[If you’re attending York S&B please see comments 32&33] - here
A very entertaining challenge from GOLIATH which required several sittings to fully crack the grid. Frankly, this was a very educational outing where I learnt several new words/phrases (e.g. 16,17ac ; 15d; part of 1d) after having deduced the solution from successfully breaking down the clue. Googling helped with 15d.
Thoroughly enjoyed this !! Thanks Goliath for getting my Friday off to a great start.
| Across | ||
| 1 | BYPASS | Patiently gutted, turned and stuffed fish to go round (6) |
| YP (PatientlY gutted, without middle characters, turned) in BASS (fish) | ||
| 4 | LAVA LAMP | Hot rock and roll orchestra, rhythm group finally part of the sixties scene (4,4) |
| LAVA (Hot rock) rolL orchestrA rhythM grouP (finally, last characters of) | ||
| 10 | OBSCENE | Boob, half visible, said to be lewd (7) |
| OB (boOB, half) SCENE (visible = seen, sounds like) | ||
| 11 | SOUFFLE | Hundred abandon fight for love of a dish (7) |
| ScUFFLE (fight) with O (love) for C (Hundred) | ||
| 12 | HOAX | Fool in house is useless with a kiss (4) |
| HO (HO |
||
| 13 | IVORY TOWER | I’ve to worry about seclusion (5,5) |
| Anagram of I’VE TO WORRY | ||
| 16, 17 | HOORAY HENRIES | What follows hips swaying in here’s a bunch of toffs (6,7) |
| HOORAY (what follows hips i.e. hip hip hooray) anagram of IN HERE’S (swaying – anagrind) | ||
| 20, 21 | WINNING STREAK | Shallow end to life in metaphor: “long journey including a good run” (7,6) |
| W (shalloW, end) INNINGS (life in metaphor) [TREK (long journey) including A] | ||
| 24 | BALKANISED | Stop short an off-side that’s divided (10) |
| BALK (stop short) AN anagram of SIDE (off – anagrind) | ||
| 25 | RSVP | Press VIP regularly to respond to invitation (4) |
| pReSs ViP (regularly, alternate characters) | ||
| 27 | SMETANA | Some musicians met an acclaimed composer (7) |
| Hidden in “musicianS MET AN Acclaimed” | ||
| 29 | CHECHEN | Duplicated revolutionary end to invasion of republic (7) |
| CHE CHE (revolutionary = Che, duplicated) N (end of invasioN) | ||
| 30 | REGISTER | Record is kept in regret, being semi-retired (8) |
| IS kept in REG TER (Regret, semi-retired i.e. half of the word = ret, reversed) | ||
| 31 | PLANES | Trees from Naples (6) |
| Anagram of NAPLES | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | BROUHAHA | Commotion broken up, halved by wall (8) |
| BROken Up (halved) by HAHA (wall, i learnt that a ha-ha wall is a recessed landscape design) | ||
| 2 | PISCATORIAL | Is a tropical storm suitable for fishing? (11) |
| Anagram of IS A TROPICAL – I was wondering if the clue should be for just “fishing” or “suitable for fishing”. | ||
| 3, 26 | STEM CELL | Check prisoner’s accommodation that is capable of differentiation (4,4) |
| STEM (check) CELL (prisoner’s accommodation) – referring to the pluripotent nature of these cells. | ||
| 5 | ASSORTED | Miscellaneous crass or tedious contents (8) |
| Hidden in “crASS OR TEDious” | ||
| 6 | ADULTERATE | Corrupt blue period gets blanket coverage at last (10) |
| ADULT (blue, as in films) ERA (period) TE (blankeT coveragE, at last) | ||
| 7, 14 | AUF WIEDERSEHEN | We sue a friend, he waves goodbye (3,11) |
| Anagram of WE SUE A FRIEND HE – German for Goodbye. I would have been happier if there was an explicit indication to a foreign tongue. | ||
| 8 | POETRY | Raven author’s attempt, perhaps (6) |
| POE (Author) TRY (attempt) – &LIT, The Raven is a poem by Edgar Allan Poe. Thus the first part of the clue is POE for “Raven Author”. | ||
| 9 | VERVE | Cover version’s vitality (5) |
| Hidden in “coVER VErsion’s” | ||
| 14 | See 7 | |
| 15 | FANNY ADAMS | Murder victim’s nothing if sweet (5,5) |
| Cryptic clue – the usage in English is “Sweet Fanny Adams” to indicate nothing and the origin of the phrase goes back to a murder victim in the 19th century of the same name. | ||
| 18 | INTIMATE | Cosy hint (8) |
| DD | ||
| 19 | SKI PANTS | Sportswear-bound workers (3,5) |
| Charade of SKIP (bound) ANTS (workers) | ||
| 22 | ABUSER | One does not treat kindly a queen seen on public transport (6) |
| A [ER (queen) on BUS (public transport)] | ||
| 23 | FENCE | Fight criminal partition (5) |
| Triple definition | ||
| 26 | See 3 | |
| 28 | EGG | Arpeggio section needed in 11 (3) |
| Hidden in “arpEGGio” – needed to make souffle (11a) | ||
*anagram
24a should have s not z.
Thanks Coby @ 1, fixed it now.
Many thanks for the blog, Turbolegs.
I thought this was a little easier than Goliath’s first puzzle.
12ac HOAX: I read this as HO(USE)/(use)less + A + X
16/17 could be HOORAH HENRIES. Not that I would ever use this form!
I took CHECHEN to mean related to CHECHNYA. Perhaps the definition
should be ‘of republic’?
Hi Mike @ 3,
I got off to a quick start as there were several anagrams and telescopic / hidden clues sprinkled around the grid but after that made progress quite slowly.
You are definitely right about 12ac as well as 29ac, I will make the edits now. For 16ac, I haven’t come across “hip hip hoorah” so am inclined to believe that would not be the solution.
Cheers
Turbolegs
Hi Turbolegs @4
I haven’t come across HOORAH either – or, thankfully, m(any) of these guys.
It’s in Chambers though; I think it requires an indication.
Mike
I’m afraid this puny David didn’t complete today. Thanks for your elucidation, Trubolegs. As for you, Goliath, I found it really tough — this David will fell you next time, though.
Didn’t have too many problems, was deceived into trying cover* for 9d and the 2/5 checking for FENCE made a hard word guess but the clue was fine.
Never come across a hoorah henry, a rather unfortunately large number at University of the hooray variety.
Thanks Turbolegs and Goliath.
Thanks Goliath and turbolegs
New setter for me and a nice challenge.
HOORAY HENRIES was a new term for me and my last one in – very clever with the ‘following hips’ part of the clue ! Knew of the term sweet FANNY ADAMS, but was very interesting to see from where it was derived and the tragic circumstances with it … pretty tasteless how it has been used for the canned sailor food though !
A good mix of clue devices here and look forward to battle with him/her again.