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It’s Wednesday today and Dac is occupying his usual slot.
Part of the joy of a Dac puzzle, for me at least, is that I know I can concentrate on simply solving the high-quality clues without the additional distraction of a theme or cleverly hidden Nina. An occasional break from such extra challenges is surely no bad thing, even for those of us who enjoy them.
Overall, I found that I made relatively quick progress through this one, having got off to a flying start thanks to straightforward clues at 1A, 1D, 12, 22A, etc. However, two clues foxed me at the end: 9 I found by searching the dictionary for an 8-letter word for “prize”, which I then halved and verified on Google; and 3, where the entry is a new word for me and where I haven’t parsed punch/paste in the wordplay to my satisfaction – any suggestions?
My clues of the day are 2 for its smoothest of surfaces and 14 for its overall construction and misleading use of “stray”.
*(…) indicates an anagram
| Across | ||||
| 1 | SOHO | Homophone (“we’re told”) of “sow” + “hoe” (=two things for gardener) | ||
| 3 | PASTEBOARD | PASTE (=punch??) + BOARD (=embark); pasteboard is slang for visiting card, playing-card or ticket | ||
| 10 | RECLUSIVE | *(ULCERS) + I’VE (=I have); “developed” is anagram indicator | ||
| 11 | SICKO | SIC (=thus) + KO (OK=sanction, i.e. approve; “rejected” indicates reversal) | ||
| 12 | RUNNING | Double definition | ||
| 13 | FOOTAGE | FOOT (=former Labour leader, i.e. Michael Foot) + AGE (=time) | ||
| 14 | SKYE TERRIER | [YET (=still) + ERR (=stray)] in SKIER (=Klosters holidaymaker) | ||
| 16 | COS | C<o>O<k>S; “regularly discarded” means alternate letters only are used | ||
| 18 | DAB | Reversal (“quite the reverse”) of BAD (=off) | ||
| 20 | ON NO ACCOUNT | N (=new) in ONO ACCOUNT (=memoir by Yoko, whimsically) | ||
| 22 | SWEDISH | ED (=journalist) in SWISH (=smart) | ||
| 23 | QUIDS IN | QUID (=tobacco) + SIN (=wrong) | ||
| 25 | ARTIC | AR<c>TIC (=northern area); “about (=C) to leave” means the letter “c” is dropped | ||
| 26 | PREDICANT | RED (=cardinal, perhaps, i.e. colour) in [PI (=sanctimonious) + CANT (=platitudes)] | ||
| 27 | PARISIENNE | *(<f>REE IN SPAIN); “after jilting fellow (=F) means the letter “f” is dropped from anagram; “fancy” is anagram indicator | ||
| 28 | GERE | GER (=German) + E (=English); the reference is to American actor Richard Gere (1949-) | ||
| Down | ||||
| 1 | SURPRISED | SUR (homophone (“said”) of “sir” (=teacher)) + [RISE (=wage increase) in PD (=paid)] | ||
| 2 | HOCKNEY | H-O for A -CKNEY (=London borough); “area (=A) for old (=O)” means the letter “a” is replaced by “o”; the reference is to contemporary British artist David Hockney (1937-) | ||
| 4 | A FINGER IN THE PIE | Straight definition is “share”; the (rather macabre!) whimsical definition “portion of Mrs Lovett’s cooking” refers to the Sweeney Todd’s story, in which Mrs Lovett bakes parts of his victims in pies | ||
| 5 | THE AFRICAN QUEEN | E<pisod>E (“vacuous” means first and last letters only remain) in *(A QUAINT FRENCH); “novel” is anagram indicator; the reference is to the 1951 film starring Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn, based on a book of the same name | ||
| 6 | BISHOPRIC | [I (=one) + SHOP (=store)] in BRIC<k> (block; “not quite finished” means last letter is dropped); the definition is quite simply “see” | ||
| 7 | ARCHAIC | ARCH (=structure) + A1 (=main road) + C<rumble> (“beginning to” means first letter only is used) | ||
| 8 | DROVE | <fiel>D (“edge of” means last letter only here) + ROVE (=wander) | ||
| 9 | PULI | PULI<tzer> (=prize; “not half” means half the letters only are used); the Puli is a short-medium breed of Hungarian herding dog | ||
| 15 | TWO-PIECES | *(POSE TWICE); “modelling” is anagram indicator | ||
| 17 | SATINETTE | *(STAIN) + <b>ETTE<r> (=improved; “with ends cut off” means first and last letters are dropped); “nasty” is anagram indicator | ||
| 19 | BLEATER | B<ma>L (L<am>B: “without stuffing” means all but first and last letters are used; “up” indicates vertical reversal) + EATER (=restaurant customer); the definition is “lamb”, i.e. an animal that bleats | ||
| 21 | UPSTATE | UP (=at university) + STATE (=say) | ||
| 22 | SCAMP | CAM (=river) in S<teer> P<unt> (“starts to” means first letters only) | ||
| 24 | IBIS | [B (=black) + I (=one)] in IS (=island) | ||
Thanks for blogging, RatkojaRiku.
This was a delight as always, but there were a few clues where Dac put his foot on the cryptic gas, I thought. BLEATER was clever, but tricky; and well done for parsing PARISIENNE, because I couldn’t. I got PULI with the crossing letters – knew the prize but guessed at the dog.
PASTEBOARD was new to me, but I reckon ‘punch’ is okay: ‘he took a good pasting’. It’s Dac, so it won’t be wrong.
And SOHO is just a classic illustration of the chaos that is English spelling. But said chaos is very good for cryptic puzzle solvers: how else would setters do that clue with violinists using a BOW but taking a BOW afterwards?
Super crossword; thank you to Dac.
Beaten by PULI, never came to mind at all, still thanks RR and DAC for something a little easier than the Nimrodding yesterday.
To expand on PASTEBOARD, Chambers defines it as ‘a stiff card made by pasting sheets of paper together’. The original railway tickets (remember those little things? – they were 1 7/32″ by 2 1/4″) were made of pasteboard – hence the slang for ‘ticket’.
PULI only came by trial and error. I might have heard of it before but if so I’d forgotten.
Thanks, Dac and RR.
I’d never heard of a puli. The Chambers Crossword Dictionary didn’t mention it, but it did mention kuri, so I stuck it in without understanding, expecting rather feebly that a kurihmmm was some sort of a prize.
As always lovely. Particularly the Yoko Ono one.