An absolute ripper from Dean this week: loved every minute of what turned into a very long grapple indeed. Some ingenious cluing (5a, 8d and 24a being prime examples for my money), great surfaces (6d and 19d stood out), and some amusing inventions (9a and 11a both excellent).
And then there was the barmaid at 20a, which was a beautifully smooth surface, a cleverly concealed anagram and an absolute hoot - one of the all time classics, I reckon.
Thanks to Dean for a wonderful puzzle.
Definitions underlined: DD = double definition: anagrams indicated by *(--)
And then there was the barmaid at 20a, which was a beautifully smooth surface, a cleverly concealed anagram and an absolute hoot - one of the all time classics, I reckon.
Thanks to Dean for a wonderful puzzle.
Definitions underlined: DD = double definition: anagrams indicated by *(--)
| Across | |
| 1 | Vacant council has idiotic people (6) |
| CLOWNS - C | |
| 5 | Get behind report journalist initially mixed up (4,4) |
| HANG BACK - BANG (report) and HACK (journalist) with their first letters swapped (initially mixed up). A Spoonerism but not, as it were. Neat construction. | |
| 9 | Geek wanting good English spoken? (10) |
| PROGRAMMER - Homophone of Pro Grammar (wanting good English spoken), with 'spoken' rather neatly doing double duty as the homophone indicator and also making the surface even smoother | |
| 10 | This is square, also smooth (4) |
| SAND - S (abbrev. Square - as in PSI, for instance) + AND (also) | |
| 11 | Make local people convert others (12) |
| ALTERNATIVES - Alter natives (make local people convert). Lovely. | |
| 13 | Little girl tucked into fine pasta rings (6) |
| ANELLI - NELL (little girl) inside (tucked into) A1 (fine). Was not familiar with this particular pasta type, but fortunately it went in OK from wordplay and cross checkers. | |
| 14 | Prepare to fire at dog, making snowball? (8) |
| COCKTAIL - COCK (prepare to fire) + TAIL (dog) giving us the drink made from lemonade and advocaat - the latter having been wonderfully described by the great Willie Rushton as "a drink made from the juices of Dutch lawyers" | |
| 16 | Jersey soldier in anti-aircraft defence (8) |
| APOLOGIA - POLO (jersey) + GI (soldier) inside AA (anti-aircraft) | |
| 18 | Have fun hosting a show (6) |
| REVEAL - REVEL (have fun) 'hosting' A | |
| 20 | Employer of barmaid, one with large bust (8,4) |
| WATERING HOLE - *(ONE WITH LARGE) with "bust" as the anagrind. 'Laconic' is the word that springs to mind - as well as 'brilliant'! | |
| 23 | Long delay, but heading off (4) |
| ITCH - {H}itch ('delay') minus first letter (heading off) | |
| 24 | It is downtown (4,6) |
| CITY CENTRE - Initially thought this was just a very gentle cryptic, but so unlike Dean I had to be missing something. Then the penny dropped - IT is, indeed, the centre of city. Very cunning cryptic (& lit, I guess) | |
| 25 | Runs after subject, is held captive (8) |
| PRISONER - R (runs) follows PRONE (subject) holding IS | |
| 26 | Evil, not men's hatred (6) |
| ENMITY - EN{OR}MITY - OR (men) omitted from ENIORMITY (evil). One of those clues where the answer was clear enough, but took me a fair while to spot what was going on | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Instrument battery life will hold up (4) |
| LYRE - Reverse hidden (indicated by 'will hold up') in battERYLife | |
| 3 | Lament about a great bird (7) |
| WAGTAIL - WAIL (lament) goes around A GT (a great) | |
| 4 | Extraordinary bitter - drink bottles (9) |
| STARTLING - TART (bitter) 'bottled' by SLING (drink - as in Singapore Sling) | |
| 5 | Before raging guilt, Archer in hysterics (7,8) |
| HOMERIC LAUGHTER - HOME (in) 'before' *(GUILT ARCHER) with "raging" as the anagrind | |
| 6 | Sexy Marilyn's short routine (5) |
| NORMA - Norma Jean (Monroe) derived from NORMA{L} (short routine). Great surface, cracking clue | |
| 7 | Musician first featured in Band Aid (7) |
| BASSIST - B (first letter of Band) + ASSIST (aid) | |
| 8 | Absolute clot (describing idiot) (10) |
| CONGENITAL - CONGEAL (clot) going around (describing) NIT (idiot), with the elegance of the cluing being reinforced by the fact that 'congenital' is probably most frequently heard in the context of the phrase 'congenital idiot'. Great stuff. | |
| 12 | Old talk about mountain climbing is easy to take (2,1,7) |
| ON A PLATTER - O (old) + NATTER (talk) going around ALP reversed (mountain climbing) | |
| 15 | Old title holder's concern over rival (9) |
| CARTOUCHE - CARE (concern) going around (over) TOUCH (rival), giving us the ancient Egyptian typographic characters used to "bookend" the name of a member of the royal family. Must admit the clever definition went right over my head, and only fell into place following post-solve research: fortunately the wordplay was reasonably generous! | |
| 17 | In general, bottomless box drains resources (7) |
| LEECHES - LEE (General) + CHES{T} (bottomless box) | |
| 19 | Country Life describes volcano (7) |
| VIETNAM - VIM (life) goes around (describes) ETNA (volcano) | |
| 21 | Apparently a 25 of ancient people (5) |
| INCAN - IN CAN (apparently a prisoner - i.e. a 25 across) | |
| 22 | Dry although cut by river (4) |
| BRUT - BUT (although) 'cut' by R (river) | |