Following Rob's departure from his alternate Friday slot I am covering for one week until Galspray takes on all Friday QCs on his return from Japan. We have a rather unusual grid today in which the left side is symmetrical with the right only along the diagonal. Much of this is straightforward I think, but there's a cryptic that may be unfamiliar to many, and a musical technicality that I suspect will be unknown to most. 11 minutes for this one making it my slowest solve of the week and the first to miss my target 10.
As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]
As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]
| Across | |
| 1 | Very successful but cheesy play? (3,9) |
| THE MOUSETRAP - Cryptic definition with reference to the play by Agatha Christie which has been running continuously in London's West End since October 1952. I don't know if it still happens, but at one time it was common practice to bait mousetraps with cheese and as a result "mousetrap" came into the language as a colloquial name for cheddar cheese or a similar everyday variety. The title of the play comes from a line in Hamlet in which the murder of the king is referred to as "The Mousetrap". | |
| 8 | Pull girl over who is dawdling (7) |
| LAGGARD - DRAG (pull) + GAL (girl) reversed [over] | |
| 9 | Almost grieve after a love affair (5) |
| AMOUR - A, MOUR{n} (grieve) [almost] | |
| 10 | Land in hospital — yuk! (5) |
| ITALY - Hidden in {hosp}ITAL Y{uk} | |
| 11 | Awful vanity punctured by English simplicity (7) |
| NAIVETY - Anagram [awful] of VANITY containing [punctured by] E (English) | |
| 12 | Shine, putting energy into a sort of rock (5) |
| GLEAM - E (energy) in GLAM (a sort of rock - music) | |
| 14 | Less powerful, the river surrounds pub (7) |
| THINNER - THE + R (river) contains [surrounds] INN (pub) | |
| 15 | Once strain, creating annexe? (9) |
| EXTENSION - EX (once), TENSION (strain) | |
| 17 | Small bill is miserable (3) |
| SAD - S (small), AD (bill = advertisement). "Bill Posters Will Be Prosecuted". | |
| 19 | Flier old man’s given to fielders (5-4-4) |
| DADDY-LONG-LEGS - DADDY (old man), LONG LEGS (fielders - cricket) | |
| 21 | Game Irish saint can’t finish (6) |
| BRIDGE - BRIDGE(t) Irish saint [can’t finish] | |
| 22 | Prosecutor breaks plaything now (5) |
| TODAY - DA (prosecutor - District Attorney in the USA) is inside [breaks] TOY (plaything) | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Schoolmasters’ discussion? Not action-packed programmes? (7,5) |
| TALKING HEADS - TALKING (discussion), HEADS (schoolmasters). Alan Bennett had great success with two series of one-handed plays under this title on both radio and TV. | |
| 2 | Deeply impress rampaging avenger (7) |
| ENGRAVE - Anagram [rampaging] of AVENGER | |
| 3 | No change in gland (5) |
| OVARY - 0 (no - zero), VARY (change) | |
| 4 | Extremely sore martial artist finds chair (5) |
| SEDAN - S{or}E [extremely], DAN (martial artist). It's a system of grades of proficiency in various martial arts and is also used for a person who has achieved such a grade. | |
| 5 | I’d train to change long-established belief (9) |
| TRADITION - Anagram [change] of I'D TRAIN TO | |
| 6 | Cap may be / impossible to understand (5,4,4) |
| ABOVE ONES HEAD - Two definitions of sorts | |
| 7 | Humble request: the hopeless don’t have one (6) |
| PRAYER - Two more definitions, one straight and one cryptic with reference to the phrase "not having a prayer" which means something is hopeless. | |
| 13 | One day, looked at becoming rich (7) |
| MONEYED - MON (one day), EYED (looked at) | |
| 14 | Musical interval: tenor struggles with it (7) |
| TRITONE - Anagram [struggles] of TENOR IT. A hard one I suspect for those not familiar with the rudiments of musical notation and terminology. It's an interval or distance of three whole tones. On the white notes of a keyboard it would be F (through G and A) to B. It can also be called an augmented fourth or a diminished fifth depending on its context, although for the latter in the example I've given it would be notated as F to C flat. There's an other difficulty here in that the answer is fairly obviously an anagram of TENOR IT, but even with all the checkers in place and only one candidate amongst the remaining letters (R, T and N) to fill the first gap at T?I, the solver still has to choose between TONE and NOTE as the second part of the answer, and with "musical" as part of the definition, if one doesn't happen to know the word it could quite reasonably be either. | |
| 16 | In France, you stick up for royal house (5) |
| TUDOR - TU (you, in France), then ROD (stick) reversed [up]. The crowned Tudors were Henrys VII and VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. | |
| 18 | Girl, nervous but attractive (5) |
| DISHY - DI (girl), SHY (nervous) | |
| 20 | Obtained travel ticket at last (3) |
| GOT - GO (travel), {ticke}T [at last] | |