Times 25354 - All that work at the gym pays off!

Solving time: 35 minutes

Music: Brahms, Symphony #1, Horenstein/LSO






This one was a little more challenging for me, since I both had a hard time getting started and got stuck in the NW corner for quite a while at the end. The answer to 1 down, in particular, proved quite elusive, and I have just seen how the clue works.

At least the middle part of my solve was not too stressful. I put in more than half the answers from the literals alone, since they were quite out in the open. The same cannot be said of the cryptics, many of which had to be teased out as I composed the blog.

With this blog, I complete my three in row. Our regular rotation will resume with Ulaca's blog next Monday.

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Across
1	PLAYBACK, PLAY + BACK, which is what records are for, right? I should have known that.
5	MAILER, M(A)ILER. This can also mean the specialized envelope or box that he has used to pack his merchandise.
8	DRAMA QUEEN, anagram of QUA'AN, MADE E[uropean]. My first in, easy once you see it's an anagram and has a 'q'.
9	TUBE, TU(B)E, the London underground network.
10	CLOAK AND DAGGER. CLO(AKA + N + ADD backwards)GGER. Hardly worth figuring out the cryptic, which I didn't bother to do.
11	BRISTLY, BRI(ghS)TLY. I labored under the misapprehension that I should substitute an 's' for an 'h', but it suddenly became clear that 'heart' refers to the centre of the word.
13	YOU'RE ON, YO(anagram of EURO)N, where 'no longer' refers to the obsolence of 'yon' as a demonstrative.
15	Omitted.
18	CYNICAL, anagram of CL[e]AN, ICY.
21	RENAISSANCE MAN, NAME + C[irca] + [par]NASSIAN + ER, all backwards. Another overly clever cryptic that no one will bother with.
22	INCH, IN + C[astlereag]H. Here 'favoured' rather than 'fashionable' is used to clue our old friend.
23	ILLITERATE, I + [a]LLITERATE.
24	VESTRY, VE(ST)RY. I had doubts about this; 'actual' = 'very' is archaic, although widely known from the King James Bible, and a saint is that last person you would expect to find in a vestry.
25	REPRISED, DESIR(P)ER backwards.
Down
1	PEDICAB. PE(D[rive] I)C + AB. A brilliant &lit. I only realized after solving that 'torso muscles' are not pecs or abs, but one of each. Those who didn't get the answer may not be so thrilled.
2	AMAZONIAN, A + M(A ZON[e] + I)AN. Another tricky clue that had me guessing for a while, both before and after getting the answer.
3	Omitted.
4	CHUTNEY, C(himHUT)NEY. Another difficult substitution, but gettable from the literal..
5	MANDATORY, M AND A TORY. I believe we have seen this one before.
6	INTEGER, INT(EG)ER. Easy once you spot the literal.
7	EMBARGO, E(MBA)RGO. Another one that went in from the literal.
12	LIABILITY, [p]LIABILITY. I was very obtuse with this my LOI, and finally put it in from the literal.
14	ENCOMPASS, anagram of ONCE + [doo]M + PASS. A nicely themed LOTR clue which, of course, has nothing to do with LOTR.
16	ARRANGE, ARRAN + GE[t].
17	GUNSHOT, anagram of NOUGHT'S.
18	CHALICE, CH + ALICE, our old friend the Companion of Honour, such a useful abbreviation.
19	NUCLEAR, alteration of UNCLEAR. A standard typo joke, along with uninformed guards, scheduled outrages, and management sing-off.
20	LINSEED, LIN(S[ton]E)ED. Yes, you guessed it, I didn't bother with the cryptic.