i Cryptic Crossword 3169 Peter
April 5, 2021
The warm weather has rudely deserted us (to the surprise of some I’ve seen out and about in shorts and t-shirts this morning), which must mean that it’s a Bank Holiday. Never mind, I have a new bed to construct, and other sundry indoor jobs to ensure that the day is adequately filled.
But first, a reasonably straightforward offering from Peter to start the day, though the difficulty level seems to have been raised a little from previous outings, with 1d a little tricky to unpick, and a few oddities dotted round the grid. The wordplay for each was clear enough though, so no complaints here. On the contrary, plaudits for an enjoyable start to the week. Finished comfortably under par for the i, though perhaps not quite at the gallop I expected.
COD? 13d raised a smile – “Flaps of skin wobbling in big gowns? (5,5)”.
To March 2017 for all the answers and parsing of the clues:
http://www.fifteensquared.net/2017/03/06/independent-9483-by-peter/
batarde
Saboteur
flashling
jonofwales
Cornick
sprouthater
uiytjhgmj
DNF for me; someone please tell me I’m not the only one never to have heard of BINGO WINGS!?
Otherwise a pleasant and enjoyable solve, sometimes challenging (eg 1d) but no difficulty until the SW corner. 23a, unquestionably MY COD, took longest to tease out.
I’m with you, Denzo. Not only have i never heard of BINGO WINGS; I’m struggling to understand how such a strange expression came into being.
Otherwise, not a lot to say. I liked both STRIPTEASE and COLD TURKEY, and was pleasantly surprised by the Einstein anagram
That was good. Spent time thinking about …ist, forgot about it, then the penny dropped when I got DANUBE.
Found BINGO WINGS on google, but rather wish I hadn’t!
Strictly speaking did not finish because I failed to parse RELATE – just me being slow. (I do know bingo wings. Not a very complimentary term!)
Enjoyable, fairly quick solve. Some very nice clues, that made me smile. First one in, very easy, seen similar before – but I did rather like ASHORE. Also pleasantly surprised by EINSTEIN.
All fine here. Yes, I was familiar with the bingo wings. [raises and waves arm … nope, still got *some* degree of muscle tone; phew]
More familiar with Bingo Wings than Nugatory, not quite sure what that says about me… The lady from Brighton on ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ singing ‘The Crumble Song’ springs to mind – well, it makes a change from Wagner.
All good today. Finished with DANUBE, several smiles along the way.
No complaints from me, other than that it didn’t last nearly long enough for a lazy Bank Holiday Monday. A nice and enjoyable solve, while it lasted.
Easter greetings to all!
I really enjoyed this and waltzed through it nicely. As a fan of the late Victoria Wood, I was perfectly happy with the words Bingo wings as I am sure it was an expression she used. Smiles all round from me. P.s. I am waiting for tomorrow’s paper to see if my letter gets published 🙂
Well done for writing in. Even if it isn’t, notice may have been taken. 😀
Tsk for the palindromic logic of 24ac; everything else lovely jubbly. All over very quickly, unfortunately, but that’s Mondays for you.
After some recent complaints about American spelling/usage, I’m surprised no one has commented on ‘pries’ for ‘forces open’ in 6d. (UK English is ‘prises’.)
Ha! It would be easy to complain about lots of things! Sometimes it’s nicer to dwell on the positives, but of course you’re right 🙂
You might have been the first to spot it, but I do recall a vague feeling that something wasn’t quite right, which I ignored. Part of the reason could be that PRIES is not a homophone of the firet 5 letters of PRIEST, but is a homophone of PRISE. It did go through my mind that “forces open” should be prises, not pries or pries, but I lazily chose to go with PRIEST and move on to the next clue!
…not pries or prise,,,
Once again we come up against the need for an agreed reference. The OED has that sense of “pry” as American or East Anglian dialect – so that would be a “not proven”, then – but Chambers simply has “pry” as “a form of prise”. Chambers right or wrong, I’m afraid: it’s valid.
Is it therefore reasonable to assume that both setter and editor looked at Chambers (unless they knew for sure), rather than that it slipped in by mistake?
I think that in order to get past Eimi (the editor) a setter might need support from any of Chambers (BRB), Collins, or Oxford Concise (COD).
In the case of ‘pries’ Peter only managed 1 out of 3, but that 1 is the Daddy as far as Crosswordland goes.
I’m not sure that the editor would require any support in this case, because the insidious little word – whether it be dialect, back-formation or a re-import – has taken up residence in the UK, like a grey squirrel or a signal crayfish. Linguistic nativists will have their work cut out exterminating that one by now.
Hurrah, a nice easy one! Liked 14, 17, 23, 24 especially. 1 a bit dubious, had to look up archaic use of redolent & 8 a bit hard work to parse but I’ll be looking out for Peter with a smile.
Didn’t even notice pries / prises – no prizes there 🙂 – but I do have a bit of 26.