Tuesday 7 September 2021

Five-Clue Cryptic (#3366)

I struggled with this one quite a bit.  After working out SCATTER for 2d I ground to a halt, and had to look up 6d (ROCKER) to get going again.  I eventually realized that 4d had to be LILAC, even though the wordplay doesn't seem to work properly; it's LLAC (= "ring" up, a Down clue) about I, so the word order seems to be wrong.  1d came next; STAR in MUD for MUSTARD (I'd been sidetracked by Abba!).  That left 3/5, which had to be PUBLIC UTILITY, although since the electricity companies have all been privatised, I'm not sure if the definition quite works.  It also uses "up" as a reversal indicator even though it's an Across clue.  Not one of my favourites.

 

Concise (#3366)

Struggled with this as well!  The pun was quite clever (CREWS + AWAIT for "cruiserweight"), but I was slow getting several of the answers like CUPOLA, MUCUS and LEES.  TRAMMEL for "hinder" wasn't at all obvious, and I only worked it from the commoner derivative "untrammelled".  As for 10a, I had to go to Wikipedia to learn about the LANCERS (or "Les Lanciers"), described "a square dance, a variant of the quadrille, a set dance performed by four couples, particularly popular in the 18th and 19th centuries".  Much too obscure for a crossword of this type, I'd say. 

 

Codeword (#3044)

I, X and Y didn't look like a promising selection to start with, but they immediately gave me 13-X-I-13-4, which could only be one word: AXIAL.  I then confidently wrote in FALLACY at the bottom of the eighth column; unfortunately a fallacy is what it turned out to be, as I realized that 22 couldn't be C and that the top of the sixth column had to be BALANCE, with AFFLICT intersecting it.  The rest gradually fell into place, with FALLACY corrected to WALLABY.  One word I didn't know was AEROFOIL, "a structure with curved surfaces designed to give the most favourable ratio of lift to drag in flight" (COED).

 

Cryptic by Hoskins (#3302)

Link to idothei (blogged by jonofwales)

Link to Fifteensquared (July 2017, blogged by Pierre)

Second Hoskins in three days, after the delayed one on Sunday.  I enjoyed this a lot but would probably award it two stars rather than the one awarded by jonofwales.

There was a theme of "birds", which I didn't spot until nearly the end (after getting 1a, duh) but which was of help in getting my final two, 3d and 25d.  A lot of ingenious anagrams, particularly the two crossing singers at 21a and 14d, as well as 13a and 6d.  My favourite though was probably 26d, for the misdirection afforded by "Old Bill".  

 

For my first stab at 10a, I reasoned that "boundless sex" must be SEX without the first and last letters, giving E and thus ECSTASY (="uplifting feeling"); since it fitted the crosser at 1d, it took me some time to realize my error!

I felt vaguely unhappy with "birthday" as the definition of NINETIETH (8d); a birthday certainly can be one's ninetieth, but since most people never reach it, it didn't seem the greatest of examples.  No big deal though.

That old chestnut "O" for "Ohio" turned up in 4d, even though (according to my researches) it hasn't been officially recognized by the US Postal Service since the 19th century.  In the world of crosswords, though, some things never seem to go out of date ☺