + CO. (company)} around (controlling) I (international) | ||
| 9 | CLEAVE |
Divide prime bit of Camembert the French way (6)
|
| First letter of (prime bit of) C[AMEMBERT] + LE (the [in] French) + AVE. (way) | ||
| 10 | REKINDLE |
Family haunting retired senior cause further provocation (8)
|
| KIN (family) inside (haunting) ELDER (senior) reversed (retired) | ||
| 11 | FOOTLING |
Trivial affair keeping Wellington away from the front? (8)
|
| FLING (affair) around (keeping) [B]OOT (wellington) minus first letter (away from the front), with a capitalization misdirection | ||
| 12 | AMOEBA |
Graduates going head to head about shell of obscure creature (6)
|
| {MA + BA} (graduates) with the first of them reversed so that the first letters connect (going head to head) around (about) outside letters of (shell of) O[BSCUR]E | ||
| 13 | OBOE |
Player from Expresso Bongo extremely withdrawn (4)
|
| Outside letters of (extremely) {E[XPRESS]O + B[ONG]O} reversed (withdrawn) | ||
| 15 | ILL-TIMED |
Inappropriate clue for ‘demit’? It’s just a reversal (3-5)
|
| I am not quite sure how best to explain this. An anagram of (inappropriate) DEMIT might be equivalent to an anagram of (ill) TIMED, but TIMED is really also just a reversal of DEMIT. | ||
| 18 | EAU DE VIE |
Read rude review inwardly showing spirit (3,2,3)
|
| Hidden in (showing) inside letters of (inwardly) {[R]EA[D] + [R]UD[E] + [R]EVIE[W]} | ||
| 19 | OMEN |
Nurse on flipping second warning (4)
|
| MO (second) reversed (flipping) + EN ([enrolled] nurse) | ||
| 21 | SKATER |
Partially unmask a terrifying iceman (6)
|
| Hidden in (partially) [UNMA]SK A TER[RIFYING] | ||
| 23 | ARM CANDY |
Host entertains Charlie with attractive escort (3,5)
|
| ARMY (host) around (entertains) {C (Charlie) + AND (with)} | ||
| 25 | ROMANTIC |
Visionary movement introduced by Marcus Aurelius? (8)
|
| ROMAN (e.g., Marcus Aurelius?) + TIC (movement) | ||
| 26 | NAIADS |
Scotsman going west notices divine females (6)
|
| IAN (Scotsman) reversed (going west) + ADS (notices) | ||
| 27 | HEREUPON |
Poor Schopenhauer lacking cash supply at this stage (8)
|
| Anagram of (poor) [SCH]OPENH[A]UER minus (lacking) anagram of (supply) CASH | ||
| 28 | SINGER |
Soprano in Germany? (6)
|
| &lit and S (soprano) + IN + GER. (Germany) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | FOLIO |
Fine old cat hiding tail in folded paper (5)
|
| F (fine) + O (old) + LIO[N] (cat) minus last letter (hiding tail) | ||
| 3 | APARTHEID |
Discrimination distorted hit parade (9)
|
| Anagram of (distorted) HIT PARADE | ||
| 4 | EMETIC |
‘Throw up’ (to quote author) with this medicine (6)
|
| CITE ME (to quote author) inverted (throw up), with an element of clue-as-definition at work | ||
| 5 | PEREGRINE FALCON |
Jockey mostly prefers congenial fast mover (9,6)
|
| Anagram of (jockey) {PREFER[S] minus last letter (mostly) + CONGENIAL} | ||
| 6 | LIKEABLE |
Attractive characteristic of The Third Man elevating the finale (8)
|
| LIKE (characteristic of) + ABEL (the third man, i.e., in Genesis, after Adam and Cain) moving the last letter up (elevating the finale) | ||
| 7 | TANGO |
Code for the Speaker’s tea dance (5)
|
| Double definition, the first, the [international radio] code for a homophone of (the speaker’s) T (tea) | ||
| 8 | CALABRESE |
Alsace beer brewed without English vegetable (9)
|
| Anagram of (brewed) {ALSACE BE[E]R minus (without) one E (English)}, evidently a variety of broccoli | ||
| 14 | BLACK HOLE |
Site of massive gathering from which there’s no escape (5,4)
|
| Cryptic definition | ||
| 16 | ISOLATION |
Start to interpret three notes about quarantine (9)
|
| First letter of (start to) I[NTERPRET] + {SO + LA + TI} (three notes) + ON (about) | ||
| 17 | OVERSTEP |
Naked lovers’ rampant favourites go too far (8)
|
| Inside letters of (naked) [L]OVER[S] + PETS (favourites) inverted (rampant) | ||
| 20 | AMENDS |
Approve detective sergeant’s reforms (6)
|
| AMEN (approve) + DS (detective sergeant) | ||
| 22 | TRACE |
Little sign of queen leaving balcony (5)
|
| T[ER]RACE (balcony) minus (leaving) ER (queen) | ||
| 24 | DODGE |
Odd bits of dagger located after party trick (5)
|
| DO (party) + odd letters of (odd bits of) D[A]G[G]E[R] |
I had a similar experience – I got several answers from the definition & crossers and it then took some time to work out the parsing. I still needed your help for ARM CANDY, TANGO, and LIKEABLE. Thank you. There were a couple of new words too, including LOI FOOTLING.
Overall I enjoyed it, with a good variety of clues. I had ticks for APARTHEID, CLEAVE, EAU DE VIE, SKATER, ISOLATION, and ROMANTIC.
Thanks Bobcat and Cineraria
Liked ILL-TIMED (well-explained in the blog), SOPRANO, BLACK HOLE and EMETIC.
Very good puzzle. Excellent blog.
Thanks Bobcat and Cineraria.
Thanks Bobcat for an excellent crossword complete with a feline Nina. I found this fairly straightforward but I still needed a word finder for FOOTLING and HEREUPON. My top picks were REKINDLE, ARM CANDY, NAIADS, SINGER, OVERSTEP, and TRANCE. Thanks Cineraria for filling in my parsing gaps.
Liked 27a HEREUPON – nice surface – and my LOi 11a FOOTLING. [/ˈfuːtl̩ɪŋ/ FOO-tuhl-ing]
Thanks for the blog, I can only agree with all the comments above and I liked the precision of HEREUPON .
Tachyons might disagree with the definition for BLACK HOLE plus Hawking radiation .
Really enjoyed the puzzle—thanks Bobcat. My favorites were ROMANTIC and ARM CANDY. Cineraria-thank you for a great blog.
I wasn’t sure about the full parsing of ILL-TIMED either and left it at the reverse anagram v. reversal as explained by Cineraria. Predicting the LIONESS Nina after getting the first three letters helped with CALABRESE which was new to me. A couple of other new ones in FOOTLING and ARM CANDY and the BLACK HOLE cryptic def took this up to the expected level of trickiness for a Bobcat.
Thanks to him and to Cineraria
Reasonably straightforward apart from LOI, HEREUPON, where I insisted (mainly through laziness) on trying to do the subtractive anagram in my head. Parsed ILL-TIMED as per the blog. PEREGRINE FALCON is nicely done, as are TANGO, FOOTLING, EAU DE VIE, EMETIC, ARM CANDY and ISOLATION. I found EFFACE tricky to parse, playing around with all those F’s and E’s with the possibility of CAFE rather than CAFF being the insertion. Spotted the cat early enough for it to be useful.
Thanks Bobcat and Cineraria
I wonder if 9a could be C for Camembert + LEAVE as in “take French leave”?
: Thanks Bobcat and Cineraria
27ac: I think technically the second anagram lead is not strictly necessary here, because the clue can be taken as “(Poor Schopenhauer) lacking cash”, but it is never wrong, always safe, and usually kinder to the solver to include it.
8dn: This is one of those cases where the anagram together with the checked letters really do allow an unfamiliar word to be entered with confidence. Of course the Nina helps as well, as noted by WP@7.
Interesting the lack of recognition of CALABRESE – some of my recipe books/and or veg boxes describe the broccoli usually found on supermarket shelves as being CALABRESE and broccoli as the purple sprouting stuff not easily obtained except through veg boxes. I wrote it in as familiar.
Interesting puzzle – thank you to Cineraria and Bobcat
I once confused my Calabrian Italian teacher by discussing my abundant crop of Calabrese. She thought I was talking about an allotment with many fellow Calabrians (Calabrese in Italian)
I enjoyed this one, eventually, it took me a little while to tune in but once I did it was fun. I came up short on Ill Timed Eau Da Vie and Likeable but, yeah, this was fun.
A variety of devices and difficulty level, and quite a bit of head-scratching to solve at least 7 or 8.
Having completed, I can see merit in every clue, so it’s a super puzzle.
I had to mentally cycle through the alphabet, for FOOTLING, having tried POOTLING, TOOTLING and some others until it clicked. Hardest clue in the grid, for me, but clever and fair.
I also struggled having gone for MIS-TIMED instead of ILL-TIMED, but I’m not beating myself up for that one.
Thanks to Bobcat.
Great blogging, Cineraria: with many of these, I knew how I did it, but I’m blessed if I could convey how, as well as you.
Medium difficulty with much fair and conventional clueing. Wasn’t aware of CAFF as restaurant so the blog clarified that one. Fun to think of a BLACK HOLE as a massive gathering! And AMEN as a verb is unusual – must remember that.
Thanks to Bobcat + Cineraria
We worked steadily through this and solved everything without help, apart from checking in Chambers for ARM CANDY, worked out from the clue. Favourite was PEREGRINE FALCON.
Thanks, Bobcat and Cineraria.
I found this intensely annoying and I gave up on it.
It has ruined my evening.
I won’t ever bother attempting a Bobcat again.
Daphne@17
I feel your pain! – although not on this particular crossword .
I find many puzzles that put me in a foul mood, whilst everyone else seems to think they’re wonderful.
There are at least three setters that drive me mad.
My revenge is to go out of my way to tackle their next one.
See you at the next Bobcat?