Great stuff from Aardvark today, interesting all the way though. Thank you Aardvark.
| Across | ||
| 1 | CHENIN BLANC | Wine companion knocked back one over the eight with top chef (6,5) |
| CH (Companion of Honour) NINE (one over the eight) reversed (knocked back) with Raymond BLANC (top chef) | ||
| 7 | WOO | Head of Wimbledon circles court (3) |
| Wimbledon (head, first letter of) O O (two circles) | ||
| 9 | MAINE | Some of US drama in evening partly missed (5) |
| found inside draMA IN Evening – only some of the letters (partly missed). I like the way Aardvark misdirects here with the false indicator ‘some of’ | ||
| 10 | TUNESMITH | Songwriter’s fan recalled times when touring hard (9) |
| NUT (fan) reversed (recalled) TIMES* anagram=when touring then H (hard) | ||
| 11 | EMOTIONAL | Sentimental book about Loch on Scottish island (9) |
| TOME (book) reversed (about) L (loch) following IONA (Scottish island) | ||
| 12 | ALDER | Tree snake, left for dead at first (5) |
| AdDER (snake) with L (left) replacing (for) D (dead, abbrev) – I think ‘at first’ probably indicates that only one of the two Ds is to be repaced, though it could just mean ‘the first letter of dead’. | ||
| 13, 15 | CAUSTIC SODA | Soap maker from Australia twitches nervously during concluding part (7,4) |
| AUS (Australia) TICS (twitches nervously) inside (during) CODA (concluding part) – chemical used in the production of soap | ||
| 18, 20 | STAR CHAMBER | Group of ministers stiffen tone (4,7) |
| STARCH (stiffen) AMBER (tone, colour) | ||
| 23 | LOTTO | Draw time after time in little room (5) |
| T T (time after time) in LOO (little room) | ||
| 24 | UNMARRIED | Single university memory returned when in diner, wandering (9) |
| U (university) RAM (computer memory) reversed (returned) when in DINER* anagram=wandering | ||
| 26 | KITTIWAKE | Bird supplies new technology around festival (9) |
| KIT (supplies) IT (new technology) reversed (around) then WAKE (festival) | ||
| 27 | PRIDE | Some cats curiously examined via the mouth (5) |
| sounds like (via the mouth) “pried”, curiously examined | ||
| 28 | YON | That Scottish play’s ultimate character performing (3) |
| plaY (last letter of) ON (performing) | ||
| 29 | TABLE TENNIS | Olympic athlete appears on computer game (5,6) |
| Jessica ENNIS (olympic athelete) TABLET (computer). I have seen variations on this clue at least twice before, but I’m not bored of it yet. It still puts a smile on my face! | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | COMMERCE | As Parisian, start to recognise rising city traffic (8) |
| COMME (as in French, in Paris) R (start of regognise) EC (the City of London, from the postcode area) | ||
| 2 | EPILOGUE | In final speech, low-class cheek’s conjured up by rascal, right to be rejected (8) |
| E (low class, as of exam grade) LIP (cheek) reversed (conjured up) by rOGUE (rascal) missing R=right | ||
| 3 | ICENI | Frostiness rearing in old Brits (5) |
| ICE (frostiness) with IN reversed (rearing) | ||
| 4 | BOTANIC | I can’t ramble alongside unpleasant smell of plants (7) |
| (I CAN’T)* anagram=ramble following (alongside) BO (unpleasant smell) | ||
| 5 | ANNULUS | Growing every year, adult avoided American doughnut say (7) |
| ANNUaL (growing every year) missing (avoided) A (adult) then US (American) | ||
| 6 | CASSANDRA | She predicted when hospital doctor would settle in California (9) |
| AS (when) SAN (sanitorium, hospital) DR (doctor) inside (would settle in) CA (California) – character in Greek mythology who was given the gift of prophesy but also that people would not believe her | ||
| 7 | WEIRDO | Fish out of water? It’s caught here possibly by cook (6) |
| WEIR (a place a fish may be caught) by DO (cook) | ||
| 8 | ON HIRE | T-shirts seen centrally in unit, available temporarily (2,4) |
| t-sHIRts (seen centrally, middle of) in ONE (unit) | ||
| 14 | TATTOOIST | Artist whose work is barely shown? (9) |
| cryptic definition | ||
| 16 | OBSIDIAN | Volcanic glass is picked up by investigator in Scottish town (8) |
| IS reversed (picked up) by DI (investigator) in OBAN (Scottish town) | ||
| 17 | ARIDNESS | Mohave shows this small equine, describing journey around north (8) |
| ASS (small equine) contains (describing) RIDE (journey) around N (north) – as of the Mohave Desert | ||
| 19 | RHUBARB | Fruit rot (7) |
| double definition | ||
| 20 | COMPERE | TV presenter, hard to miss, who’s chewing over programme’s finale (7) |
| ChOMPER (who is chewing) missing H (hard) with (over) programmE (last letter of) | ||
| 21 | ALT KEY | Talk frantically, extremely drained, as one’s hard pressed at the desk? (3,3) |
| TALK* anagram=frantically ExtremelY (drained, no middle) – I’m not sure where ‘hard’ fits in, the alt key is not pressed any harder than any other key. Perhaps it is just there to make “one’s pressed at the desk” read better, perhaps there is something cryptic in here that I can’t see. | ||
| 22 | STATIN | Drug crime involving cheap items (6) |
| SIN (crime) contains (involving) TAT (cheap items) | ||
| 25 | RUPEE | Are you texting a letter to get money abroad? (5) |
| RU (are you, textspeak) PEE (P, a letter) | ||
*anagram
definitions are underlined
A very enjoyable crossword indeed – thanks Aardvaark! and PeeDee
I had 26ac as KIT (supplies) IT< (new technology around) WAKE (festival)
Thanks peterj, what I wrote did not make sense. Corrected now.
Thanks PeeDee, agree that this was a very enjoyable puzzle.
It was in fact one of the first Aardvarks I tackled, triggered by recent high-quality offerings from his Indy alter ego Scorpion.
Yesterday, in the Guardian, Brummie gave us many solutions with double letters.
I won’t say it is a theme but here we have also quite a few of them: 11.
Is UNMARRIED (24ac) actually the same as ‘single’? Not for me.
In your explanation of 1d (COMMERCE) you capitalised City and rightly so.
I can see why Scorpion did not do this (for the surface) and I know that every now and then setters do the same.
But I still think it is false decapitalisation which is against ‘the rules’ – although I know that some solvers popping up in this place cannot be bothered at all.
Exquisite crossword!
A couple of quibbles: “annual” does not mean ” growing every year” (that’s perennial) and rhubarb is not a fruit.
I think the dictionaries support Scorpion for “annual”. Oxford, for example, tells us: “(of a plant) living only for a year or less, perpetuating itself by seed”. Chambers has similar things.
I agree that rhubarb is not a fruit.
But then Chambers says: “the leafstalks (of the plant) cooked and used as if fruit” – yes, as if!
Oxford agrees: ” …. which are eaten as a fruit after cooking”.
Sil @3 regarding capitalisation and accuracy in general: looking back over a crossword I really enjoy a good pedantic quibble. For example, must city be capitalised, can rhubarb be considered a fruit? Is being unmarried single, or does it only matter that single is unmarried?
However, during the solve it matters to me not a jot. I enjoy the crossword and that’s that.
I agree with your last line, PeeDee.
However, I don’t think it’s a pedantic quibble to question false decapitalisation.
To me, there are some rules in crosswordland that I would like to stick to and this is one of them.
Perhaps, it is also because I do some setting myself.
I am reluctant to define EC using ‘city’ but I do accept others doing it.
Meanwhile, I hope I made clear what a great puzzle this was.
And PeeDee, I had to think of you anyway today.
Remember our recent discussion on devices with multiple fodders.
In today’s Guardian, Philistine had 7 of them.
Did you hear me? SEVEN!
Only one (in 1d) indicated multiple fodders.
As I said before, they do it all the time.
Some more than others.
In this week’s Quiptic there’s another (by Moley).
But seven in one puzzle? That must be a World Record.
Apologies to Monk. 🙂
I just enjoyed it a lot. Thanks to both PeeDee and Aardvark.
Hi Sil – no criticism of your comments intended at all, capitalisation is a bad example. By pedantic I think what I’m trying to say is that the more obscure and whimsical the quibble the more I seem to enjoy it.
As there is no crossword rulebook there is no official right or wrong. It all comes down to personal preference in the end. Even deciding what constitutes pedantic/important is a personal thing.
I think that is why I enjoy the trivial quibbles, it sidesteps the whole issue because they really don’t matter, the discussion is just for fun. When it gets to issues that really do impinge on editorial policy the discussion starts to get political: opinion gets polarised, people start talking sides, tempers start to get frayed. I stop enjoying it so much.
21D alt key – maybe Aardvark had in mind that this key is usually held down and used with a combination of one or more other keys.
Thanks Aardvark and PeeDee
Only just got to this one this morning. All pretty smooth sailing – got held up with the parsing of KITTIWAKE for a while, but finally saw it. ARIDNESS was last in.