A tricky challenge from ARRIETY
FF: 8 DD:9
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | PEDESTRIAN |
New American president lacking inspiration (10)
|
| [ A ( american ) PRESIDENT ]* | ||
| 6 | EDIT |
To some extent, antidepressant brought about change (4)
|
| hidden, reversed in “..anTIDEpressant..” | ||
| 9 | INCONSTANT |
Volatile criminal caught in very short time (10)
|
| CON ( crimnal ) in INSTANT ( very short time ) | ||
| 10 | SWAY |
Rock and roll’s influence (4)
|
| cryptic def | ||
| 12 | CHERRY TOMATO |
Small fruit in middle of pharynx — tracheotomy ordered (6,6)
|
| [ R ( phaRynx, middle letter ) TRACHEOTOMY ]* | ||
| 15 | OBVIOUS |
Patent element of odometer, instrument clipped inside vehicle (7)
|
| O ( Odometer, element of i.e. first letter ) [ VIOla ( instrument, clipped ) in BUS ( vehicle ) ] | ||
| 16 | DENUDED |
Bare earth, muddier at intervals by delta (7)
|
| DEN ( earth ) UDE ( mUdDiEr, at intervals ) D ( delta ) | ||
| 17 | FERMIUM |
Heavy metal from Iron Maiden covering Queen, mixing it up at first (7)
|
| [ FE ( iron ) M ( maiden ) ] covering { R ( queen ) MIU ( “..Mixing It Up..”, first letters of ) } | ||
| 19 | TONSURE |
Doctor to nurse: “Close shave!” (7)
|
| [ TO NURSE ]* | ||
| 20 | CORN EXCHANGE |
Almost trap ten coppers in former place of business (4,8)
|
| CORNEr ( trap, almost ) X ( ten ) CHANGE ( coppers ) | ||
| 23 | INCH |
Creep among penguin chicks (4)
|
| hidden in “..penguIN CHicks” | ||
| 24 | TAKE TO TASK |
Child, when beginning to kick, faced with appropriate rebuke (4,2,4)
|
| TAKE ( appropriate ) TOT ( child ) AS ( when ) K ( Kick, first letter ) | ||
| 25 | NODE |
Central point of European lecturer, looking back (4)
|
| reverse of E ( european ) DON ( lecturer ) | ||
| 26 | COUNTY TOWN |
Reading perhaps when Riley and Dent finally come in for day of Countdown (6,4)
|
| YT ( rileY, denT, final letters of ) replacing D ( day ) in COUNTdOWN | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | PAIL |
Picked up light bucket (4)
|
| sounds like PALE ( light ) | ||
| 2 | DECK |
Knock over ornament (4)
|
| double def | ||
| 3 | SYNCHRONISED |
Coordinated cooking cosy hot dinners (12)
|
| [ COSY H ( hot ) DINNERS ]* | ||
| 4 | RETORTS |
Counters in section of bistro terrace rotated (7)
|
| hidden, reversed in “..biSTRO TERrace..” | ||
| 5 | ANNOYED |
Goaded some bears no end, withholding last of salmon (7)
|
| [ ANY ( some ) containing NO ] EnD ( without N – salmoN, last letter ) | ||
| 7 | DOWN-AND-OUT |
Sad a cake Nigella initially promoted is ruined (4-3-3)
|
| DOWN ( sad ) A [ NDOUT ( cake = DONUT, with N- Nigella, first letter, moving up ) ] | ||
| 8 | TOY SOLDIER |
Yeti’s drool spoiled child’s figurine (3,7)
|
| [ YETI’S DROOL ]* | ||
| 11 | MORNING GLORY |
Heard lamenting nip from grey parrot climbing plant (7,5)
|
| sounds like MOANING ( lamenting ) G ( grey, a nip of ) LORY ( parrot ) | ||
| 13 | NON-FICTION |
Type of book that’s left lying to one side? (3-7)
|
| cryptic def; lie = fiction | ||
| 14 | OVERPRICED |
EC provider wasted too much? (10)
|
| [ EC PROVIDER ]* | ||
| 18 | MECCANO |
Two cents jamming cheap old plaything (7)
|
| [ CC ( two cents ) in MEAN ( cheap ) ] O ( old ) | ||
| 19 | TRADE-IN |
Something given up for good? (5-2)
|
| cryptic def | ||
| 21 | DADO |
Even bits of woodland taken up to make trench (4)
|
| reverse of even letters of wOoDlAnD | ||
| 22 | SKIN |
Strip, posing naked (4)
|
| aSKINg ( posing, naked i.e. without end characters ) |
11D: I had MOURNING. Good blog on a challenging puzzle.
Good fun. Nothing too taxing.
I had trouble equating den and earth, and Collins dictionary could shed no light.
FERMIUM, DADO & CORN EXCHANGE were new to me. Also lory, despite their being native to Australia apparently. And I couldn’t parse SKIN, which I initially thought might have been OSIN!
(I concur with Cineraria, above.)
GDU, I think it’s foxes that have dens called earths.
Always thought a dado was a moulding dividing the lower, panelled part of a wall from the rest. Always happy to learn.
Thank you grantinfreo@3. And indeed Collins helped when I looked up earth rather than den.
Thanks for the blog , tough in parts but a very good set of clues with many neat touches . CORN EXCHANGE flows very nicely , DOWN-AND-OUT is clever , CHERRY TOMATO a great anagram .
I agree with Grant@3 , foxes are run to earth by the unspeakable . Also@4 , I know DADO as a rail or pedestal so glad it was hidden .
FERMIUM not been produced in bulk but the nuclear size and position in the Periodic Table indicates a heavy metal .
Very minor glitch for OBVIOUS , the instrument is the older VIO(L) .
It took some ferreting but apparently there is such a thing as a dado joint in woodworking which involves cutting a groove or trench into which another piece is fitted. The sources I found note it as US/Canadian. nho by this solver for whom the strip running around a room was the only def I knew.
I enjoyed this and found it a little easier than @ARRIETTY’s previous two offerings.
Re 13D, I get that lying is a fiction, but where does ‘non’ come into the equation?
Heather@10. If you leave “lying” (i.e. telling lies – or fiction) to one side, you end up with truth, or NON-fiction
Thanks Arrietty and Turbolegs
15ac: I had this the same way as Roz@7, but I think either VIO[l] or VIO[la] is possible. Many setters and editors may insist that “clipped” means removing only one letter, and it is certainly kinder to solvers to work that way, but I cannot see it as a logical necessity. Incidentally, the words for a player of a viol or a viola have different pronunciations of the spelling “violist”.
11dn: I agree with Cineraria@1 that the soundalike should be “mourning”.
Vannucci@11 Aha – thanks very much for the explanation!
All done and dusted eventually although I had to take DADO on trust from the wordplay and couldn’t see the parsing of ANNOYED.
Thanks, Arrietty and Turbolegs.
Just did this on the train home. A nice challenge. But got stuck for quite a while on the last three for me—19a, 19d and 24a—not sure why, in retrospect! Appreciate the blog, Turbolegs, and thanks to Arietty for the puzzle.
Discovered i hadn’t done this! Pleased I finally got around to it… fits and starts, but the excellent anagrams provided some grand starts, altho I nearly resorted to pencil n paper for PEDESTRIAN, kept thinking it ended in -ED, not helpful. The heavy metal had me confused with some of the bits, FE, M, (E)R but needed the book at one end, and MECCANO at the other before it became obvious… and just to say its taken some time for my favourite construction game to appear!! Let’s hear it for MECCANO, again!
Needed the blog to explain some stuff (eg 20ac) …
Thanks ARRIETTY and the excellent Turbolegs