Solving time : 15:33, putting me at the top of the Club timer, but I suspect not for long. There's a few that I was kicking myself for not seeing straight off, so there's some nice setter's craft here. It seemed at the end that it's heavy on the general knowledge, particularly the mathematical term that was unfortunately my second last in, followed by the food additive that looks vaguely familiar now, but might have popped up once or twice before.
Tonight is the first night of the five-day Moogfest, celebrating the life and inventions of Bob Moog. So as soon as I get this finished up I'm walking in to town to catch the Pet Shop Boys... I wonder if my 43-year-old outer child likes them as much as the 15-year-old brat who was at the time learning how to do the Melbourne Age cryptic crossword.
Away we go...
Tonight is the first night of the five-day Moogfest, celebrating the life and inventions of Bob Moog. So as soon as I get this finished up I'm walking in to town to catch the Pet Shop Boys... I wonder if my 43-year-old outer child likes them as much as the 15-year-old brat who was at the time learning how to do the Melbourne Age cryptic crossword.
Away we go...
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | COP,IOUS: definiton "many", which I originally thought was going to be part of the wordplay |
| 5 | LEHAR: H in LEAR - a composer I know better from popping up in crosswords than from any actual compositions |
| 9 | H,ORAL: got this from wordplay, though it makes sense |
| 10 | BENIGHTED: sounds like BE KNIGHTED |
| 11 | PROP,AN,E |
| 12 | ARCHERY: CHE in 'ARRY |
| 13 | ANNOTATION: NOT in A,NATION |
| 15 | HART: R in HAT |
| 18 | D,ICE: two shortenings of diamonds |
| 20 | IMAGINABLE: 1,MALE containing GIN,AB |
| 23 | MANDATE: since to get MATE you would need M AND ATE |
| 24 | DURANGO: RANG in DUO - knew it more from being a make of car here |
| 25 | STERADIAN: for a while I was thinking "Is there some obscure mathematical term that is an anagram of AS WHIZZ IN?" but WHIZZ is the anagrindicator and it's (TRAINED,AS)* |
| 26 | MEDIA: ME then AID reversed |
| 27 | SATIN: STAIN with the T and A being switched |
| 28 | G,HAST |
| Down | |
| 1 | CARTOON: O in CARTON |
| 2 | PALO ALTO: PAL then A in (LOOT)* - surprised to see this in the Times. It's big - it's a satellite city of San Francisco. I have only been there once, stopped there to watch the sun set when I was driving from LA to San Francisco. Stanford is there, but not sure how well known it really is. |
| 3 | |
| 4 | SINGALONG: got this from definition but now I see it's LO(see) in SIN,GANG |
| 5 | LEGACY: EG in LACY |
| 6 | HE,T,A,ERA |
| 7 | RUDDY: R then MUDDY without the last letter of foaM |
| 8 | WHIP HAND: clearly this is the answer from the definition, but I can't seem to make the wordplay work - it looks like W, then HID with P,AN inside but where does the other H come from? Edit: thanks to the crossword editor who confirmed in the comments that the word "husband" was omitted from the clue |
| 14 | TEMPE,RING: just realized there's a bit of Americana going on here (a Mr. Greer offering?) - TEMPE is a valley in Arizona Edit: As noted many times in comments, TEMPE is referring to the Greek valley, of which I was unaware. I have been to Tempe, Arizona (Arizona State University is there) and I thought I remember it being in a valley just beside Phoenix. So a mild defense, but I stand corrected(ish) |
| 16 | TEETOTAL: (TO,LET,TEA)* |
| 17 | INTROMIT: M in INTROIT - INTROIT for anthem appeared here recently |
| 19 | CON,CERT |
| 21 | BONE DRY: DR in BONEY (Napoleon of the boney parts) |
| 22 | PA,PAIN: so called because it's a pawpaw extract |
| 23 | MOSES: MOSEYS without Y |
| 24 | DONNA: ON in DNA |