I'm always saying that I think the Friday puzzle should stop pulling its punches and be a proper end-of-week challenge, but either my best solving days are already behind me or this was a bloody tough one! Having just been congratulating myself on topping the Concise leaderboard and finishing Broteas' last and typically intransigent TLS puzzle in under 20 minutes, the best that can be said for me on this one was that I finished it without errors: half the entries on the Club so far weren't so lucky. But by the time I clicked that submit button a sub-20-minute time was long ago a distant dream.
The grid is of course unusual and unfriendly with lots of double unches. Double unches combine really badly with poor hunches and I had, for a while, both FREE BELT at 3dn and TEXT BOOK at 7dn, neither of which did me any favours. (At least WHAT A NERVE was fairly quickly ruled out at 13dn.) In addition there are two clues at 19dn and 20dn that I'm still having trouble confidently parsing. Bit of a multi-clue pile-up, all told, and just to compound my utter despair at my solving abilities today's Telegraph Toughie turns out to be the regularly scheduled intellectual humiliation at the hands of Elgar so the agony won't be over for a few more hours yet.
On the plus side, though some of the clues were rather mystifying, there are definitely some doozies in there too. I really liked the ruthless economy of 6dn and how it sent me down a blind alley of searching for an anagram of (EARLIER SET*). But my clue of the day has to be 13dn, not parsed till long after - maybe I just like clues where the definition part is an almost invisible tiny word, but I thought this was very neat and smooth-surfaced indeed. My most masochistic thanks to the setter!
I'm off to Spain (well, Barcelona, at least one proper Spaniard has already told me rather heatedly that that doesn't count) next week so I believe you will be getting a double dose of lovely![]()
pipkirby blogging. But you might all want to go on holiday for a week yourselves after that to avoid the resultant double dose of me. See you all in June!
1 I'll tell you a secret: politician has got fired for corruption (8)
CONFIDER - CON [politician] has got (FIRED*) ["for corruption"]
9 Carriage, outwardly exquisite, with funny silver interior (8)
EQUIPAGE - E{xquisit}E, with QUIP AG [funny | silver] "interior"
10 Writer describes a king of Spanish region (8)
BALEARIC - BIC [writer] "describes" A LEAR [a | king]
11 Choke, a device that controls mixture of air and fuel (8)
THROTTLE - double def
12 Potentially embarrassing situation for woman working in Civil Service (3,2,5)
CAN OF WORMS - (FOR WOMAN*) ["working"] in CS [Civil Service]
14 Healthy exercises featuring regularly in my long day (4)
YOGA - "regularly" in {m}Y {l}O{n}G {d}A{y}
15 Creature kept scratching head in anger (7)
REPTILE - {k}EPT in RILE [anger]
17 In the flesh, RAF serviceman is a beast (7)
MEERKAT - ERK [RAF serviceman] in MEAT [the flesh]
21 Kilometre behind house, round bend (4)
HOOK - K [kilometre] behind HO O [house | round]
22 One Christmas filled with constant bustle? The complete opposite (10)
INACTIVITY - I NATIVITY [one | Christmas] "filled with" C [constant]
23 Workers' food studied by the BBC (8)
BEEBREAD - READ [studied] by BEEB [the BBC]
25 Charges are to be reduced, rules stated (8)
ARRAIGNS - AR{e} + homophone of REIGNS [rules "stated"]
26 Casualty department in hospital needing help at first to nurse about a hundred (8)
ACCIDENT - ENT [department in hospital] needing AID [help] at first, "to nurse" C C [about | a hundred]
27 Crackers served with ends of Edam cheese (8)
EMMENTAL - MENTAL [crackers], "served with" E{da}M
Down
2 Love to sleep on, perhaps, needing to make little effort (2,1,5)
ON A PLATE - O [love] + NAP LATE [sleep on, perhaps]
3 Complimentary drink in trade zone (4,4)
FREE PORT - double def
4 Brave, turning up the radio a bit (4)
DARE - hidden reversed in {th}E RAD{io}
5 Cleric's place with play area near to railway (7)
RECTORY - REC [play area] near TO RY [to | railway]
6 On track, having earlier set off (10)
PUTRESCENT - RE SCENT [on | track], having earlier PUT [set]
7 Publication having page with illustrations (4,4)
PART WORK - P [page] with ARTWORK [illustrations]
8 One's back in French tavern, staggering about (8)
REVENANT - EN [in "French"], with (TAVERN*) ["staggering"] about
13 My wife gets call to wake up about noon (4,1,5)
WELL I NEVER - W [wife] gets REVEILLE reversed [call to wake "up"] about N [noon]
15 Bottle of wine rogue emptied with tramp before lunchtime? (8)
REHOBOAM - R{ogu}E with HOBO [tramp] + A.M. [before lunchtime]
16 Right-on company stocking pink wine (8)
PROSECCO - PC CO [right-on | company] "stocking" ROSE [pink]
18 Prerequisite for examination to do with eyesight? (8)
REVISION - splittable as RE VISION, [to do with | eyesight]
19 Lack of energy, say? So I start on antibiotics (8)
ASTHENIA - AS THEN I A{ntibiotics}, but I haven't quite parsed this yet.
20 Order separate ingredients for wife? (7)
MANDATE -if she has a MAN and a DATE a woman can get married, er, I guess? M AND ATE = MATE = wife. Thanks ![]()
galspray!
24 Play shortened a bit (4)
DRAM - DRAM{a} [play "shortened"]
The grid is of course unusual and unfriendly with lots of double unches. Double unches combine really badly with poor hunches and I had, for a while, both FREE BELT at 3dn and TEXT BOOK at 7dn, neither of which did me any favours. (At least WHAT A NERVE was fairly quickly ruled out at 13dn.) In addition there are two clues at 19dn and 20dn that I'm still having trouble confidently parsing. Bit of a multi-clue pile-up, all told, and just to compound my utter despair at my solving abilities today's Telegraph Toughie turns out to be the regularly scheduled intellectual humiliation at the hands of Elgar so the agony won't be over for a few more hours yet.
On the plus side, though some of the clues were rather mystifying, there are definitely some doozies in there too. I really liked the ruthless economy of 6dn and how it sent me down a blind alley of searching for an anagram of (EARLIER SET*). But my clue of the day has to be 13dn, not parsed till long after - maybe I just like clues where the definition part is an almost invisible tiny word, but I thought this was very neat and smooth-surfaced indeed. My most masochistic thanks to the setter!
I'm off to Spain (well, Barcelona, at least one proper Spaniard has already told me rather heatedly that that doesn't count) next week so I believe you will be getting a double dose of lovely
pipkirby blogging. But you might all want to go on holiday for a week yourselves after that to avoid the resultant double dose of me. See you all in June!1 I'll tell you a secret: politician has got fired for corruption (8)
CONFIDER - CON [politician] has got (FIRED*) ["for corruption"]
9 Carriage, outwardly exquisite, with funny silver interior (8)
EQUIPAGE - E{xquisit}E, with QUIP AG [funny | silver] "interior"
10 Writer describes a king of Spanish region (8)
BALEARIC - BIC [writer] "describes" A LEAR [a | king]
11 Choke, a device that controls mixture of air and fuel (8)
THROTTLE - double def
12 Potentially embarrassing situation for woman working in Civil Service (3,2,5)
CAN OF WORMS - (FOR WOMAN*) ["working"] in CS [Civil Service]
14 Healthy exercises featuring regularly in my long day (4)
YOGA - "regularly" in {m}Y {l}O{n}G {d}A{y}
15 Creature kept scratching head in anger (7)
REPTILE - {k}EPT in RILE [anger]
17 In the flesh, RAF serviceman is a beast (7)
MEERKAT - ERK [RAF serviceman] in MEAT [the flesh]
21 Kilometre behind house, round bend (4)
HOOK - K [kilometre] behind HO O [house | round]
22 One Christmas filled with constant bustle? The complete opposite (10)
INACTIVITY - I NATIVITY [one | Christmas] "filled with" C [constant]
23 Workers' food studied by the BBC (8)
BEEBREAD - READ [studied] by BEEB [the BBC]
25 Charges are to be reduced, rules stated (8)
ARRAIGNS - AR{e} + homophone of REIGNS [rules "stated"]
26 Casualty department in hospital needing help at first to nurse about a hundred (8)
ACCIDENT - ENT [department in hospital] needing AID [help] at first, "to nurse" C C [about | a hundred]
27 Crackers served with ends of Edam cheese (8)
EMMENTAL - MENTAL [crackers], "served with" E{da}M
Down
2 Love to sleep on, perhaps, needing to make little effort (2,1,5)
ON A PLATE - O [love] + NAP LATE [sleep on, perhaps]
3 Complimentary drink in trade zone (4,4)
FREE PORT - double def
4 Brave, turning up the radio a bit (4)
DARE - hidden reversed in {th}E RAD{io}
5 Cleric's place with play area near to railway (7)
RECTORY - REC [play area] near TO RY [to | railway]
6 On track, having earlier set off (10)
PUTRESCENT - RE SCENT [on | track], having earlier PUT [set]
7 Publication having page with illustrations (4,4)
PART WORK - P [page] with ARTWORK [illustrations]
8 One's back in French tavern, staggering about (8)
REVENANT - EN [in "French"], with (TAVERN*) ["staggering"] about
13 My wife gets call to wake up about noon (4,1,5)
WELL I NEVER - W [wife] gets REVEILLE reversed [call to wake "up"] about N [noon]
15 Bottle of wine rogue emptied with tramp before lunchtime? (8)
REHOBOAM - R{ogu}E with HOBO [tramp] + A.M. [before lunchtime]
16 Right-on company stocking pink wine (8)
PROSECCO - PC CO [right-on | company] "stocking" ROSE [pink]
18 Prerequisite for examination to do with eyesight? (8)
REVISION - splittable as RE VISION, [to do with | eyesight]
19 Lack of energy, say? So I start on antibiotics (8)
ASTHENIA - AS THEN I A{ntibiotics}, but I haven't quite parsed this yet.
20 Order separate ingredients for wife? (7)
MANDATE -
galspray!24 Play shortened a bit (4)
DRAM - DRAM{a} [play "shortened"]