Last Wednesday we had a special May Day offering from Donk but we are now back to normal with a lovely puzzle from Dac
It’s difficult to know what to say about Dac’s puzzles except that they are always clued fairly and clearly. There was one unfamiliar word – 17d. It was one of our last ones in but when we sorted it out we wondered why it had taken us so long!
The surface reading in Dac’s clues often brings a smile to our faces and today we loved 11ac – especially Joyce who used to be in Education and is now 23ac!
If there are any errors we will not be able to sort them out until later as Bert is fulfilling a childhood dream by driving a Morgan for the day!
| Across | ||
| 1 | Fast food outlet, principally cool and trendy in the 1960s | |
| CHIPPY | C (initial letter or ‘principally’ cool) + HIPPY (trendy in the 1960s – brings back memories!) | |
| 4 | Old sailing vessel beginning to founder – I perish, sadly | |
| FIRE SHIP | F (initial letter or ‘beginning to’ founder) + anagram of I PERISH (anagrind is ‘sadly’) | |
| 9 | Listless male is taking heroin after work | |
| MOPISH | M (male) followed by IS + H (heroin) after OP (work) | |
| 10 | Being the marrying kind once, clairvoyant maybe accepts love | |
| ESPOUSER | ESP USER (someone who is a clairvoyant may use ESP or Extrasensory perception!) around or ‘accepting’ O (love) | |
| 11 | A teacher can be wrong | |
| AMISS | A + MISS (teacher) | |
| 12 | Tests cakes mom baked with unknown ingredient | |
| MOCK EXAMS | Anagram of CAKES MOM + X (unknown as used in maths) anagrind is ‘baked’ | |
| 13 | Recognised noble | |
| DISTINGUISHED | Double definition | |
| 16 | He comes in to eat scones, freshly prepared for a quick snack? | |
| CHEESE ON TOAST | HE inside or ‘coming into’ an anagram of TO EAT SCONES (anagrind is ‘freshly baked’) | |
| 19 | Specialised vocabulary one’s associated with English language | |
| CANTONESE | CANT (specialised vocabulary) + ONES + E (English) | |
| 21 | In Lincoln, find empty old house | |
| ABODE | O |
|
| 22 | Say Middle Eastern inhabitant has a self-centred obsession | |
| EGOMANIA | EG (say) + OMANI (Middle Eastern inhabitant) + A | |
| 23 | Too old to have drink in pint container | |
| PAST IT | ASTI (drink) inside PT (pint). In some ways ‘container’ is not needed for the parsing as ‘in’ describes where to place the drink. However, it is needed to make sense of the clue but also PT does ‘contain’ the drink. | |
| 24 | Like pupils taking 12 Across, fixed after half term | |
| TESTABLE | TE |
|
| 25 | Film director nearly collapsed | |
| FELL IN | FELLIN |
|
| Down | ||
| 1 | Army unit American military leader put up in apartment block | |
| COMMANDO | AM (American)+ M (initial letter or ‘leader’ of military) reversed or ‘put up’ inside or ‘in’ CONDO (apartment block) | |
| 2 | Insinuates naughty child is deceitful | |
| IMPLIES | IMP (naughty child) + LIES (is deceitful) | |
| 3 | Singing star shops around to get very cheap diamonds? | |
| POSH SPICE | Anagram of SHOPS (anagrind is ‘around’) + P + ICE (presumably if the ‘ice’ or diamonds have a price tag of pence they would be very cheap!) | |
| 5 | Cricket fan perhaps incites rioting – over’s ruined | |
| INSECTIVORE | Anagram of INCITES (anagrind is ‘rioting’) + anagram of OVER (anagrind is ‘ruined’) | |
| 6 | What one needs to know about oriental verse form | |
| EPODE | DOPE (what one needs to know) reversed or ‘about’ + E (oriental) | |
| 7 | Mate holding computer connection? | |
| HUSBAND | A play on HAND (mate) around or ‘holding’ USB (computer connection) | |
| 8 | Study gymnast’s tricky manoeuvre? | |
| PERUSE | You could perhaps describe a tricky manoeuvre in gymnastics as a PE (gymnastics) RUSE (tricky manoeuvre). The parsing would be better if it was PE’S RUSE but that wouldn’t give us the correct answer which is perhaps why there is a ? at the end! | |
| 12 | Commanding soldiers to wear khaki? | |
| MAGISTERIAL | GIS (soldiers) inside or ‘wearing’ MATERIAL (khaki) | |
| 14 | Top-selling numbers of Punch and American magazine | |
| HIT PARADE | HIT (punch) + PARADE (this US magazine). We’d not come across the magazine but the answer was reasonably easy when we had a few checking letters. | |
| 15 | Ex-cricketer’s nasty threat to cricket side | |
| ATHERTON | Anagram of THREAT (anagrind is ‘nasty’) + ON (cricket side). | |
| 16 | Big guns announced decrees | |
| CANNONS | Sounds like or ‘announced’ CANONS (decrees) | |
| 17 | Bother to squeeze letter in marginal note | |
| APOSTIL | AIL (bother) around or ‘squeezing in’ POST (letter) | |
| 18 | Money added to bill, in a manner of speaking | |
| ACCENT | AC (bill) + CENT (money) | |
| 20 | Important figure turning up in Alabama borough? | |
| OBAMA | Hidden and reversed or ‘turning up’ within the clue alabAMA BOrough | |
Thanks for the splendid blog, you two. Clear as usual and I enjoy the incidental remarks enormously.
I had to look up 17D as it was a new word to me; 6D was also new and defeated me, I’m afraid, though I can see now that I should have been able to work it out nevertheless. More fool me.
For 23A I had PT as the “container” for pint, rather than an abbreviation thereof, which meant that for me the clue made perfect sense, though I’m no expert.
Hope you are having a great time, Bert. Vroom vroom and all that!
I think PE RUSE is fine in 8D as ‘gymnast’ is not quite the same as ‘PE’. I guess the ‘?’ is to indicate the cryptic element in the definition.
A very good puzzle and nicely blogged.
My last three in were the ESPOUSER/EPODE crossers which were both excellent clues, and APOSTIL which I didn’t know and finally sorted out from the wordplay after initially having been trying to think of a word that had the letters ADO?T?L, having been convinced that bother=ado.
7d I took as USB in HAND, i.e. ‘holding’, with MATE being the definition
The smoooothness of Dac, and that is not one ofg my typos.
Paul A @ 4
I also parsed 7D as definition = ‘mate’ and would like to hear comments from others. I don’t yet understand why ‘hand’ = ‘mate’.
My favourites were 5d, 12d, 22a, 16a, 10a.
I could not parse 14d & 3d ( and having read the parsing above for 3d, I am not so fond of this clue, i.e. “p” = “cheap”).
New words for me were ‘apostil’ and ‘epode’.
Thanks for the blog, bertandjoyce.
I saw HUSBAND as Paul A at #4. MATE = husband is the definition, I think, rather than mate = hand (query at #6). ‘holding computer connection’ is, I think, the wordplay suggesting a touch whimsically a USB in HAND. Tricky enough idea, but v nice when seen (which took me a little while).
Thanks – Vroom, vroom was very good, PJ@1!
Having read the comments about HUSBAND we tend to agree with the different parsing. We are still quite happy that mate=hand as both mean worker but it does have to be the definition and part of the wordplay.
Definitely on the harder side. Several I couldn’t understand today, so thank you to Sterling Moss, Joyce, and others for explaining stuff I couldn’t see.
APOSTIL a bit of an obscurity in a Dac crossword, and POSH SPICE a ‘singing star’? She couldn’t sing for toffee, and now is only famous for being stupidly thin. But other than that, a good puzzle as always from Dac – thanks to him too.
I agree with Paul A’s parsing of HUSBAND.
Lots of comments for a Dac! Epode & espousal had me beat. thanks b&j hope the car survived bert ok.
I couldn’t complete this due to the crossing Epode and Espouser, both rather obscure, and Apostil, also obscure.
Easy enough to reverse solve once the answer was revealed with the cheat button, but none of them accessible.
Thanks Dac, Bert, Joyce, Famous iPad, whichever airport you posted from.
Smooth puzzle as ever from Dac – thoroughly enjoyable. Thanks