i Cryptic Crossword 3305 Klingsor
September 10, 2021
Difficulty rating (out of five): 🌟🌟
A nicely accessible pangram from Klingsor brings us towards the end of the working week. I fairly rattled through most of this, completing it in a little under my average time. Most of it was fairly straightforward, and I don’t think there are any obscurities to send the solver scouring the dictionaries or the internet – except perhaps for CHITTERLINGS, which I imagine no-one eats any longer, and maybe PASSIM. But both were clearly clued and with helpful crossing letters.
I was tempted to give a three for difficulty on the basis that it took me ages to disentangle what was going on in ALICE SPRINGS. But there were a very limited number of possibilities, and I entered it largely on the basis of word-length and two or three crossing letters (the enumeration ruling out the red rock, under either of its names).
My clue of the day is 19d. I’m one who loves a Spoonerism, and this one made me laugh. It’s worth reading the comments on the Fifteensquared page (link below), where there are some thoughts shared about this special kind of clue. “Furious convict initially exchanged men’s periodical (3,3)”.
Independent 9576 / Klingsor
Borodin
batarde
Saboteur
Denzo
flashling
jonofwales
Cornick
sprouthater
uiytjhgmj
willow1235
idothei 
Maybe I’m just having a bad day but I really didn’t enjoy this. I thought I was off to a cracking start after both 1a and 5a were write-ins, but pretty much everything after that was a struggle. I did get most of the right answers in eventually, but only with frequent recourse to word lists – I just couldn’t get on to the right wavelength.
I found the wordplay for several clues impenetrable, particularly CABRIOLET. I would never have figured out that ‘stock’ (in what I suppose was meant to be an imperative sense) was telling me to insert ‘o’ into the anagram fodder.
Oh well, horses for courses…
A great puzzle, but maybe I’m just tired this end of the week because this felt more like 4* to me. The possibility of a pangram would have helped except I got all the awkward answers in pretty quickly, with that Z to the SW a bit of a gift. 17d raised a smile here.
This was challenging for me – but highly enjoyable and fulfilling when I eventually got to the end – thank you. Having got IRAQI and JINXED I guessed there was a pangram, which helped. I have ticks next to 15 clues which I thought were all especially good, and I have absolutely no quibbles about the others, which suggests a careful, sensitive and intelligent approach from the setter. Clues for 5 (HAWSER) and 9 (SLOBBISH) were quite elaborate, but nicely done.
I was pleased to be reminded of CHITTERLINGS, RAKE, ZERO, and LLANO, all encountered in previous puzzles over the years; and I learned a new meaning of MICRODOT. Being of Highland Scots ancestry, I had no problem with SLOGAN. And yes – I do like Spoonerisms – especially when William Archibald isn’t actually mentioned.
Yes, I’d have put it down as more of a ****, as well. I didn’t finish it till 2.28pm (and, like thebargee, with recourse to wordlists), despite early awareness of likely pangrammicity. Still, I didn’t finish yesterday’s at all, so perhaps by brain’s just ff the boil. I did like to see a spoonerism indicated without reference to the revd himself, for once, though 🙂
Excellent puzzle today, containing a word new to me, LLANO, which must exist in geographers’ space but not in mine. Cleverly clued, and gettable from the crossers, but still needed a Google check. 3* about right for me. In the fifties my father always raised two weaner pigs so after slaughter in October, 18ac were on the menu along with brawn, faggots, scratchings and trotters. Try getting those delicacies in Supermarkets. My mother said that the only bit of the pig you couldn’t eat was the squeal. !8ac pickled in vinegar were a treat! Keep wearing the mask. We are not out of the woods yet. NDY
Put me down as another 3* – I recognised the word PASSIM but couldn’t now put it in a sentence even if you paid me. So apart from a couple of gimmes that NW corner wasn’t solved until a second sitting this evening. Some lovely clues along the way as ever from Klingsor – MARRAKESH, OFTTIMES, CHITTERLINGS and SCHMALTZ were my favourites today.
Pangram suspected with my FOI IRAQI, becoming more and more likely until eventually there it was.
I don’t think I’ve encountered PASSIM in a sentence. But I have come across it, together with other latinisms, in footnote references such as ‘Jones, op cit, passim’ which means you’ll find whatever is being referred to crops up frequently in the previously quoted work by Jones.
Thumbs-up emoji. (if I knew how to do that)
That’s a very good point in the comments on 15sq re Spoonerisms. I also groan when I see Spooner mentioned but got 19d straight away. Would I have if it was clued with Spooner in it? Dunno but I doubt it…
I found this one quite hard going and gave up with four clues unsolved. If it had been rated **** I would have done what I did yesterday and not bothered to buy a copy of the paper. My comfort zone extends as far as ***, and I was perfectly happy with both of this week’s *** crosswords (from Hypnos and Dutch).
Incidentally, one of the clues I didn’t solve was 9ac, which requires ‘man’ to be interpreted as ‘bishop’. There are plenty of female bishops these days.
Hello John E. Just for info, I think MAN in this clue is to be interpreted as CHESS PIECE – king, queen, bishop, etc.
Willow — fair enough. I’m obviously too used to the compound word chessman (usually in the plural) and should have given it a bit more thought.
It seems I’m out on a limb in having rated this as relatively accessible. How “in tune” with the setter one is can make rating very subjective.