Thursday 17 August 2023

No 13946, Thursday 17 Aug 2023, Afterdark

Solution to 21A has been deliberately left unsolved and is to be answered only by a non-regular / novice commenter, with proper annotation. Those who have answered earlier in the week, please give others a chance.

Open for anyone to answer, if not solved by 1 PM.

ACROSS
1   Punch spectator? Ha, that's a disaster (11) CATASTROPHE*
9   Record one's song in instalment (7) EPISODE {EP}{1'S}{ODE}
10 Longed to push north on 31st December (7) YEAREND YEAR(-n)E(+n)ND
11 Apple-polish in a polish village (5) KOTOW [DD]
12 Rain gauges Erode must badly purchase (9) UDOMETERS*
13 Right after a father got isolated... (5) APART {A}{PA}{RT}
15 ...child slept and was taken away (9) KIDNAPPED {KID}{NAPPED}
18 Warmer and hot squiggling invertebrate (9) EARTHWORM*
21 Conviction of unknown Roman stranger (5) T?N?T (Addendum - TENET {TEN}{ET} - See comments)
22 Needleworker or etcher, to begin with can recreate (9) CROCHETER {OR+ETCHER+Can}*
24 At dawn, people of Ooty ravenously ingest this dish (5) POORI Acrostic
26 Workers' quarter... (7) ANTHILL [CD]
27 ...not one that's calm, has power-cut but enormous (7) MASSIVE iMpASSIVE
28 Specialist in lineages is an angel and egoist mixed up? (11) GENEALOGIST

DOWN
1   Analyse partner at the end of the game, perhaps (9) CHECKMATE {CHECK}{MATE}
2   Smear, stain, tarnish? Blocking (5) TAINT [T]
3   Device used in a race to prevent surveillance (9) STOPWATCH {STOP}{WATCH}
4   Money is behind fight reportedly for an animal (7) ROEBUCK {BUCK}<=>{(~row)ROE}
5   Quiet library, empty with trees and some building material (7) PLYWOOD {P}{Li...rY}{WOOD}
6   Avoid East Virginia and Delaware (5) EVADE {E}{VA}{DE}
7   On which wife left at once (8) HEREUPON wHEREUPON
8   Chances of daughter dating son-in-law? Take tips (4) ODDS Acrostic
14 Places where you find fliers like parrots I set free (8) AIRPORTS*
16 A bite of tart and idli. Done & over. Is it an appetizer? (9) ANTIPASTO {AN}{Tart}{Idli}{PAST}{O}
17 Frequent adventure leading to people getting involved in sex leads to injury (9) DETRIMENT {aDvEnTuRe}{I{MEN}T}
19 A bird or many returning to a nest in the front (7) ORTOLAN {OR}{LOT<=}{A}{Nest}
20 Scholars have edge in procuring an instrument (7) MARIMBA {MA}{RIM}{BA}
22 Cover a tailless animal (4) COAT COATi
23 Speeding and dying? Not dead, hospital probably (5) HYING (-d+h)HYING
25 Bird has golden eyes reportedly with black in the centre (5) ORIBI {OR}{(~eye)I}{B}{(~eye)I}
 Bird? Looks more like a Deer to me :-)

Reference List
Record = EP(Extended play), North = N, Right = RT, Unknown = X = TEN, Power = P, Quiet = P, East = E, Virginia = VA, Delaware = DE, Wife = W, Over = O, Sex = IT, Dead = D, Hospital = H, Black = B

22 comments:

  1. 21a Conviction of unknown Roman stranger (5) T?N?T

    Unknown is X, X as a roman numeral is TEN
    stranger is ET
    {TEN}{ET} is a conviction

    Fun puzzle. Glad I'm not the only one perplexed by Oribi

    Never seen "Kotow" to mean Kowtow before. I filled "KATOW" hoping it meant Kowtow and fit as a sort of second degree hidden (in a) from "Katowice". Kotow, Poland has a population of ~210? A bit too trivial imo

    MARIMBA, DETRIMENT, and ANTIPASTO were all delightful solves

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. MARIMBA used to be the default ringtone for iPhone.

      Delete
  2. Is 'It' sex or sexy? AD repeatedly uses it as a synonym/ indicator of sex.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 'It' is defined as sex-appeal, not sexual intercourse or other meanings of the word sex. Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_(1927_film)

      Delete
    2. See Chambers Dictionary (Big Red Book)
      'It' also means 'sexual intercourse or activity' informally. For eg 'he is immature, he knows nothing about 'it'!

      If you want an online ref,
      https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/it

      Delete
    3. Today I learned. Thank you Doctor.

      Delete
    4. Going through the many definitions of "it" in the dictionary, I suppose "it" is a special word in that it can mean just about anything you want it to.

      Delete
  3. Enjoyed-
    Fliers like parrots
    Prevent surveillance= Stop watch
    Comparatively easy one today.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Col.
    11a= link for Apple polish does not mention it. I think it needs correction.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The EPISODE ended in a CHECKMATE
    Vladimir could not EVADE
    Being KIDNAPPED
    COAT TORN and trapped
    When all he wanted was a date!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. In 10A Longed to push north on 31st December, the direction in which N (north) gets pushed is arbitrary and unspecified. I had taken "Longed" as the definition and entered YEARNED. However, the intended definition appears to be "31st December" for which YEAR END is the solution. However, the enum for the clue is (7) and not (4,3) or (4-3) as it should be!

    In 24A, is "at dawn" a fair indicator for acrostic? Though I eventually got it, it came as a bit of a surprise.

    While yesterday the grid contained 3 agents, today there were 2 birds - however one of the birds was actually a deer!

    COAT(-i), HYING, ORTOLAN and KOTOW were obscurities characteristic of the setter.

    In the surface reading of 5D, one wonders whether the library is truly "empty" if it has trees and building material!

    Two clues I enjoyed were: 15A ...child slept and was taken away {KID}{NAPPED} and 20A Scholars have edge in procuring an instrument {MA}{RIM}{BA}. Both had fine surface readings and charade wordplays.

    The word "purchase" in 12A UDOMETERS appears to be redundant - neither part of definition, nor wordplay, nor a link-word, existing only to confound the solver on the surface.

    I am curious what others think of the use of "like" as the link-word between definition and wordplay for 14A.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 12A- I think 'Purchase' here is used in the sense of grip/ hold.

      Delete
  7. scholars - for any graduate can we considered both Bachelor and Masters?????

    ReplyDelete

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