Club Monthly 20181 October 2015 - moscatel, malaga, zibibbo, zihibbo

Solving Time: About 40 minutes in only one session, which is unusually fast for me. I infer that this is an easier example than most in recent months. I notice that  at the time of writing there are four times under 20 minutes on the club leaderboard, albeit two of them have an error.





cd = cryptic definition, dd = double definition, rev. = reversed, anagrams are *(--), homophones indicated in ""

ODO means the Oxford Dictionaries Online, OED = Oxford English Dictionary, etc.



Across
1. Answer with wit about my and others’ not being tailed (8)
ANOUROUS - A, + OUR (my and others') in NOUS (wit)
9. Mate with no new problems rebutted contrasting rhetoric (8)
CHIASMUS - CHI(N)A (mate) + SUMS (problems) rev.
10. Stopping to dwell briefly, see city in Ukraine (4)
LVIV - V (see) in LIV(E) (to dwell). A place that will forever be Lvov to me, fortunately the wordplay is clear
11. Usual juror Joe surprisingly hasn’t succeeded in meeting immediate needs (2,4,2,4)
AU JOUR LE JOUR - *(U(S)UAL JUROR JOE). Foreign words and phrases are common in this particular crossword.. this one is in Chambers, though not Collins or the ODO.
13. Half-square threaded back through woman’s underwear and loose outerwear (6)
BURQAS - BRA with SQU(ARE) "threaded back" through alternate letters. Always have trouble with words with a Q but no U
14. Crook’s lousy chat declining each year (8)
CRUMMACK - CRUMM(Y) (Y)ACK. Crummock would be more common but again, the wordplay is clear.
15. Spicy paste ingredient of Bihari’s sauces (7)
HARISSA - hidden in BiHARIS SAuces
16. Vary one’s working in French Department (7)
AVEYRON - *(VARY ONE). A fourth successive easy clue..
20. Swift’s relative rejection of governor’s lead in Indian rule, weak (8)
NIGHTJAR - all rev: RAJ (Indian rule) + G(overnor) in THIN (weak). According to the rather wonderful Wikipedia entry, nightjars may or may not be endangered (or in at least one case, actually extinct) - we simply don't know..
22. Perhaps size of crowd paying to see rugby featuring rucks (6)
RUGATE - cd, "RU GATE," ha ha..
23. Due to drink wine over time in boozer’s vat full of preservative? (9-3)
POWDERING TUB - hmm, it is RED (wine) rev. in OWING (due) + T(ime), all in PUB (boozer)
25. Dormouse stretched out in gloomier setting? (4)
LOIR - hidden in gLoOmIeR. I know about dormice (the cat brings one in occasionally despite lectures) but only the hazel dormouse is native to England. A Loir is more commonly known by the rather unfortunate name of Edible Dormouse. They are all edible to a cat, of course
26. An inferior wine’s too much to start with in miniature flute (8)
OTTAVINO - OTT (too much) + A VINO. Vino is just Italian or Spanish for wine. Why a vino should be regarded as inferior is a total mystery to me. Neither Collins nor Chambers has this meaning, but ODO says "Wine, typically that which is cheap or of inferior quality." How very English...
27. Eleven intend to include outsiders thereof, according to cryptic crossword principles (8)
XIMENEAN - E(leve)N in XI (eleven) + MEAN (intend). Surely a write-in for most who do this crossword! Though I cordially dislike the many who take his name in vain. I am pretty sure he never meant or wanted to be the straitjacket or stern authority he has become. What he wanted was fairness, not rules as such. I have been so pleased in recent years to see the occasional indirect anagram (for example) creeping shyly back into the daily cryptic, now and then. "Rules are for the guidance of wise men, and the observance of fools," one of the most apposite of all sayings, that our jobsworth age should learn from.

Down
2. Maybe Sillitoe’s written contrarily about very critical ward, which keeps church incensed? (8)
NAVICULA - V(ery) + ICU (critical ward, the Intensive Care Unit) in ALAN rev. Alan Sillitoe very well known in my youth, less so now. "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" taught the teenaged me a few new words, and some interesting ideas about how to spend a Friday night...
3. Large vehicle boxed in by French one which took off, still victorious? (12)
UNVANQUISHED - VAN (large vehicle) in UN QUI (one which, in French) + SHED (took off).
4. Humorously defeats judge in Open University trials (8)
OUTJESTS - J(udge) in OU TESTS.
5. Sound of packing snow, say, with school crossing cold ski slope (7)
SCRUNCH - C(old) + RUN (ski slope) in SCH (school)
6. Kit initially seen on eg Man Utd for a month (6)
KISLEU - K(it) + ISLE (eg Isle of Man) + U(nited). Most would say kislev, it is either the third or the ninth month of the nightmareish Heberw calendar, depending on your point of view.. it starts on 13 November in 2015, so not long to wait..
7. Head dismissed by big boss (4)
UMBO - (J)UMBO. Umbo is a familar enough word in crossword circles but surely not in the world at large, shields not being in such common use these days...
8. Bit of broken vessel or tank, so battered (8)
OSTRAKON - *(OR TANK SO) ... another word seldom needed. Chambers: "A potsherd or tile, esp. one used in ostracism in Greece..." .. and now the whole country is..
12. Pound of muscle protein, with pound brought down under Callaghan, familiarly (5-7)
JIMMY O'GOBLIN - hmm, to parse this you need to know that MYOGLOBIN is a protein that stores oxygen in muscles. The L has moved ("with pound brought down") and JIM is a reference to the recently deceased Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, KG, PC. A principled politician, but a failed one, being mainly responsible for the Winter of Discontent and one of our nation's most embarassing fiscal moments, a cap-in-hand crawl to the IMF and subsequent devaluation of the pound...
15. Muscat raised as an introduction: how nice! (8)
HANEPOOT - TO OPEN (as an introduction) + AH (how nice, or so I suppose), all rev. One of a truly astonishing number of synonyms for the Muscat grape.. see the Wiki entry. Difficult clue
17. White hellebore or green lily with a central inversion (8)
VERATRUM - VERT ARUM (green lily) with the central T & A reversed..
18. Aggressive call on jerk roughly fencing island’s nut tree (8)
OITICICA - OI (aggressive call) + I(sland) in TIC (jerk) + CA (circa, ie roughly)
19. Shakespearean bighead such as Hal or Hamlet cut down bovine creature (7)
PRINCOX - (PRINC(E)) + OX
21. Old cab driver’s clash with rival (6)
JARVIE - JAR (clash with) + VIE (rival). Does this clue work OK? I would have said not, since vie and rival are not really synonyms.. but the OED has obsolete meanings that fit.
24. Scots point the finger at husks of woolly thistle (4)
WYTE - W(OOLL)Y T(HISTL)E. You do rather wonder how the Scots managed to communicate at all, given all their esoteric vocab., and the Gaelic as well...