Some interesting long solutions today from Gurney.
If there is some subtle reference involved with 1D, I don’t get it. [Update: See passerby@4.] Otherwise, this seemed about medium difficulty.
| ACROSS | ||
| 7 | OPERATIC |
Off topic about period referring to Tosca? (8)
|
| Anagram of (off) TOPIC around (about) ERA (period) | ||
| 8 | GEMINI |
Sign minutes in India after meeting, tiresome ultimately (6)
|
| MIN. (minutes) inside (in) {last letters of (ultimately) {[MEETIN]G + [TIRESOM]E} + I (India)} | ||
| 11 | SHADE |
Woman carrying poster in colour (5)
|
| SHE (woman) around (carrying) AD (poster) | ||
| 12 | CRUDENESS |
Broadcast censured about introduction of smut, being earthy (9)
|
| Anagram of (broadcast) CENSURED around (about) first letter of (introduction of) S[MUT] | ||
| 13 | ORIGAMI |
Nice friend, at first recalling system of transferring money, folding? (7)
|
| GIRO (system of transferring money) reversed (recalling) + AMI (Nice friend, i.e., in French) | ||
| 14 | CORKAGE |
Way of charging Irish city wise? Not at first (7)
|
| CORK (Irish city) + [S]AGE (wise) minus first letter (not at first) | ||
| 15 | CONSERVATIONIST |
Campaigner’s unusual action isn’t over — Greens finally to be involved (15)
|
| Last letter of (finally) [GREEN]S inside (to be involved [in]) anagram of (unusual) {ACTION ISN’T OVER} | ||
| 18 | MARABOU |
Letters from Myanmar about flier (7)
|
| Hidden in (letters from) [MYAN]MAR ABOU[T] | ||
| 20 | MONITOR |
Screen pupil assisting teacher (7)
|
| Double definition | ||
| 22 | OVERVALUE |
Have excessive regard for exotic oeuvre, lavish, half-finished (9)
|
| Anagram of (exotic) {OEUVRE + first half of (half-finished) LAV[ISH]} | ||
| 23 | TORSO |
Something incomplete that one regrets, setting off originally (5)
|
| First letters of (originally) T[HAT] O[NE] R[EGRETS] S[ETTING] O[FF] | ||
| 24 | STAINS |
Spots substitutes, losing heart (6)
|
| STA[ND-]INS (substitutes) minus central letters (losing heart) | ||
| 25 | REPLIERS |
They give answers in relation to hand tool (8)
|
| RE (in relation to) + PLIERS (hand tool) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | HOUSE OF COMMONS |
Legislators make progress slowly at first (5,2,7)
|
| Double/cryptic definition, with the second being: the first letters of (at first) M[AKE] P[ROGRESS] S[LOWLY]. Thanks to passerby@4. |
||
| 2 | NEPALI |
One from country, alpine, high (6)
|
| &lit and anagram of (high) ALPINE | ||
| 3 | NAMESAKE |
Travelling. seek a man, one with something nominally in common (8)
|
| Anagram of (travelling) SEEK A MAN | ||
| 4 | MISCHIEVOUSLY |
Olive, shy, music transformed in playful way (13)
|
| Anagram of (transformed) OLIVE SHY MUSIC | ||
| 5 | METEOR |
Notes golden shooting star (6)
|
| {ME + TE} (notes) + OR (golden) | ||
| 6 | LITERATI |
They’re well-read, to some extent elite, rationalistic (8)
|
| Hidden in (to some extent) [E]LITE RATI[ONALISTIC] | ||
| 9 | INSPECTOR MORSE |
Dreadful crime, person’s to investigate it — him? (9,5)
|
| &lit and anagram of (dreadful) CRIME PERSON’S TO, referring to the Colin Dexter detective | ||
| 10 | QUICK-TEMPERED |
Hurry! Mollify media boss, easily angered (5-8)
|
| QUICK! (hurry!) + TEMPER (mollify) + ED. (media boss) | ||
| 16 | NORSEMAN |
Viking, maybe, one riding, getting new start (8)
|
| [H]ORSEMAN (one riding) substituting N (new) as the first letter (getting . . . start) | ||
| 17 | ORNATELY |
Speak about knight, extremely lazy, in high-flown way (8)
|
| ORATE (speak) around (about) N (knight) + outside letters of (extremely) L[AZ]Y | ||
| 19 | BOVINE |
Initially bit like sheep, like cattle (6)
|
| First letter of (initially) B[IT] + OVINE (like sheep) | ||
| 21 | TARGET |
Caustic about, for example, upcoming objective (6)
|
| TART (caustic) around (about) E.G. (for example) inverted (upcoming) |
I found this pretty approachable with the last few taking time. All parsed except for the HOUSE OF COMMONS. Like our blogger I did not get this at all – not knowing even where to start.
There were plenty of nice anagrams, of which I best liked CRUDENESS and CONSERVATIONIST for their surfaces. I also liked CORKAGE, STAINS and LITERATI
Overall a thumbs up. Thanks Gurney and Cineraria
Let me join the group. All fills seemed pretty straightforward to me except for 1D which I also have no idea on.
Not sure whether my grey matter was firing better than usual today or whether this was a particularly easy puzzle, but I flew through it. An abundance of anagrams partly responsible.
I was looking forward to seeing here an explanation for HOUSE OF COMMONS, but I see I was not the only one flummoxed. I thought that GIRO might have been a British thing, but it’s not. I’d nevertheless never heard of it.
My only quibbles — I thought the definition for TORSO was a bit lame, and the clue for CRUDENESS seems to be asking for an adjective, I thought. And the third note of the scale is more often “mi”, but fair enough.
1D: Look at the first letters of Make Progress Slowly…
Ah, well spotted, passerby.
Yep, thanks passerby, a simple trick but it fooled me too!
I enjoyed this, only being foxed by 2D which I couldn’t fathom – so now I’m kicking myself because it was fairly obvious, ah well. Lots of fun.
Well done, passerby. That was the one I could not parse, and evidently I was not alone. I really enjoyed this puzzle. I think it’s at my exact level – enough to make me scratch my head for a while until the light comes on, but everything within range. This is where I’ve got to after about 5 years of this . . .
Thanks Gurney and Cineraria (and passerby@4)
I took 8ac as M(inutes) + IN + I(ndia) following (meetin)G + (tiresom)E, but it works just as well the way Cineraria has it in the blog. I could not find m for minutes in Chambers, but it is in Collins 2023 p 1174 under m² as a symbol for various things. Gurney has in the past indicated that he is normally guided by Collins.
Another who must thank passerby@4. How did we all miss that!?
Not too difficult, but good fun, I thought.
GDU@3 I think the definition at 12ac is ‘being earthy’, hence CRUDENESS.
Thanks also to Gurney and Cineraria.
Not much to add. I too was mystified by 1d. I think five words ending with I or O makes for a slightly easier puzzle than when they’re all E.
Completely mystified by parsing of 1d, though answer obvious.
Thank you for explaining, Passerby.
Otherwise, I flew through this one and would put the easy end of the FT spectrum
We got through this fairly quickly; we did see what was going on in 1dn but we thought it was bordering on the unfair. A minor holdup on 12ac and 14ac by thinking 10dn was ‘hasty-tempered’ till we realised the significance of the ! in the clue. We found 25ac a little ‘iffy’; it’s obviously a word but not one we would expect to encounter in everyday use – we would use ‘responders. for preference, but that’s just personal preference.
An enjoyable solve, nevertheless. Thanks, Gurney and Cineraria.
Many thanks, Cineraria, for the excellent blog, and thanks also to all who commented.
Happy New Year.
Bit late to comment, but I thought 1d was outstanding.
Thanks to Gurney and Cineraria