Friday 10 September 2021

Five-Clue Cryptic (#3369)

Good, in all respects, and just what a Five-Clue should be.  No more to say.

Concise (#3369)

Pretty good as well, but I had to "back-solve" 5a from the pun ("place mat") because I hadn't heard of MATTE, "a mask used to obscure part of a image in a film and allow another image to be substituted" (COED).  I suppose there's a small quibble over whether 3d and 5d are dictionary phrases, but they were both obvious enough to cause no difficulty.

Codeword (#3047)

Q, L and U given; normally when you're given the Q you've got the U for free, but no such luck today!  Didn't have much trouble identifying 22 = E and then 25 had to be I, after which the rest mostly followed easily.  I did wonder whether 17 = K for LOCK and KERB, rather than LOCH and HERB, but then ASKEW forced K = 12.

 

Cryptic by Klingsor (#3305)

Link to idothei (blogged by Saboteur)

Link to Fifteensquared (June 2017, blogged by bertandjoyce)

 

Two stars from Saboteur on idothei; probably right though maybe nudging up towards a three?  I solved it in below average time, and even spotted the pangram (which, as I've said before, strikes me as no big deal).  

 

Favourite clue had to be 17d, by some way, with the first "doctor" as anagram indicator and the second as anagram fodder; genius!  27a, 11d and 15d are all commended as well.  No obscure vocabulary apart from 23a, which I'd come across in a previous puzzle; I hadn't encountered 18a for a long time though.

 

The only clue I couldn't parse was 14a, which Fifteensquared describes as an "&lit".  My understanding of such clues is that the entire clue should be readable as either wordplay or definition, and although it succeeds as wordplay (just about), surely only "place in the heart of Australia" is a definition of the answer?  Not entirely happy with that one.

Only one other minor quibble: in 26a, "it's hard" is used for IT + H, and the "'s" seems to have no role.

I have to echo Grant Baynham's comments on Fifteensquared re spoonerisms; I've rarely come across one where the spoonerism was of any help in getting the answer.  Paradoxically, this one was better than most, as I spotted "convict" = LAG straight off, and the spoonerism was actually plausible for once.  Klingsor is certainly highly commended for not referring to Dr Spooner by name!