Jason is this morning’s setter.
A slow burner that I eventually completed, but I struggled to parse TOMATO. About 3/4 of the answers were fairly straightforward, but a few held out for a while, even with crossers, AGILEY, ARISE and FLATTERS being the ones that took the longest. If anyone can explain the parsing of TOMATO, please comment and put me out of my misery.
Thanks, Jason.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | CACHET |
Pain in court gaining favour (6)
|
| ACHE (“pain”) in Ct. (court) | ||
| 4 | CARPETED |
Blasted rugged (8)
|
| Double definition, for the second think of “rugged” as “having a rug”. | ||
| 10 | ASSAILANT |
One attacks clot to upset social worker? (9)
|
| ASS (“clot”) + AIL (“to upset”) + ANT (“social worker?”) | ||
| 11 | ARROW |
Missile is limited once head’s defused (5)
|
| (n)ARROW (“limited”, once head’s defused, i,e, first letter removed) | ||
| 12 | CHAP |
Fellow’s chosen sportsperson, hard to be contained (4)
|
| CAP (“chosen sportsperson”) containing H (hard) | ||
| 13 | DELECTABLE |
Pleasing daughter with a good chance of getting in (10)
|
| D (daughter) + ELECTABLE (“good change of getting in”) | ||
| 15 | AGILELY |
Supply one in busy galley (7)
|
| I (one) in *(galley) [anag:busy] | ||
| 16 | OSCARS |
Larger than the average motors getting awards (6)
|
| OS (outsized, so “larger than the average”) + CARS (“motors”) | ||
| 19 | BECALM |
Smooth delicate fabric back in British Museum (6)
|
| <=LACE (“delicate fabric”, back) in BM (British MUseum) | ||
| 21 | MARTIAL |
Warlike poet of old (7)
|
| Double definition, the second referring to Marcus Valerius Martialis, a Roman poet of the first century CE. | ||
| 23 | OBJETS D’ART |
Old boy squirts spring in valuable items (6,4)
|
| OB (old boy) + JETS (“squirts”) + DART (“spring”) | ||
| 25 | BAIT |
Answer is in a little temptation (4)
|
| A (answer) is in BIT (“a little”) | ||
| 27 | ARISE |
Appear as a gent backing environment primarily (5)
|
| A + <=SIR (“gent”, backing] + E(nvironment) [primarily] | ||
| 28 | SMALL-TIME |
Insignificant beginning to some shopping experience? (5-4)
|
| [beginning to] S(ome) + MALL TIME (“shopping experience?”) | ||
| 29 | OUTSTAYS |
Bottled stout, say, lasts longer (8)
|
| *(stout say) [anag:bottled] | ||
| 30 | FOUNDS |
Establishes means holds nothing (6)
|
| FUNDS (“means”) holds O (nothing) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | CHARCOAL |
Cleaner source of energy for another (8)
|
| CHAR (“cleaner”) + COAL (“source of energy”) | ||
| 2 | CAST ASIDE |
Chuck out project over digression (4,5)
|
| CAST (“project”) over ASIDE (“digression”) | ||
| 3 | EPIC |
Ben Hur, say, is in the pictures (4)
|
| Hidden in “thE PICtures” | ||
| 5 | ART DECO |
Early style of facility cracking code (3,4)
|
| ART (“facility”) + *(code) [anag:cracking] | ||
| 6 | PLASTIC ART |
Sit with pal wriggling and bear sculpture, for example (7,3)
|
| *(sit pal) [anag:wriggling] and CART (“bear”) | ||
| 7 | THROB |
Pulse among British (5)
|
| THRO (“among”) + B (British) | ||
| 8 | DOWNER |
Tranquilizer dart’s first keeper (6)
|
| D(art) [‘s first] + OWNER (“keeper”) | ||
| 9 | SAFETY |
Speak about fair cut for security (6)
|
| SAY (“speak”) about FET(e) (“fair”, cut) | ||
| 14 | DEPARTMENT |
French division knocking back gin with me in depression (10)
|
| [knocking back] <=TRAP (“gin”) with ME in DENT (“depression”) | ||
| 17 | RUINATION |
New uni in helping downfall (9)
|
| *(uni) [anag:new] in RATION (“helping”) | ||
| 18 | FLATTERS |
Pointless and pretty much blunt soaps (8)
|
| FLAT (“pointless”) and [pretty much] TERS(e) (“blunt”) | ||
| 20 | MODESTY |
Decency from kind pen (7)
|
| MODE (“kind”) + STY (“pen”) | ||
| 21 | MORTAL |
Being time to go into teaching? (6)
|
| T (time) to go into MORAL (“teaching”) | ||
| 22 | TOMATO |
Wolf ignoring cold round fruit (6)
|
| I’m guessing that the parsing is TOM(c)AT (“wolf” ignoring C (cold)) + O (round), but TOMCAT and WOLF are not the same thing? | ||
| 24 | JOIST |
Support is in hint (5)
|
| IS in JOT (“hint”) | ||
| 26 | ALSO |
Actual solid houses too (4)
|
| Hidden in [houses] “actuAL SOlid” |
22d Apparently the Wolfpack is a naval squadron made up of tomcat fighter planes.
https://seaforces.org/usnair/VF/Fighter-Squadron-1.htm
I had the same parsing of TOMATO as you, loonapick, based on the idea that wolf and tom cat are both names for womanisers / lecherous men (in the words of SOED).
I agree this was difficult in places. I felt it was heavy on charades with a fair bit of of solving first, parsing later. I ticked OSCARS and DELECTABLE.
I needed your help to parse SAFETY (could not see FETe). NHO soaps to mean FLATTERS.
Thanks Jason and loonapick
Thanks both. Same experience of easy then really quite hard. Took a while for the penny to drop on agilely and martial. Liked objets dart.
Like Martyn, I took ‘wolf’ and ‘tom cat’ to be ‘womaniser’ but I didn’t find confirmation of the latter. I only knew ‘soft-soap’ for ‘flatter’ but Chambers had this meaning for ‘soap’.
Thanks Jason and loonapick
22dn: I took wolf=tomcat on trust while solving. Of the suggestions made so far, I prefer the womaniser idea. The problem with the fighter planes, apart from the lack of an American indicator, is that, following the link, I could see no indication that an individual plane in the Wolfpack is called a wolf as well as a tomcat. I very much hope that a more complete connection will appear in later comments.
But really, the reason I have bothered to comment is to allude to the remark made by Miles Kington (and possibly others before him): knowledge is the awareness that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting a tomato in a fruit salad.
Being a teensy bit larger than average, I’m pleased to see that OS isn’t “huge”, as many compilers are wont to use. Thank you, Jason.
As loonapick… started well but floundered in places… PLASTIC ART was a confusion, as I saw SIT WITH PAL as the 10 letters for the anagram. That didn’t go well. Liked MALL-TIME and CARPETED for rugged…
Thanks Jason and loonapick
I was looking for an art theme, with ART DECO, OBJETS D’ART, PLASTIC ART and the British Museum, though I couldn’t find any more. Like some others, I’d never heard of soaps for FLATTERS and I put in BLATHERS out of desperation. B + LATHERS, pointless talk? Wrong, obviously.