On the gentle side from Joker, giving my first sub-6 minute blog in… quite some time. All but three of the acrosses went in on a first read through (1, 22 and 23 being the stubborn ones), which made for a lot of merry biffing come the downs. There were a number of nice clues and good surfaces that I didn’t get a chance to look at much during the solve, my favourite being the neatly put together 6d – many thanks to Joker!
Across | |
1 | Survive like most football grounds? (9) |
WITHSTAND – I suppose if “with child” is pregnant, a ground could be “with stand”. (The vast majority of football grounds don’t have a stand, but the OED does cover Joker by saying a ground is “especially a football stadium”.) The earliest quote for football dates to 1409: “the games called foteball and cokthresshyng”. Ah, the venerable game of cock-threshing: get a cockerel, tie it to a post, throw sticks at it until it dies. That’s the type of thing we did before crosswords. | |
6 | Father takes daughter home (3) |
PAD – PA (father) D(aughter) | |
8 | A Balkan national hugs British gymnast (7) |
ACROBAT – A CROAT (a Balkan national) hugs B(ritish) | |
9 | Little Sarah working in hairdressers (5) |
SALON – SAL (diminuitive of Sarah) ON (working) | |
10 | Dance club certain about politician and old disturbance (12) |
DISCOMPOSURE – DISCO (dance club) SURE (certain) about MP (politician) and O(ld) | |
12 | Cut up about wife being clever (6) |
SHREWD – SHRED (cut up) about W(ife). I confidently entered SHRWED, wondered why it didn’t look right, and changed it to SHWRED. I’d have been some 15 seconds quicker were it not for that. Has a dunce lost his cap somewhere? | |
13 | The French boy’s time at school (6) |
LESSON – LES (“The”, French) SON (boy). | |
16 | Occasional short insect breaks inside camping shelter (12) |
INTERMITTENT – TERMIT |
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19 | Scholar to talk endlessly (5) |
RABBI – RABBI |
|
20 | Mad about Queen and Wedgwood, perhaps (7) |
POTTERY – POTTY (mad) about ER (queen) | |
22 | Greek character wanting English dish (3) |
PIE – PI (Greek character) wanting E(nglish) | |
23 | Always envious, for constantly popular person (9) |
EVERGREEN – EVER (always) GREEN (envious). I don’t think I’ve seen this as a figurative noun, but it makes sense. Nice clue. |
Down | |
1 | Spent seven days speaking (4) |
WEAK – “spoken” the same as WEEK | |
2 | Dog’s tons more fun, but not male (7) |
TERRIER – T(ons) |
|
3 | Very black blubber (3) |
SOB – SO (very) B(lack) | |
4 | Gold corporation down at last for three months of the year (6) |
AUTUMN – AU (gold) TUM (corporation) N (dowN “at last”). “Corporation”, via the sense of “body”, crops up occasionally for stomach, generally of the large variety: as Charlotte Brontë wrote in Shirley, “Looming large in full canonicals..with the dignity of an ample corporation.” | |
5 | Crafty recipe — one has little time (9) |
DISHONEST – DISH (recipe) ONE’S (one has) T (“little” Time) | |
6 | Rice recipe: unlimited Apulian cooking (5) |
PILAU – unlimited = no ends of |
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7 | Waste material one’s thrown in underground cell (7) |
DUNGEON – DUNG (waste material), and an anagram (is thrown) of ONE | |
11 | Company conflict over gamble shows lack of courage (9) |
COWARDICE – CO. (company) WAR (conflict) over/above DICE (gamble, verb as in to dice with death) | |
12 | To incite’s about right: rider’s put his foot in it? (7) |
STIRRUP – STIR UP (incite) about R(ight) | |
14 | Heartfelt selection of words in ceremony (7) |
SINCERE – “selection” of the letters of wordS IN CEREmony | |
15 | Depression in gloomy place, on ecstasy (6) |
DIMPLE – DIM (gloomy) PL. (place – abbrev. as in a square on a map) | |
17 | Firm losing small data chart (5) |
TABLE – |
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18 | Church melody form — Christian, ultimately (4) |
HYMN – &lit, with the ultimate/final letters of churcH melodY forM christiaN | |
21 | Label’s strange with odd letters missing (3) |
TAG – s T r A n G e, with “odd letters missing” |
Otherwise FOI was WEAK; held up a bit by Autumn and Discomposure.
1a reminds me that officially you’re not allowed to stand in the stand in English football grounds.
David
Liked pie, withstand, and sincere. COD shrewd.
FOI ACROBAT, LOI SHREWD, COD POTTERY
Thanks Joker and roly.
Templar
Edited at 2020-02-27 09:11 am (UTC)
Edited at 2020-02-27 09:30 am (UTC)
Thanks for the blog
Only queries were “Tum” for corporation which I’ve never seen before and “Evergreen” for popular person – all of which were explained in the blog above.
FOI – 8ac “Acrobat”
LOI – 1ac “Withstand”
COD – 15dn “Dimple” – nice surface and not your usual “depression”
Thanks as usual…
FOI PAD
LOI DIMPLE
COD SINCERE (which was only parsed afterwards)
SINCERE was very well hidden, and was SLOI. LOI was DISHONEST.
As always with Joker, there are lots of nice clues – some quite easy it’s true (6a, 8a, 13a and21d for example) but still really enjoyable surfaces.
FOI Pad
LOI Dishonest
COD Salon
Time 12 m
Thanks Joker and Roly.
Re the biggie: if you’re prone to crossword anxiety dreams, don’t look!
That said this abbreviation has cropped up many times so I should know better.
A real mix today so perfect for a QC. Thx Joker and Roly. Johnny
I calls her “Sal”; her proper name is Sarah.
And you may find a gal as you consider fairer.
Kevin S