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’t 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, so thanks to commenters for helping out! 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!
Edit: it’s TBA (to be advised, to up in the air) inside DON, thanks NoBadWeather in the comments. |
||
| 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.
Thanks to Hector in the comments for suggestion PRORATED may be (or have been) an American term. |
||
| 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.
Thanks again to commenter NoBadWeather for this one; ‘for one’ give the SAY into which FE & T are inserted. |
||
| 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 π
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…
5d: Chambers describes PRORATE as “mainly US”, so “in Washington” alludes to the Americanism. I suspect Chambers might now be a bit out of date on this.
Like Simon, I found this challenging and needed help, but that isnβt necessarily a criticism. Having said that, what I did get was super and elegantly compiled. 6a, 10a, 19a, 4d, 6d, 21d all got my ticks
Thanks Hector and NoBadWeather, I’ve updated the post with your additions.
Lovely puzzle from a setter I’ve encountered under various names in various places! It started off quite straightforward but after I while I slowed down somewhat and needed to put my brain into a higher gear. SARABAND I bunged without appreciating the parse. Favourites: TREES, MELON, BUFFALO, WRY and SOLID.
Many thanks Liari and Simon
Thanks Liari for a wide-ranging and clever puzzle and also to simonbyc (love your blogging style). When the northwest went in quickly, I got a tinge of restrained confidence; it was harder, esp the NE, after that. SOLID, SAFETY, BUFFALO, GATE, BOTTLE (after reading the parse), EXERTED, DROP, PIPE (personal fav), and SERVE UP were my favorites in a fun and stimulating puzzle. Thanks again both.
Thanks Liari for a wonderful crossword. Except for my reveal of 18d, I found this fairly straightforward with my top picks being DROP, NINA (cleverly evocative of Al Hirschfeld), FAIRER, CHESTNUT, CRESS, and BUFFALO. Thanks simonbyc for the blog.
… it has been brought to my attention that we all seem to have missed a THEME…!
Just under half of the grid entries are associated with a very common word…
If nobody mentions it in the near future I will DROP back in later with PROOF π
Thanks Rob T. I see it now, clear as glass.
Great puzzle even if I did bung in an incorrect siriband. I didnβt know the dance or work from either band so it was just a case of guess two letters.
TREES, SOLID and MELON my favourite today.
Missed the theme.
Thanks Liara and Simonbyc