A wicked challenge from NEO today !
FF: 8 DD: 10
I found this really tough going. Had to resort to getting help on a couple of clues in the interest of getting an already delayed blog out.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | CHARCUTERIE |
Mrs Blair wraps a tender rump steak in shop (11)
|
| CHERIE ( mrs blair ) around [ A R ( tendeR, last letter ) CUT ( steak ) ] | ||
| 7 | BOW |
Violin player Clara or Dicky? (3)
|
| cryptic def; clara bow was an american actress and a dicky bow is a bowtie | ||
| 9 | ENTER |
Conservative leaving America’s heart to submit (5)
|
| cENTER ( heart { american spelling } without C – conservative ) | ||
| 10 | ATEMPORAL |
Had MP spoken without consideration for time? (9)
|
| ATE ( had ) MP ORAL ( spoken ) | ||
| 11 | TOSCANINI |
Maestro to study in India (9)
|
| TO SCAN ( read ) IN I ( india ) | ||
| 12 | RONDO |
Letter on doormat contains music (5)
|
| hidden in “..letteR ON DOormat..” | ||
| 13 | RAREBIT |
Dish of baked brie rodent devours (7)
|
| [ BRIE ]* in RAT ( rodent ) | ||
| 15 | GENE |
Wilder say catlike mammal losing tail (4)
|
| GENEt ( catlike mammal, without its tail i.e. without last letter ); i guessed the answer prior to any cross refs and then had to use the dictionary to find out what the catlike mammal was. | ||
| 18/8 | CODSWALLOP |
Fish small — batter rubbish (10)
|
| COD ( fish ) S ( small ) WALLOP ( batter ) | ||
| 20 | DIORAMA |
Moon featuring in play’s miniature scene (7)
|
| IO ( moon ) in DRAMA ( play ) | ||
| 23 | BLANK |
Pound lender invests in space (5)
|
| L ( pound ) in BANK ( lender ) | ||
| 24 | RELEGATED |
Demoted Cardinal entertains envoy (9)
|
| LEGATE ( envoy ) in RED ( cardinal ) | ||
| 26 | CONGER EEL |
Fish gone bad in lobster trap (6,3)
|
| [ GONE ]* in CREEL ( lobster trap ) | ||
| 27 | MACAW |
Mother Watts circling about parrot (5)
|
| [ MA ( mother ) W ( watts ) ] around CA ( about ) | ||
| 28 | SIT |
Good person retaining current position (3)
|
| ST ( good person, saint ) containing I ( current ) | ||
| 29 | DEATH VALLEY |
End depression in US desert reserve (5,6)
|
| DEATH ( end ) VALLEY ( depression ) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | CREATURE |
Cute rear wobbles in wild thing (8)
|
| [ CUTE REAR ]* | ||
| 2 | ARTISTRY |
Blakey, say, is to strive for mastery (8)
|
| ART ( blakey, say; referring to the jazz drummer ) IS TRY ( strive ) ; had to google to find out about the drummer | ||
| 3 | CURIA |
Scoundrel one above a papal court (5)
|
| CUR ( scoundrel ) I ( one ) A | ||
| 4 | TSARIST |
Romanov apologist in Dire Straits… (7)
|
| [ STRAITS ]* ; neat clue | ||
| 5 | REELING |
…slippery sort in band having a dance (7)
|
| EEL ( slippery sort ) in RING ( band ) | ||
| 6 | ESPERANTO |
Neat prose lost in language (9)
|
| [ NEAT PROSE ]* | ||
| 7 | BARING |
Revealing report about first king? (6)
|
| BANG ( report ) around RI ( first king , cryptically read as R – I ) | ||
| 14 | BLOCKHEAD |
Criminal around Yale: he’s silly (9)
|
| BAD ( criminal ) around [ LOCK ( yale ) HE ] | ||
| 16 | TACTICAL |
Strategic first act in short talk (8)
|
| [ ACT I ( first act ) C (?? ) ] in TALk ( short i.e. without last letter ) ; what trick am i missing here for the ‘c’? ; that being said, we are generally taught that strategic is different from tactical | ||
| 17 | PANDOWDY |
Find fault with badly dressed dish (8)
|
| PAN ( find fault with ) DOWDY ( badly dressed ) ; needed help to solve this too as i have never heard the word before | ||
| 19 | SERIEMA |
Winger Mike appears in Italian league (7)
|
| M ( mic ) in SERIE A ( italian league ) ; needed help to crack this | ||
| 20 | DELILAH |
Student inside called up courtesan (7)
|
| L ( student ) in reverse of HAILED ( called up ) | ||
| 21 | ABACUS |
On which adders slide to and fro? (6)
|
| cryptic def | ||
| 22 | MAGNET |
Bar attracting certain elements (6)
|
| cryptic def; smooth surface | ||
| 25 | GAMMA |
Poor mark from school master (5)
|
| GAM ( school , as of whales for example) MA ( master ) |
Thanks Turbolegs and Neo,
I agree with your difficult assessment. PANDOWDY is new to me. Needed to check SERIEMA, but such a clever reference to Italian football.
Yes, tough. I came here (partly) to discover how to account for the 2nd C in TACTICAL. Nice to find it’s not just my cloth-headedness’.
Thanks, both.
I liked CONGER EEL and CHARCUTERIE. I am equally bemused by the “c” in TACTICAL and needed some help with SERIEMA, PANDOWDY.
I also could not parse TACTICAL.
Thanks for the blog , the clues started off well and just kept going .
I wonder if TACTICAL has had a late edit which has messed it up , does not seem to work and unusual to have ACT and TALk in both clue and answer . There may be some devious explanation .
The SERIEMA are quite primitive , the last surviving link to ancient terror birds .
Thanks Neo. Like others I had some difficulty, mainly in the bottom half where I eventually revealed a few answers. Nonetheless clues like CHARCUTERIE, TOSCANINI, CODSWALLOP, and RAREBIT made the effort worthwhile. DEATH VALLEY, by the way, is a wonderful national park filled with great hikes and ‘other-worldly’ views. Avoid it, however, in the summer months or you may discover how it got its name. Thanks Turbolegs for the blog.
I agree that this was largely pretty difficult; I had never heard of PANDOWDY, so failed on that one. The Web tells me it’s American, but I’ve never come across it–it must be a regional thing from some other region. I constructed SERIEMA from the instructions given–that was the only reasonable-looking place to plunk an M into Serie A.
Certainly tough – too tough for this hot weather. We only needed help for PANDOWDY (never heard of) and MAGNET (d’oh!). And we can’t understand the second C in TACTICAL; maybe Neo will drop by to explain.
A lot to like, though, including CODSWALLOP, DIORAMA and ABACUS.
Thanks, Neo and Turbolegs.
Thanks Neo and Turbolegs
16dn: When solving, I had the same thought as some others that tactical and strategic are usually taking as opposites, and have not found dictionary support for the words as equivalents in any non-technical sense. I also agree with others that the wordplay does not account for the second C.
17dn; It took me as long as it had for the rest of the puzzle put together to think of PANDOWDY as a plausible word to fit the wordplay and the checked letters. For anyone interested, Chambers 2016 p 1112 gives us “pandowdy (US) n a deep-pan apple-pie or pudding richly spiced. [Origin unknown]”. I have no memory of ever having heard the word before, but accept that there must be many words that I have either heard spoken or seen in print, but had no reason to remember them.
Azed almost had PANDOWDY , it was one of his Christmas pudding themes so it had a coin inside which might make it hard to search for on here .
Me @7: poking around further on the web, PANDOWDY seems to be both from New England and from the past–all the recipe sites mention that it dates from the colonial era (so ~250 years ago).
Too tough for me. Did about 2 thirds.
Pandowdy reminded me of stargazy, nothing alike of course. Seriema I still thought was re roundball until looking it up. And the c in tcal … qui sa? Curiosity is healthy, and fun, ta both.
As an American I never heard of PANDOWDY but my partner, whose family’s been in New England since the Mayflower landed, instantly knew what it was.
Very late to this. I though it a lovely puzzle from Neo which, for the most part, was cleanly clued otherwise I doubt I would have landed SERIEMA (what an interesting creature it is and very clever use of Serie A, as noted by KenF) or PANDOWDY. Shame about TACTICAL. CHARCUTERIE was my top pick.
Thanks very much to Neo and Turbolegs.
Too tough for me. I enjoyed most of it though, and learned a few things.
For 2d, I couldn’t get my thoughts away from On The Buses. “I ‘ate you, Butler!”
I enjoyed this, and didn’t find too tough until I got stuck on PANDOWDY. I even got the DOWDY bit but failed on PAN. Never heard of the word.