i Cryptic Crossword 2897 Rorschach
May 21, 2020
This isn’t turning out to be my week in the i. Hopes were raised with a flying start in the NW corner, but from that point on I swiftly ground to a halt, and got increasingly frustrated with wordplay I just couldn’t parse. 15d as mentioned on the other side would be the chief culprit, but much else went in on a wing and a prayer. Oh well. Perhaps I just need a nice long weekend, which thankfully is what we’re about to get. For once I started in the NW corner with 1ac, and finished there too with 9ac which is another where the parsing totally eluded me, finish time considerably over par for the i.
COD? Well, overall this wasn’t my cup of tea, but the surreal image conjured up by 12ac did raise a smile – “Bemused after removing bed and finding these? (4)”.
To January 2016 for all the answers and parsing of the clues:
https://www.fifteensquared.net/2016/01/21/independent-9132-rorschach/
Borodin
batarde
Saboteur
flashling
jonofwales
Cornick
sprouthater
uiytjhgmj
willow1235
I had the exact same experience as you with the NW corner followed by a grinding halt and frustration at definitions.
Not my week either…
It certainly made for a change. Contrary to expectations I don’t have any quibbles (cake aside) – it all seems to work nicely, but in unusual ways. There will be complaints most likely, but there’s at least one happy bunny today.
Quite a tough one, and I needed a bit of help towards the end. Some parsing was beyond me, such as AS PROMISED and FACSIMILE. As for SWISS ROLL… 🤔
Like JonofWales, I loved the clue for EMUS!
1a, 1d, 2d, 4d straight in, then… ‘nough said!
Really enjoyed that.
A curious solve in that all the corners and edges fell fairly readily, but I had to return for a second sitting to get those longer ones going into the middle. All parsed satisfactorily with much amusement and admiration, although I did miss the now rather wistful-seeming Nina.
Can’t see the objection or puzzlement with the Swiss roll cryptic is. The surface reading is of a nasty accident, the hidden definition is a whimsical description of a Swiss roll. Everything a ‘straight cryptic’ should be.
Am I to take it that it’s customary to refrigerate Swiss rolls? Perhaps he was thinking of an Arctic Roll®? My point being that if room temperature is the norm, that “perhaps” is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
Larder door would have been better 🙂
Maybe!
Hmm. I started well, liking the general style with relatively modern pop culture references, etc.
Did about 40% smoothly … ground my way to about 60%, then needed electronic word lists for all the rest. Pshaw. If a swiss roll is a finger then somebody’s got very fat fingers, and I can’t say I’ve ever stored one in the fridge. Can’t abide cold clammy cake.
“Locksmith” = Sassoon and “creative individual” = Edison felt like rather wide distances to bridge, IMHO.
Found it tough but more satisfying for that on finishing. Thought SWISS ROLL was fair enough. ROUGE was LOI. Favourite was SASSOON.