In more than one instance, today’s entry from Peto tested my ability to spell out the parsing in a comprehensible fashion . . .
. . . with a number of words and expressions that were unfamiliar to me. I would rate this puzzle as rather tough for a Tuesday, and certainly the sort of thing that I would have found very challenging back when I was a beginner. I think everything was fairly and conventionally clued, though, so hats off to Peto.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | WORDPLAY |
Dramatic performance with line about daughter’s witty repartee (8)
|
| ROW (line) reversed (about) + D (daughter) + PLAY (dramatic performance) | ||
| 5 | HARD UP |
Difficult at university when short of money (4,2)
|
| HARD (difficult) + UP (at university) | ||
| 9 | ALL CLEAR |
Permission to proceed with the only thing against Cuba having a king (3,5)
|
| I think this parses as: ALL (the only thing, as in “all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth”) + C (Cuba) + LEAR (a king) | ||
| 10 | PLIANT |
Easily influenced by books on Italian originally living in mountain retreat (6)
|
| {First letter of (originally) I[TALIAN] inside (living in) ALP (mountain) reversed (retreat)} + NT (books) | ||
| 11 | LATITUDE |
Freedom from restraint by lake having sex with American guy? Not at first (8)
|
| L (lake) + AT IT (having sex) + [D]UDE (American guy) minus first letter (not at first) | ||
| 12 | ESCORT |
Key soldiers trained primarily to provide an armed guard (6)
|
| ESC ([computer] key) + OR (soldiers) + first letter of (primarily) T[RAINED] | ||
| 14 | A TALL ORDER |
Hesitation after a bit, admitting return of speaking part is an unreasonable demand (1,4,5)
|
| {A + TAD (bit) around (admitting) homophone of (speaking) ROLE (part = “ROLL”) reversed (return of)} + ER (hesitation) | ||
| 18 | AMATEURISH |
Done in an inept way as Mennonite sect without regret takes volunteers back (10)
|
| AMISH (Mennonite sect) around (without) {[RUE (regret) + TA (volunteers)] all reversed (back)} | ||
| 22 | ENDURE |
Bear is close by river (6)
|
| END (close) + URE (river) | ||
| 23 | THOROUGH |
Utter an expression of surprise over occupying ditch (8)
|
| OH (an expression of surprise) reversed (over) inside (occupying) TROUGH (ditch) | ||
| 24 | ARARAT |
Where Noah ended up with a pair of rodents one tailless (6)
|
| A + {RA[T] + RAT} (pair of rodents) the first one minus last letter (one tailless) | ||
| 25 | BRASSIES |
Money that’s skimmed principally from golf clubs in the past (8)
|
| BRASS (money) + I.E. (that’s) + first letter of (principally) S[KIMMED] | ||
| 26 | TAPETI |
Monkey entering race against one kind of rabbit (6)
|
| {APE (monkey) inside (entering) TT (race, i.e., Tourist Trophy)} + I (one) | ||
| 27 | SYNOPSIS |
General view of northern goddess on extremely soggy island (8)
|
| Outside letters of (extremely) S[OGG]Y + N (northern) + OPS ([Roman] goddess [of abundance, prosperity, and agriculture, not listed in Chambers?]) + IS. (island) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | WEAKLY |
Key law used in an ineffective manner (6)
|
| Anagram of (used) KEY LAW | ||
| 2 | RELATE |
Tell of powerless church dignitary (6)
|
| [P]RELATE (church dignitary) minus (-less) P (power) | ||
| 3 | POLITE |
Refined oil confounded private pinches (6)
|
| PTE (private) around (pinches) anagram of (confounded) OIL | ||
| 4 | A HAND’S TURN |
Small amount of work to make commercials featuring Chinese fashion (1,5,4)
|
| ADS (commercials) around (featuring) HAN (Chinese) + TURN (fashion, as on a lathe) | ||
| 6 | ALLUSION |
Oblique mention of everything melting fellow ignored (8)
|
| ALL (everything) + [F]USION (melting) minus (ignored) F (fellow) | ||
| 7 | DIAMONDS |
Spoke about catching Rockers’ rival protecting new suit (8)
|
| SAID (spoke) inverted (about) around (catching) {MOD (Rockers’ rival) around (protecting) N (new)} | ||
| 8 | POTATORY |
Kitty seen with a Conservative given to drinking (8)
|
| POT (kitty) + A + TORY (Conservative) | ||
| 13 | FLASH HARRY |
Short news announcement to worry ostentatiously showy chap (5,5)
|
| FLASH (short news announcement) + HARRY (worry), according to Wikipedia “a fictional character from the St. Trinian’s series of films” | ||
| 15 | NAME PART |
Rising to criticise keeping oddly meek painting of Henry V for instance (4,4)
|
| {PAN (to criticise) inverted (rising) around (keeping) alternate letters of (oddly) M[E]E[K]} + ART (painting), referring to the title-role of a play | ||
| 16 | SAND WASP |
A couple from Spain going around with DNA lifted, for example, from a digging insect (4,4)
|
| First two letters of (a couple from) SP[AIN] around (going around) {[W (with) + DNA] inverted (lifted) + AS (for example)} | ||
| 17 | RECREANT |
Soldiers repeatedly describing cold social worker as cowardly (8)
|
| {RE + RE} (soldiers, repeatedly) around (describing) C (cold) + ANT (social worker) | ||
| 19 | PRESTO |
Prince is in Paris to find love quickly (6)
|
| PR. (prince) + EST (is, in Paris, i.e., in French) + O (love) | ||
| 20 | QUOITS |
Oxford’s opener stops, gives up, throwing game (6)
|
| First letter of (opener [of]) O[XFORD] inside (stops) QUITS (gives up) | ||
| 21 | THESIS |
Believer in God largely accepting society as a subject for discussion (6)
|
| THEIS[T] (believer in God) minus last letter (largely) around (accepting) S (society) |
Agree this was another tricky one but usually either the definition or the wordplay meant it was doable, if slowly. Liked latitude, endure. Thanks both.
Not much to add to Cineraria’ blog and JamesP@1.
Thanks Peto and Cineraria
Thanks Peto and Cineraria
27ac: Ops is not in Chambers, which tends to give proper nouns oly when there is some derived word or phrase which needs definition, but is in Collins 2023 p 1398 as “the Roman goddess of abundance and fertility, wife of Saturn”. She is also mentioned in Brewer 2018 p 1004 as the “old Sabine fertility goddess and wife of Saturn”.
13dn: Brewer 2018 p 536 gives us “Flash Harry An ostentatious, loudly dressed and often boorish man.” It has reminded me that this name was given as a nickname to Sir Malcolm Sargent (1895-1967) as well as mentioning George Cole’s character in the St. Trinians films. It looks as though both of these were applications of a phrase that was already in general use.
(In comment 3, “oly” should of course have been “only”. a typing error when I decided to edit the text slightly.)
Two-thirds done, but gave up at that point. Never heard of A HANDS TURN, and 15d stumped me, though probably it shouldn’t have. I only had the SE corner to do, which probably a bit of perseverance would have resolved – but sometimes there’s other stuff to do. Like, I have to go and catch a turkey . . .
Yes tricky today and only about half done. I didn’t get QUOITS. What a clever clue that is, misleading the reader into thinking “throwing game” means deliberately losing.
Like others, I had a very long list of TILT and NHO items…but it all eventually went in. And isn’t half the fun of these things learning new words and phrases? I won’t have occasion to call anyone a FLASH HARRY–I doubt that phrase would fly on this side of the pond–but I like it.
I dislike grids like this one, where we get four mini-puzzles that barely interact with each other. And since, for me, the longer central answers today were among the more difficult, I wound up solving it exactly that way–one quadrant at a time.
I completed but with 5 NHO which is too many. It felt as if it had been set by using word finder on too many occasions.
Thanks for the blog