A very tough puzzle to round off, what has been a very humbling week for me. Alberich has dished out a true challenge this Friday, thanks to whom for a very intensive workout.
I had to frequently look up some info on the internet to confirm the solutions and even then, had a few clues that I needed help with. Thanks to Gaufrid for filling in the blanks.
| Across | ||
| 9 | ADORATION | Worship nowadays is accompanied by sermon (9) |
| AD (nowadays) ORATION (Sermon) | ||
| 10 | AGAPE | A break before Easter originally for religious feast (5) |
| A GAP (break) E (Easter originally) | ||
| 11 | COTERIE |
Lake poet’s cottage first of all for inner circle (7) |
| ERIE (Lake) with COT (Poet’s Cottage, first of all) | ||
| 12 | CHEMISE | Something to wear in church, I seem to recollect (7) |
| CH (church) anagram of I SEEM | ||
| 13 | LEI | Back in Abercrombie, laid a wreath (3) |
| Hidden in AbercrombIE Laid, reversed | ||
| 14 | SPREADSHEET | Program’s usefulness ultimately has petered out (11) |
| Anagram of S (usefulness ultimately) HAS PETERED | ||
| 17 | CLEAN | Innocent European is framed by family (5) |
| E (European) framed by CLAN (family) | ||
| 18 | MOB | Cram round in mass close to celeb? (3) |
| O (round) in M (mass) B (close to celeB, last letter) | ||
| 19 | ABASE | Humble home with acre in front (5) |
| BASE (home) with A (acre) in front | ||
| 21 | MINUTE STEAK | Meat that can be cooked quickly – is it nouvelle cuisine? (6,5) |
| Cryptic clue – The reference to “nouvelle cuisine” is possibly due to the fact that the serving portions are usually pretty small, hence minute. | ||
| 23 | ROE | Eggs runny, over easy, for starters (3) |
| Runny Over Easy (starting characters) | ||
| 25 | SOCKEYE | Fish do this to get mouse? (7) |
| Tough clue this, to crack – Sockeye is a type of fish (salmon); If you sock someone in the eye (do this), you get a swelling – known as a mouse. | ||
| 27 | PRATTLE | At heart sales patter’s confusing hot air (7) |
| Anagram of L (sales, at heart) PATTER | ||
| 28 | LENTO | Took at least some of Polonius’s advice – slowly (5) |
| Cryptic clue – LENT O (Lent nothing), from Polonius’ famous lines in Hamlet “Neither a borrower or a lender be” | ||
| 29 | EXTREMITY | Wasted time in attempt to pursue old hand, perhaps (9) |
| Anagram of TIME (wasted) in TRY (attempt) pursuing EX (old) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | PASCAL | Mathematician is one stroke short of a rogue (6) |
| Cryptic clue. An additional stroke on the P to make it R gives Rascal i.e. rogue | ||
| 2 | VOLTAIRE | Writer shows a measure of potential and a passion (8) |
| VOLT (measure of potential) A IRE (passion) | ||
| 3 | SACROSANCT | Hallowed ground adult can’t cross (10) |
| Anagram of A (adult) CANT CROSS | ||
| 4 | HIKE | In hurry, Kelvin gets lift (4) |
| K (kelvin) in HIE (hurry) | ||
| 5 | UNSCRAMBLE | Proust’s a case of soporific waffle to make sense of (10) |
| UN (Proust’s a, french for one) SC (case of SoporifiC) RAMBLE (waffle) | ||
| 6 | EASE | Stop barring rear of public convenience! (4) |
| cEASE (stop, barring rear of public i.e. the letter ‘c’) | ||
| 7 | HALITE | Second helpings of wholesome fare low in calories and salt (6) |
| HA (second helpings of, i.e. second letters of ‘wHolesome fAre) with LITE (low in calories) | ||
| 8 | RESETTLE | Move to new residence in high street with reduced rent (8) |
| Anagram of STREET (high) with LEt (reduced rent) | ||
| 15 | REMASTERED | Made recording, originally stereo, in improved version – nothing less? (10) |
| Anagram of MADE R (Recording originally) STEREo (nothing less) – another &lit | ||
| 16 | STARK NAKED | Undressed wound requires injection of potassium salt first (5-5) |
| [TAR (salt) K(potassium)] in SNAKED (wound) | ||
| 17 | CAMISOLE | Jacket one wears in the morning only after college (8) |
| I (one) in [AM (morning) SOLE (only)] after C (college) | ||
| 20 | AIRSTRIP | Area I will need to take off? That’s about right (8) |
| A (area) I STRIP (take off) around R (about right) – &lit | ||
| 22 | NICENE | Picked up near location of old Asian city (6) |
| Homophone (picked up) of nigh (near) scene (location) – of the old asian city of Nicaea, now in Turkey. | ||
| 24 | EVELYN | Man or woman regularly name dropping (6) |
| EVENLY (regularly) with N (name) moved to the end – dropping | ||
| 26 | EGOS | For example, very large feelings of superiority (4) |
| EG (for example) OS (very large, oversize) | ||
| 27 | PITT | Old statesman’s depression apparent in speech (4) |
| sounds like PIT (depression) – Reference to William Pitt | ||
*anagram
Thanks for the great blog, Turbolegs. I hope you managed to enjoy the puzzle. 😉
I certainly did: lots of favourite clues with some lovely surfaces, notably AGAPE, LENTO, SOCKEYE [I learned that meaning of ‘mouse’ from crosswords] PASCAL, SACROSANCT, UNSCRAMBLE, RESETTLE , EVELYN and PITT. Some great wordplay, too – with UNSCRAMBLE and STARK NAKED, for example, it was a case of solve first, then work out the parsing – then admire.
My one puzzlement was CAMISOLE: the wordplay and crossers led unerringly to that as the answer but I was amazed to find, from SOED and Chambers, that it can be a jacket – not the definition I would have thought of!
I failed on HALITE, so thanks for that. I entered SALINE, knowing that it didn’t parse. 🙁
Many thanks to Alberich for an absorbing puzzle.
Hi Eileen,
I did quite enjoy it eventually although when I started off, I was scratching my head for a fair bit. So after the initial panic had subsided (at the prospect of having to blog a puzzle where I had solved 3 clues on my first pass), I began to slowly work my way around. Alberich decided to take me to school and so there I was, learning a great deal of stuff today.
11ac: COT for Poet’s Cottage was new to me.
25ac: Never had come across SOCKEYE before. Had to resort to brute-forcing it.
28ac: Quite an ignoramus when it comes to the Bard. Had to wiki Polonius before cracking the clue.
16ac: I got to STARK NAKED pretty quickly after the cross-refs but couldnt parse it.
22ac: Wouldnt have got NICENE if not for help from google. Parsing was troublesome as well.
Like you, I found some of the surfaces to be quite clever and smooth. I am sure I will be looking forward to my next tussle with Alberich.
Cheers
Turbolegs
hi Turbolegs
It’s funny how you know / learn things and how they stick in the mind.
As I said, I only knew mouse = swelling from crosswords but I knew SOCKEYE from tinned salmon labels.
Another childhood memory is ‘cot’, from a dreadfully sentimental song [sung by Vera Lynn, I think] which began, ‘There’s a little brown road leading over the hill, to a little white cot by the sea…’, a picture which fascinated me, until I discovered what it meant! I meant to include the clue for COTERIE in my list of favourites, as I imagined the Lakeland poets gathering at Dove Cottage.
I knew NICENE from the Creed and I was lucky enough to have done ‘Hamlet’ for A Level – but I’m not sure that I knew before that that that’s [apologies for the plethora of ‘thats’!] where the well-known saying came from. [They do say that Shakespeare’s full of quotations!]
All the best with the next Alberich, which I hope won’t be too long – he’s one of my favourites!
Thanks Alberich for a difficult but great puzzle.
Thanks also to Turbolegs for help with the parsing of some. Unlike Eileen I’d never heard of that kind of mouse [Collins:(slang) a black eye.] I suppose tar=salt as in sailor (?)
I liked LENTO, although I had to Google Polonius for, well, advice. 😉
I saw the Pascal/rascal connection but failed to appreciate the ‘stroke’ – excellent! UNSCRAMBLE was a bit difficult to unscramble. EVELYN and AIRSTRIP were also well appreciated.
Thanks Alberich and Turbolegs
Late to this, and like Eileen, I failed with saline instead of HALITE.
Lots of new learnings – AGAPE(as a feast), COT (as a cottage) and HALITE. Had to be reminded about MOUSE (as the black eye) and also have only seen this referenced in crosswords.
A couple of clues where it was very difficult to parse – particularly ‘Proust’s a’ (not the foremost Frenchman to come to mind) and EASE (for some reason it took a long time to come up with cease and the remove the C to get a subtle definition of convenience). Both fair … but certainly on the hard side.
I notice that the setter has his own web site of free crosswords if you wanted to hurry the experience of another one of his: http://www.alberichcrosswords.com/.
Finally, thanks Turbolegs for an excellent blog of a difficult puzzle