Goodness me, this was a tough one. I’ve been working on it until today, and I’m not even quite finished now.
9 down and 15 across remain to be solved, while 21 across still needs explanation.
*=anagram, []=dropped, <=reversed.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | PERENNIBRANCH – (ER in PEN NIB) + RANCH. I suspect I’m not the only one who made life difficult for themself by assuming “writer” to be the more common PEN for a while. |
| 10 | ARENA – (AN ERA)<. |
| 11 | ACROMIAL – AC + (I in ROMAL). |
| 12 | RHACHITIS – (THIS CHAIR)*, though I spent quite some time trying to make CH + DISEASE* work. |
| 15 | _EN_RI_A – European girl? No opening for Scot in the main. |
| 16 | UPTILT – PIT* in ULT. |
| 18 | BIDET – DE in BIT. The word originally means a small horse, which is rather nice, when you think about it. |
| 21 | INQUILINE – Question’s not about method adopted by cuckoo?. |
| 22 | KNEAD – [muscl]E in DANK<. |
| 23 | EADISH – EA + DISH. I struggled here because both the answer, and the DISH element of hte wordplay were unfamiliar to me. |
| 25 | LACTIFIC – (ACT + IF) in LIC[k]. |
| 28 | DUODECIMO – ICED< in DUOMO. |
| 29 | GLOW PLUG – G + LOW + PLUG. |
| 30 | ADEEL – [forb]ADE EL[ephant]. |
| 31 | JEUNESSE D’ORÉE – JEU + (SEE REDS + ONE)*. |
| Down | |
| 1 | PAR BUCKLE – PAR[t] + BUCKLE. |
| 2 | ERHU – [low]ER HU[nan] and &lit, since this is a Chiness stringed instrument. |
| 3 | REALTIE – REAL + TIE. |
| 4 | NAHAL – [rui]N A HAL[f-built]. |
| 5 | ICTERITIOUS – ER in [f]ICTITIOUS. |
| 6 | BRINDLE – B[a]R[e] + LINED*. |
| 7 | AMERINDIC – I in (CRIME AND)*. |
| 8 | NIDI – (I + DIN)<. DIN is a measure of the speed of photographic film, i.e. how quickly it exposes. I think people tend to refer to ISO numbers more often these days. |
| 9 | CASKET? – A degree of speed is not needed in case. |
| 13 | CHINATOWN – (NATO + W) in CHIN. |
| 14 | CATCHPOLE – CATCH + POLE. |
| 17 | TUNFULS – NUT< + FULS[ome]. I can’t seem to find a reference for NUT = “cask”, but it seems entirely plausible. |
| 19 | DEIFIER – REIFIED<. A really nice reversal. Well spotted, Beelzebub. |
| 20 | UNABLE – NAB in [m]ULE. |
| 24 | AHEAD – I think this is A in AHED. |
| 26 | CHOU – double definition. “Partly won in North Korea” is great, as this is 1/100th of a won. |
| 27 | SMEE – S + ME[r]E. |
Thanks for the blog. I can help with the gaps:
15ac SENORITA = NO RIT in SEA, I think
21ac INQUIRE minus RE + LINE = INQUILINE
9d I have CANTER which I parsed as CANISTER minus IS
Indeed, very difficult. When I still hadn’t completed it Monday night I did extensive electronic searches which helped. Still, I had 26dn wrong, having guessed CLOU, that being a point of interest which could (tenuously) be a rosette. (Well, it made sense at the time.)
Shikasta, you beat me to it, although I couldn’t parse 9dn.
Many thanks, shikasta, that all makes sense now.
And like you, DM, I also spent some time trying to make CLOU work. Glad I’m not the only one!
Tough indeed. I was left with two unches, in 8 and 26. Which means, of course, that passionate as I am about Beelzebub, I would not have been able to submit it as a competition entry.
As it happens I was discussing the unsatisfactory nature of prize puzzles with Anax last Saturday. He thought drawing a name out of a hat, when you didn’t know whether the winner had done it fair and square or used Google and the like, was invidious. I thought that if editors judged the popularity of their puzzles by the number of entries received they were being short sighted. First of all you actually had to finish (which I didn’t this week) and then you actually had to want to enter (which I never do) before you would send anything in.