Monday Prize Crossword/Jan 7
A Crux puzzle which – rather unusual for this setter – had quite a few cross references. An overall enjoyable solve, but not one of Crux’s very best. Ah well, just blame it on me – had a bad day 🙂 .
Definitions are underlines wherever appropriate and/or possible.
| Across | ||
| 1 | INNISFREE | Everything on the house in Yeats’s paradise? (9) |
| INN IS FREE (everything on the house) | ||
| Nice starter. | ||
| 6 | BUDGE | Endless spending allowance causes stir (5) |
| BUDGET (spending allowance) minus the T at the end | ||
| 9 | ERWIN | Rommel’s central Algerian victory (5) |
| [alg]ER[ian] + WIN (victory) | ||
| 10 | ANTENATAL | Describes the time before Labour? (9) |
| Cryptic definition | ||
| I first entered ‘pregnancy’ here, messing up the NE. | ||
| 11 | TOPIARISTS | Landscape artists in sunhats, wearing sort of 23 (10) |
| (SITAR)* (‘sitar’, being the answer to 23d) inside TOPIS (sunhats) | ||
| 12 | BRAG | Card game, popular with 15, no doubt (4) |
| Triple definition: a card game, something popular to an EGOTIST (15) ie ‘show-off’ and ‘no doubt’ in the sense of “excellent, first-rate” which is in Chambers | ||
| I do not feel very confident about my explanation of this clue. Perhaps my explanation is over-complicated. Musca @1 thinks “Crux is simply saying that Brag would, no doubt, be a game that should appeal to an Egotist”. That may be true, but in that case is there a real need for “no doubt”? | ||
| 14 | BLIGHTY | By carrying torch we find home for soldiers (7) |
| BY around LIGHT (torch) | ||
| 15 | EGOTIST | It goes before time, unfortunately, for show-off (7) |
| (IT GOES)* before T (time) | ||
| 17 | PIT PROP | A supporter of mine (3,4) |
| Cryptic definition, one might say – PIT = mine, PROP = supporter | ||
| 19 | DRESDEN | Doctors around the Orient study in China (7) |
| {DRS (Doctors, plural of DR) around E (the Orient, East)} + DEN (study) | ||
| The definition here is ‘China’ – porcelain which ‘Dresden’ is too. | ||
| 20 | OUCH | Lose tip of finger – sounds painful (4) |
| TOUCH (finger) minus the first letter (its tip) | ||
| 22 | BOBBY SOCKS | They hold two feet of copper hose (5,5) |
| BOBBY (copper) + SOCKS (hose) | ||
| Wasn’t this a band from Norway winning the Eurovision Song Contest? | ||
| 25 | UFOLOGIST | One whose interests start usually from outer space (9) |
| 26 | IDIOT | A fool finds it out at regular intervals (5) |
| [f]I[n]D[s] I[t] O[u]T | ||
| 27 | TWEED | A bit of tough unwanted plant material (5) |
| T[ough] (a bit of ‘tough’) + WEED (unwanted plant) | ||
| 28 | MARKETEER | Stall-holder who’s illegal if black! (9) |
| Doublish definition, with the second one cryptic referring to ‘black market’ | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | INERT | It’s lifeless in the Queen’s before term starts (5) |
| IN + ER (the Queen) + T[erm] | ||
| 2 | NEWSPRINT | Latest race needed for the papers (9) |
| NEW (latest) + SPRINT (race) | ||
| 3 | SUNBATHERS | They possibly burn with heat in seconds (10) |
| (BURN + HEAT)* inside SS (second, second) – possibly my CoD | ||
| 4 | REALITY | Sort of TV we’d be mad to lose touch with! (7) |
| Cryptic definition, I guess? | ||
| 5 | ENTITLE | Give right name (7) |
| Double definition | ||
| 6 | BAND | Pop group, perhaps censored on the radio (4) |
| Homophone of BANNED (censored) | ||
| 7 | DETER | Put off cleaner – not a nice man (5) |
| DETERGENT (cleaner) minus GENT (a nice man) | ||
| 8 | ENLIGHTEN | Convert in the glen is free from superstition (9) |
| (GLEN IS FREE)* | ||
| 13 | HOTEL SUITE | Luxury accommodation seen in silhouette (5,5) |
| (SILHOUETTE)* | ||
| This anagram must have been done before, but if not, hats off to Crux! | ||
| 14 | BY-PRODUCT | Manufacturer’s extra, or his plea to customers, say (2-7) |
| Homophone of BUY PRODUCT (manufacturer’s plea to customers) | ||
| 16 | IN DECLINE | Dying, I refuse to admit parson, finally (2,7) |
| I DECLINE (I refuse) around [parso]N | ||
| 18 | PHOTISM | Vision of light burning is seen during afternoon (7) |
| {HOT (burning) + IS} inside PM (afternoon) | ||
| 19 | DEBATER | Awarded a degree 7 becomes speaker at Oxford Union (7) |
| BA (a degree) inside DETER (7, the answer to 7d) | ||
| Had to think about ‘awarded’ as the insertion indicator, but it’s all right (I think). If being awarded, you win something. So you take possession of it. | ||
| 21 | CRONE | Extremely clever single old woman (5) |
| C[leve]R + ONE (single) | ||
| 23 | SITAR | Top performer takes one instrument out east (5) |
| STAR (top performer) around I (one) | ||
| 24 | MOOD | Low-key humour (4) |
| MOO (low) + D ((musical) key) | ||
Thanks Sil for your(as usual) careful analysis.
Just a couple of comments: 12 ac.I don’t think is a triple definition; Crux is simply saying that Brag would, no doubt, be a game that should appeal to an Egotist.
25 ac.surely isn’t just a straightforward cryptic definition; the “starts” of ‘usually from outer space’ give UFOs, which then supplies the solution!
Thanks Musca, for your vision on 12ac (although I am still not sure).
And 25ac? Shame on me!
I did the puzzle on the day itself and remember that I parsed like you did. But when I wrote the blog yesterday evening just before midnight, in a hurry, I had forgotten about it. Now corrected.
Thanks Sil. Like you I had put pregnancy in to.
As per what Musca said, thanks for the informative analysis Sil.