I found this rather tough but it was still very enjoyable. The original puzzle may be found here.
Liari is the setter for this featured crossword, and I can pretend I found it easy. I managed to get quite a few solutions on first pass, and the majority of the rest after a few more goes around with increasing amounts of crossers. In the end I had to resort to using a word finder for rather too many. Some of the parsing has partially or completely eluded me, though I hope commenters will be able to correct or enlighten me. Nonetheless this was good fun with some amusing misdirections and neat constructions.
I’m blaming my substandard performance on the seven kittens we’re currently hosting, who are eight weeks old, all boys, and incredibly boisterous.
Thanks to Liari for the puzzle and mental workout!
| ACROSS | ||
| 6 | CRAYOLA |
Company that makes markers, plastic clay or acrylics primarily (7)
|
| An anagram (plastic) of CLAY OR A[crylics]. | ||
| 7 | HOREB |
Mountain covered in shorebirds (5)
|
| Hidden in (covered in) sHOREBirds.
Horeb is, according to the Bible, the mountain where Moses was given the Ten Commandments by God. Despite my Christian upbringing, I didn’t know this – or at least couldn’t bring it to mind – but crossers and a quick web search to check got me there. |
||
| 9 | BEAR |
Animal stomach (4)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 10 | TREES |
Tesla returned medium boxes? (5)
|
| T (Tesla, symbol for the unit of magnetic flux density) + REES, a reversal (returned) of SEER – medium. | ||
| 11 | RUFF |
Speaker’s coarse stiff collar (4)
|
| A homophone (speaker’s) of rough (coarse) for the 16th/17th century style of collar. | ||
| 12 | SERVE UP |
Offer starter of vegetables smothered in blended purees (5,2)
|
| An envelope (smothered in) of V (starter/first letter of vegetables) inside SEREUP, an anagram (blended) of PUREES. | ||
| 15 | NOT BAD |
Fine fellow spinning around up in the air (3,3)
|
| I’m afraid I haven’t worked out the parsing here, beyond NOD (Don i.e. fellow, spinning). Hopefully commenters can help! | ||
| 16 | PIPE |
Spot in casino with drug smoking device (4)
|
| PIP (name for the spots on a die, so ‘in casino’) + E (ecstasy, drug). | ||
| 19 | SPOUT |
Jet setters at last away from home touring Portugal (5)
|
| An envelope (touring) of P (Portugal’s International Vehicle Registration code letter) inside S (setters at last – last letter of) + OUT (away from home). | ||
| 20 | DROP |
Dismiss doctor prior to surgery (4)
|
| DR (doctor) before/prior to OP (surgery). | ||
| 22 | COLOUR |
Paint circle and line inside unfinished court (6)
|
| An envelope (inside) of O (circle) and L (line) inside COUR (court, unfinished). | ||
| 23 | FOCUSES |
Sous chef cooked hard cut centres (7)
|
| An anagram (cooked) of SOUS CHEF, minus the H (hard cut). | ||
| 27 | NINA |
Girl’s name partially hidden in artwork (4)
|
| Hidden (partially) in hiddeN IN Artwork.
A nice misdirection, using the word ‘hidden’ in the fodder for a hidden solution, and perhaps a nod to the term referring to ‘hidden messages’ in crosswords? I haven’t spotted any nina in this one, though. |
||
| 28 | BASSO |
Musician‘s woodwind instrument not working (5)
|
| BASSOON (woodwind instrument) minus ON (working). Basso is a term for vocalists of the lower ranges. | ||
| 30 | FALL |
Take a trip through Looe initially east of river (4)
|
| L (Looe, initially) after (to the east of) FAL (river, which gives Falmouth its name). | ||
| 31 | MELON |
Head of American railway over in Minnesota (5)
|
| An envelope (in) of EL (short for ‘elevated railway’ in America, so American railway) + O (over, from cricket scoring) inside MN (Minnesota). Melon being one of many slang terms for one’s head. | ||
| 32 | EXERTED |
Wielded end of battle axe striking a tired rogue with one fleeing (7)
|
| E (end of battle) + XE (axe striking/removing a) + RTED, an anagram (rogue) of TIRED, less the I (one fleeing).
This one took me quite a while to piece together but seemed perfectly fair after doing so. |
||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | FAIRER |
More light coming from flames engulfing area over river (6)
|
| FIRE, with A (area) inside (engulfing), plus R (river). | ||
| 2 | BOTTLE |
Trunk holding dry wine container (6)
|
| An envelope of TT (teetotal, so ‘dry’) inside BOLE (trunk, the main stem of a tree).
This also took me some time and required all the crossers. |
||
| 3 | GATE |
Dined after grand opening (4)
|
| ATE (dined) after G[rand]. | ||
| 4 | CHESTNUT |
Cuts then moves wood (8)
|
| Anagram (moves) of CUTS THEN. | ||
| 5 | PRORATED |
Pair delivered speech in Washington, divvied up fairly (8)
|
| PR (pair) + ORATED (delivered speech). I’m not sure where Washington comes into it, though. | ||
| 6 | CRESS |
Leaves angry, having had a change of heart (5)
|
| CROSS (angry) with its middle letter/heart changed. | ||
| 8 | BUFFALO |
Polish man essentially left love in New York City (7)
|
| BUFF (Polish) + A (man essentially – middle letter of) + L (left) + O (love), for the city in New York state. | ||
| 13 | ESP |
News app regularly released special gift (3)
|
| Regular letters from nEwS aPp, giving the initialism for the purported gift of Extrasensory Perception. | ||
| 14 | PROOF |
Page covering part of maths assignment? (5)
|
| P (page) + ROOF (covering). | ||
| 17 | IDOLISM |
Writer’s penning novel 26 to show admiration (7)
|
| An envelope of DOLIS, an anagram (novel) of SOLID (solution to 26d) inside IM (I’m, writer’s).
An unfamiliar word or at least form of it, to me, which therefore held me up with 31a. |
||
| 18 | EVOCABLE |
Possibly recalled Island Bay retreats (8)
|
| A reversal (retreats) of ELBA (island) + COVE (bay).
One of the last for me to solve, requiring a word finder. |
||
| 19 | SARABAND |
Dance from Starship or Fleetwood Mac? (8)
|
| I needed to use a word finder again here. I think the idea is that both the bands Starship and Fleetwood Mac had songs named Sara, so either could be a ‘Sara band’. | ||
| 21 | RYE |
Picked up twisted grass (3)
|
| Sounds like ‘wry’ (twisted), as in a wry smile. | ||
| 24 | COOLER |
Dove circling large jail (6)
|
| COOER (a dove, whimsically as a bird making a coo sound) around L[arge]. | ||
| 25 | SAFETY |
Carrying iron amulet, ultimately, for one’s protection (6)
|
| I’m afraid I’m stuck on the parsing again here, beyond FE (iron) and the T at the end of amulet. | ||
| 26 | SOLID |
I’m convinced about 1 and 3D (5)
|
| SOLD (I’m convinced) around I (1). Another nice misdirection. | ||
| 29 | SHED |
Place where tools are kept or discarded (4)
|
| Double definition. |
Great puzzle – left a comment on MyC 🙂
15a: up in the air AKA “to be ascertained”; tba. So DON spins -> NOD, and goes around TBA
25a: the def is just “protection”, with “for one” being “SAY”, which is what carries the FE and T
5d: Also not sure on Washington – I think it’s just that “delivered speech in Washington” is being used for Orated?
Strongly suspect there’s a cunning 27a somewhere in there…