Quite a challenge this week, and browsing the list of answers, it’s not hard to see why.
I made good steady progress at first, filling about two thirds of the grid unaided. A couple more sittings yielded a few non-committal pencil marks but nothing more. Come blogging day, it was time to fire up the SRA (Small Red App) and do my best at explaining what I could.
I’ve failed in places, of course, so clues are reproduced in case others did better than me!
*=anagram, []=dropped, <=reversed.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | AUTARCHIC – A + RATUR< + CHIC. |
| 9 | HERS – HE[a]RS. |
| 13 | KRISHNA – (IS + H[indus]) in RANK*. |
| 14 | FRET – RE in FT. |
| 15 | MENSAL – MEN + SAL. |
| 16 | ENTREE – Perhaps a double definition: Main / means of access. |
| 17 | EASY GAME – SEA* + [finall]Y + GAME. “Game” can indeed mean “lame” apparently. |
| 19 | LOITERER – LO + (IT in (ER repeatedly)). |
| 20 | SOLIDUNGULOUS – (LID + GNU<) in (SOUL + OUS[t]). |
| 22 | HETAIRIA – THE* + (I in ARIA). |
| 26 | OPERETTA – (NO REPEAT)*. |
| 27 | VENDOR – END in VOR. |
| 28 | CAIMAN – I in CAMAN. A “caman” is apprently a shinty stick. |
| 29 | IRON – I + R + O + [galleo]N. |
| 30 | OUT-TAKE – U in (OTT + AKE). |
| 31 | KYNE – [muc]KY NE[eeding]. |
| 32 | MONKEY NUT – (N + KEY) in (MON + UT). |
| Down | |
| 2 | UREAL – U[n]REAL. |
| 3 | TINSEL – Gaudy stuff, paltry, mostly a disappointment. |
| 4 | ASSYRIAN – ASS + AIRY< + N. |
| 5 | RHAGADIFORM – (H + FOR DIAGRAM)*. |
| 6 | HARMONIPHON – HARM + ON + I + P + H[e] + ON. |
| 7 | IDEE – [n]EEDI[ng]<. |
| 8 | CONSTUPRATE – (PUT ANCESTOR)* |
| 10 | ERROR – E + (0 in RRR). |
| 11 | REEVE – RE[li]EVE. |
| 12 | STEERSMAN – (SNARES + MEN)*. |
| 15 | MENSHEVIK – MEN + (V in SHEIK). |
| 18 | VELLEITY – LEVEL* + IT + [dogberr]Y. Nothing to do with Shakespeare, this is “will” as in “volition”. |
| 21 | OUTMAN – OU + T[ea]M + AN. |
| 23 | EVERY – E[ducation] + VERY. |
| 24 | TENON – TENO[r] + N. |
| 25 | OTAKU – Mostly upset Japanese nerds. |
| 26 | ORZO – [b]ORZO[i]. |
Hi Simon
You have it right for entrée.
For tinsel, I took paltry to be tin (as in tinny) and sell as the (full) disappointment.
I am sure I parsed otaku before entering it, but can’t now remember how. I’ll get back if it comes back.
Thanks to S&B.
My version has ‘British fragment’ in front of what you’ve quoted as 25d, as did the proof I saw. I think the addition should help…annoying it doesn’t seem to have made it to the printed page.
If it did start with ‘British fragment’ that explains how I was able to parse it, so perhaps it did?
Aha. My copy didn’t have that, so I feel a little better about failing to understand. I managed to solve it anyway, heaven knows where I picked up that word though!
I was away yesterday, so I didn’t have me copy of last week’s paper to hand. Definitely didn’t have “British fragment”. I think I solved it by searching Chambers, in the end.
The two I failed to parse were 20ac and 32ac, so thanks for that. Was looking at “Monut” for the Burmese people!
My memory is that I filled in the grid quickly (for a Beelzebub) but there were many where it took me ages to parse the answers once I’d got them.