Guardian 24,231 (Sat 10 Nov)/Araucaria - Blyton rock
Posted by rightback on 17th November 2007
Solving time: 25 mins, one missing (18dn)
This puzzle was largely a tribute to Enid Blyton who would have been 110 this year (see 24ac). The bottom half of the puzzle fell out quickly, but the top half was extremely slow. After a hiatus of around 10 minutes I was reduced to solving this backwards, by thinking of Enid Blyton characters and seeing where they might fit. Eventually Noddy and Big-Ears occurred to me, but even then I fell down on a culinary reference (again) at 18dn. Please shout if you can explain 9ac.
Music (2dn): Cum On Feel The Noize by Noddy Holder’s Slade.
* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | BANT[u] + ER |
| 4/12/ 15/1dn | LITTLE PITCHERS HAVE BIG EARS; (BRAVEHEART STILL EIGHT’S EPIC)* - a new phrase to me; ‘little’ was the only word I even considered before resorting to the tactic mentioned in the intro. |
| 9 | AGED (?) - I can’t explain this clue (”Old if unqualified” (4)). |
| 10 | PROS(PER + IT)Y |
| 11 | SAW YER (= ‘you’) - I don’t know if Bob refers to the Iron Maiden guitarist or to ‘a stranded tree that bobs in a river’ (Chambers). |
| 13 | P(SALT)RESS |
| 17 | SIMPL(ET)ON - I hadn’t heard of the Simplon Tunnel (formerly the world’s longest) so this was a guess. Uncertaintly here didn’t help on 18dn. |
| 21 | FIRM DOWN |
| 22/14 | LOVE ME, LOVE MY DOG (cryptic definition) |
| 24 | ENID BLYTON; (OLD NINETY B[orn])* - see intro. |
| 27/16 | F[riends] + (A MOUS(F-IV)E); semi-&lit - the ‘f-four’ device is a bit lame, but otherwise this is a decent semi-&lit referring to the Famous Five, of which one (Timmy) was a dog. One point each for the other four. |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | B (= ’second’) + I (= ‘first’) + GEARS |
| 2 | NODDY (double definition) - a noddy is a small tern. Listener solvers will remember Double Entry by Adam and know it’s also a word meaning ’simpleton’ (and ‘rear-door cab’, ‘card game’, ‘inverted pendulum’ etc), so I’m surprised Araucaria didn’t link this to 17ac. |
| 3 | EMPEROR; rev. of (RO(REP)ME) - rubbish (me, not the clue); I thought of Lima, Oslo and Riga but not Rome until I had two crossing letters. |
| 5 | I’M + PUT + E - difficult word but the wordplay was helpful. ‘Setter’s’ usually gives ‘I’m’ rather than ‘my’. |
| 6 | T(ORCH[estra])RACE |
| 7 | [n]EUTER PE[a] - the Muse of music and lyric poetry. |
| 8 | COMPASS + I + ON + ATE (= TEA*) |
| 18 | P.O. + LENT + A - ‘order’ giving PO (Postal Order) is fair enough but the superfluous ‘for’ makes this a poor clue. Easy enough if you know the word, perhaps, but I didn’t. |
| 19 | [c]OSMOS IS |
| 20 | MOSLE[M for y] - luckily Sir Oswald Mosley came up recently, otherwise I’d probably have spelt this ‘Muslim’ and so struggled with the second word of 21ac. |
| 23/26 | V + A + SC(ODAG)AM + A |
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