Brummie kicks off the week in the Guardian.
A pleasant enough romp for a Monday morning, woth some nice cryptic definitions (“crafty assessor”, “aired by seaman” e.g.). The ROMAN in the fodder for “unROMANtic” was disappointing, and it may be time to retire OUNCE from the crossword dictionary, but all in all, a fine puzzle. On the Guardian website, there is mention of a theme, but as usual, I solved withiut noticing one, and still can’t see it.
Thanks Brummie.
| ACROSS | ||
| 9 | OMITS |
Spread moist leaves out (5)
|
| *(moist) [anag:spread] | ||
| 10 | MATRIARCH |
Top female Republican with manic air enters contest (9)
|
| (R (Republican) with *(air) [anag:manic]) enters MATCH (“contest”) | ||
| 11 | DOVER SOLE |
Department head in charge of exclusive sea food (5,4)
|
| D(epartment) [head] + OVER (“in charge of”) + SOLE (“exclusive”) | ||
| 12 | COVET |
Old Man Time’s desire (5)
|
| COVE (“old” word for “man”) + T (time) | ||
| 13 | BOROUGH |
Administrative division or dividing branch (7)
|
| OR dividing BOUGH (“branch”) | ||
| 15 | EXPOSED |
Divorcee with attitude: dad’s first to be denounced! (7)
|
| EX (“divorcee”) with POSE (“attitude”) + D(ad) [‘s first] | ||
| 17 | ALDER |
Tree having less on top is topped (5)
|
| (b)ALDER (“having less on top”) is topped | ||
| 18, 3 | END USER |
Stop druggie being ultimate beneficiary of software (3,4)
|
| END (“stop”) + USER (“druggie”) | ||
| 20 | PETER |
Pan’s treasure about to be returned? (5)
|
| PET (“treasure”, as in a term of endearment) + <=RE (“about”, to be returned) | ||
| 22 | KASHMIR |
Disputed area’s reported money, pure and simple (7)
|
| Homophone/pun/aural wordplay [reported] of CASH (“money”) + MERE (“pure and simple”) | ||
| 25 | GOSSIPY |
Inclined to prattle? Try second drink (friendly tip) (7)
|
| GO (“try”) + S (second) + SIP (“drink”) + (friendl)Y [tip] | ||
| 26 | BRAIN |
Mastermind introduction of baby shower (5)
|
| [introduction of] B(aby) + RAIN (“shower”) | ||
| 27 | TEST PILOT |
Crafty assessor of tax, one covered by scheme (4,5)
|
| TEST (“tax”) + I (one) covered by PLOT (“scheme”)
A test pilot asseses (air)craft, so could be described as a “crafty assessor” |
||
| 30 | ATTRIBUTE |
Virtue of one-time payment made by conquered country? (9)
|
| A (“one”) + T (time) + TRIBUTE (“payment made by conquered country”) | ||
| 31 | OUNCE |
Cat’s powerless to make sudden leap (5)
|
| [powerless] (i.e. missing P (power)) (p)OUNCE (“make a sudden leap”) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | FORD |
‘Doctor of Retraction’ gets cross (4)
|
| <=(Dr. (doctor) + OF) [retraction] | ||
| 2 | SILVERED |
Given a fancy coat, delivers bananas (8)
|
| *(delivers) [anag:bananas] | ||
| 3 |
See 18 Across
|
|
| 4 | SMOOTHIE |
Drink time – oh, so riotous! (8)
|
| *(time oh so) [anag:riotous] | ||
| 5 | ATHENE |
One subsequently meets earth goddess (6)
|
| A (“one”) + THEN (“subsequently”) meets E (earth) | ||
| 6 | PITCH PIPES |
Try to sell briars as tuning aids? (5,5)
|
| PITCH (“try to sell”) + PIPES (“briars”)
Chambers has pitchpipes (all one word rather than two) |
||
| 7 | GRAVES |
Wine, gallons, at parties (6)
|
| G (gallon) at RAVES (“parties”)
Graves is a (normally) white dry French wine. |
||
| 8 | SHOT |
Attempt to extract everything from onion (4)
|
| ALL (“everything} extracted from SH(all)OT (“onion”) | ||
| 13 | BLACK |
Champion outside left, pretty grim (5)
|
| BACK (“champion”) outside L (left) | ||
| 14 | UNROMANTIC |
Realistic reproduction of Roman tunic (10)
|
| *(roman tunic) [anag:reproduction of] | ||
| 16 | DERBY |
Consider bylaws essentially old hat (5)
|
| The middle letters of [essentially] “consiDER BYlaws” | ||
| 19 | DIGESTED |
Have a hippie liking for drugs Edward’s taken in (8)
|
| DIG (“have a hipppie liking for”) + Es (ecstasy, so “drugs”) + TED (Edward) | ||
| 21 | TRIFLING |
Paltry thieves start plundering (8)
|
| T(hieves) [start] + RIFLING (“plundering”) | ||
| 23 | SHANTY |
Cabin aired by working seaman? (6)
|
| Double definition, the second cryptic, as a (sea) SHANTY is a song (air), so it could be “aired by a seaman” | ||
| 24 | ROTGUT |
Good to break poor tutor’s rough spirit (6)
|
| G (good) to break *(tutor) [anag:poor] | ||
| 26 | BRAD |
Tack produced by supporter at United’s final (4)
|
| BRA (“supporter”) at (unite)D [‘s final] | ||
| 28 | POOL |
Kitty gets wind up (4)
|
| <=LOOP (“wind”, up) | ||
| 29 | TREE |
Plane possibly needs way to ditch wings (4)
|
| (s)TREE(t) (“way”, to ditch wings) |
A good puzzle; it was hard to get a foothold at first but then it turned out easier than I thought. My favourites TREE, SHOT and ALDER. Agree with the blogger’s quibbles and can’t see a theme, either. Thanks Brummie and loonapick!
thanks loonapick and Brummie.
I was slow to solve many of these clues; I don’t know why, on reflection mostly straightforward.
Some very nice ones amongst which TEST PILOT.
I was unsure ATTRIBUTE = virtue
Themes? Blackpool, Dover, Graves End, Bradford
Shot, Rotgut, Smoothie, Shan(d)y
Probably not
New for me: briar pipe (for 6d) as well as PITCH PIPES; GRAVES = wine.
I put in an unparsed BLEAK before I realised that the answer to 13d is BLEAK.
Although I solved and parsed it, I’m still not sure why 20ac peter = pan…
Aldershot, Derby, Braintree, Peterborough
Dave Ellison. Can you save me from googling and put me out of my misery? It’s clearly UKGK that I’m lacking.
Enjoyed the puzzle though, and credit to Brummie for setting in such a way that it didn’t matter if the theme was missed.
Did it help?
Michelle @4
I had Pan as s piper but a) I couldn’t parse it, b) it was crossing another word with pipes in it, so unlikely, and messed up the SE for me. I’m assuming the QM at the end indicated a definition by example. Peter Pan. as by J M Barrie
The dictionary got a good workout, and my lexicon has duly been augmented, albeit no doubt only briefly. Never heard of GRAVES wine, BRAD, ROTGUT, DERBY hat, briar/pipe, nor this meaning of tribute. But they were all quite getable, as the wordplay was succinct. I don’t always manage to complete Brummie’s but I did today and enjoyed it.
Paddymelon @6 – lots of British towns, but not sure of the connection?
Peterborough
Braintree
Aldershot
Derby
Blackpool
Bradford
Gravesend
Dover
Thank you to loonapick and Brummie.
paddymelon@7 – thanks for explaining. I love Peter Pan but it just did not occur to me that that was how to parse 20ac!
Google AI tells me that these were all football clubs that went into liquidation and were replaced by new “Phoenix” clubs. Make of that what you will!
Great stuff from Brummie.
It took some thinking in parts but as with a lot of good puzzles I feel I should have found it easier than I did.
Slightly paused for ROTGUT which I have always called gutrot. Both seem acceptable in Chambers (although the G doesn’t break anything in the incorrect answer).
My favourite today AUTOPILOT.
Thanks Brummie and Loonapick
Agree that OUNCE needs to take a sabbatical and SHOT was similar to a clue last week. I noticed that we were having a tour of very ordinary towns in the UK, usefully listed by Shanne. I also had GUTROT for a while, which held me back until I got another familiar solution, KASHMIR. My favourites were ALDER, PETER, TEST PILOT and SHANTY.
Ta Brummie & loonapick.
It took me a long time to spot the theme even when I knew it was there, and I can’t see any particular connection between the towns (if it is football related, hardly surprising!) It didn’t help that I had ROOD=cross instead of FORD.
It also took a while to find my LOI SHANTY, which is now my favourite.
Yes, nearly enough OUNCEs to make a pound lately – and there was yet another NONET in today’s Quick.
Staticman1 @12: I presume you mean TEST PILOT 😉
Nothing else but OUNCE fits O_N_E, so if the setter has painted themselves into that particular corner, they are stuck with it.
I wondered whether a test plain was a kind of embroidery sampler before I hit on the right scheme. SHANTY was my favourite for the clever second definition.
Not for me, I’m afraid. Better luck next time perhaps!
Seemed harder than a normal Monday, but largely because I overcomplicated it. Failed on the bottom corner, putting in a parsable (P)’LUNGE’ (a kind of horsewhip, so tenuously a cat). That made 28D impossible. Also blithely stuck in ROOD for 1D on the grounds that DOOR must be an obscure abbreviation for doctor. Clearly I am my own worst enemy.
@RobinAdelaide – what I would make of that is that as usual AI is talking utter poppycock!
OUNCE was lurking in the same corner it pounced from last week. BRIAR comes up regularly too.
I found this tricky in places. Maybe I’m going through a bad patch; yesterday’s Quiptic seemed tough and I made 3 mistakes on the Prize which really slowed things down.
This one all looks fair in retrospect as they practically always do.
Thanks Brummie and loonapick
There was nothing obscure or unfamiliar to me today but for some reason it felt like pulling teeth. I got nothing on my first run through but slowly pieced it together. I liked the clue for KASHMIR (is it always the ‘disputed country’ in crosswords?) and DIGESTED (you have to be old to remember ‘dig’ in that sense) but some of the four-letter answers – FORD, POOL, TREE – were hard going. TEST PILOT as ‘crafty assessor’? Didn’t like that much and couldn’t work it out from the clue.
I found this very tough for a Monday, though looking back I can’t see why. I fell into the ROTGUT GUTROT trap, and had BLEAK for BLACK. Needed a fair amount of assistance so must rank as dnf. I agree that it’s time to retire OUNCE (and NONET!).
Favourite TEST PILOT.
There are plenty of words only seen in crosswords that I would retire before ounce, but it seems to have been used several times recently.
paddymelon@7 I also had piper. I think there might be a rhyme or riddle about a pip being the secret treasure at the heart of an apple, but it felt a bit weak.