Good morning, and a happy New Year to the lot of you! This was a challenging solve to start 2013 (the traditional thick New Year head-cold didn’t help): some pretty tortuous clueing, I thought, but on the whole I found it very enjoyable. Many superb surfaces, and no serious quibbles – although, as ever, you may disagree…
ACROSS
1. STALAGMITE It within anagram of games at (schoo)l
6. HAZE Hazard [danger] minus a rd [a road] + E [point of the compass]
10. MOTTO T [time] within reversal of o [old] + tom [pro, prostitute]
11. HANG LOOSE Anglo [Brit] within hose [socks]
12. UPPERCUT Upper [drug, stimulant] + cut [diluted]
13. THEFT The + FT [Financial Times] – literally what you are looking at while solving the puzzle (unless you printed off a PDF…)
15. PELICAN (Le)i(th) within anagram of place N [new]
17. PAPRIKA Risk minus s(ergeant) within papa [pop, father]
19. SATANIC (Description)n within anagram of I [one] cast – a lovely &lit
21. WISTFUL WIs [Western Isles] + reversal of luft [German for air]
22. OBESE OBEs [Orders (of the British Empire)] + (slimlin)e
24. MASSACRE Mass [the greater part] + a(re) [??] + reversal of (m)erc(y)
27. ALONGSIDE A long side [the hypoteneuse is the longest side of a right-angled triangle]
28. ANITA Hidden in vegetariAN IT Appears, with ‘she’ indicating a girl’s name (to the dissatisfaction, I’m sure, of many of you)
29. YUAN Alternate (‘regular’) letters of YoUr AuNt to give Chinese capital/currency
30. ON THE SHELF Anagram of ones left H(usband) H(usband)
DOWN
1. SUMO Sum [amount] + O [nothing]
2. AUTOPILOT Anagram of out a + pi lot [pious group, group emulating saint]; a plane’s autopilot is customarily called George
3. ANODE A + node [set of lines]
4. MOHICAN Hic(k) [redneck] within moan [lament]
5. TANK TOP Tank [Centurion] + top [best]
7. ABODE Bod [chap] within A and E [Accident and Emergency, hospital department]
8. EVENTUALLY Even [still] + U [united] within tally [agree]
9. PLATYPUS A + typ(e) [(tailless) sort] within plus [additional]
14. EPISTOLARY P [pence, little money] within anagram of royalties
16. CONVERGE Con [study] + verger [cleric] minus r [right]
18. INFERTILE In + task minus ask [question] within anagram of relief – I’m pretty sure in is doing double duty here
20. CAMPION P [power] within camion [heavy goods vehicle]
21. WISBECH B [bishop] within wise [learned] + Ch [church]
23. EBOLA A + reversal of lobe [part of the brain]
25. AMASS A + M [millions] + as [when] + s(tockbroker)
26. BARF Bar F [the bar or pub that follows Bar A, Bar B, Bar C, Bar D and Bar E…]
Thanks Ringo – I agree this was quite tricky, though gettable eventually.
In 24, a=are as an abbreviation of the metric unit of area (1/100th of a hectare).
Thanks Alberich for an enjoyable puzzle and Ringo for the blog.
13ac: Yes I was looking at a pdf, but it is still part of the FT in its origins, so a perfectly good clue.
24ac: A = are as noted by Andrew@1. Some people have objected to this, but I cannot see any problem with it.
27ac: Nice clue, but Chambers 2008 only gives the spellings hypotenuse or hypothenuse. Ringo has copied the spelling from the crossword, which is at worst a harmless typo.
7dn: Yesterday we had chap cluing BO (which was something of a crossword cliche around 1980 when I started taking crosswords seriously). Today we have chap = BOD. Any chance of chap = BODY tomorrow?
18dn: No double duty here. The wordplay is simply an anagram of t(ask) in relief.
Thanks Ringo.
Andrew is right about “are”, although I completely overlooked it myself.
Some superb clueing today, nothing to quibble about.
Even PLATYPUS, a word that I had never heard of, was clued in such a way that it was no problem finding it.
Among my favourites 1ac, 11ac and many more.
Of course, the parsing of ANODE (3d) is right, but I took “a set of lines” as AN ODE. And why not?
ALONGSIDE (27ac) was similar to a clue I saw a couple of years ago at a maths conference – very nice, but a write-in. And surely ‘hypoteneuse’ should be ‘hypothenuse’. Typo.
Many thanks to Alberich, with best wishes for 2013.
Sil @3: I think I prefer your explanation of 3dn. I had it Ringo’s way, but thought NODE = “set of lines” was a bit of a stretch.
Thanks Ringo and Alberich
Anode defeated me but many enjoyable clues,
could see Paul/Mudd cluing Barf and I liked platypus
Good puzzle with some excellent clues.
Thanks Ringo; I didn’t see the problem with ‘in’ in 18 – fruitless=infertile, (Task IN RELIEF)* anag with ‘work’ as the anagrind. I can’t see the double duty myself.
I particularly liked UPPERCUT, AUTOPILOT, PAPRIKA and several others. I’m not sure that I fully understand MASSACRE, but I think it may be: MASSA=master=predominant[Chambers]=the greater part, plus your mERCy reversed.
Robi, MASSACRE is just as Ringo said in his blog:
MASS (a great deal – like: a mass of letters) + A (are, as Andrew explained, a measure of area) + indeed the reversal of [m]ERC[y].
I have to admit that I parsed it as MASS + [s]ACRE[d] – don’t know why, perhaps connecting ‘mercy’ with ‘sacred’.
Completely wrong, but I got the right answer! 🙂
Thanks Sil for the clarification. Apologies to Andrew @1 for not reading his post properly.