Posted by neildubya on 8th August 2007
Across
1 POSTGRAD G(ood) substituted for the ‘e’ in Poster, being one of the two advertisements, the other being ‘ad.
5 Not being interested in football I thought long and hard about Ferdinand the Bull, until I saw RIO reversed into SEE for SOIREE
9, 23 COCKTAIL PARTY being an AI LP (excellent record) inside a bird, COCK, and provocative – TARTY
10 THRASH – a party and to beat.
12 LEAVE using ‘a’ for one inside a curtailed levee.
13 HANSEATIC I knew about the Hanseatic League from a brief spell working in Hamburg. They were a monopolistic union of traders around the Baltic between the 13th and 17th centuries.
14 P ITCHED ROOFS
18 SWAG GERS TICK gers is a French region, and tick is credit.
21 A CHIL LEAN ‘chil’ is the reduced cold, lean is spare, and Yarrow is Achillea with ‘N’ standing for name. A complicated set of hints and satisfying to solve.
24 REMOVE I spent a long time thinking it would end in T(ime) before spotting remove buried in ‘haREM OVEr time.
25 C LOIS T ER
26 I googled The Warden, not having read it, before spotting the anagram of warden – ANDREW Saint Andrew is well known, and Merry Andrew was a buffoon, or clown.
27 HYP NO SIS A joiner is a hyphen, take off the hen, and no sis(ter).
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Posted in Guardian | 6 Comments »
Posted by neildubya on 8th August 2007
| Across |
| 1 |
A,CAN in VT |
| 9 |
TO,FORE in LA (all reversed) – the much-mocked national carrier AEROFLOT. Excellent clue with a great surface. |
| 11 |
TRADE,SCANT,AI< – last one in. I saw TRADE (for “business”) fairly early on but couldn’t see the rest until I had all the checking letters in place. |
| 15 |
C,IN in ROSTI – I saw “Toasted bread and cold…” and rashly filled in CROUTONS but immediately realised this wasn’t right as “at home” is almost always IN. |
| 16 |
MOCCASIN – dithered for a while thinking that this might be spelt MOCASSIN. |
| 18 |
(SEANCE)* – ENCASE. |
| 20 |
DOUBLE-HEADER – which is a train pulled by two locomotives. I guess a “bent [dodgy] copper” might have two heads instead of heads and tails |
| 22 |
(IN DORM)* – NIMROD. For six letter words, this and 18A took me much longer than they should have. |
| 24 |
S,CANNING – George CANNING had the shortest reign of any British PM at 119 days. I got the clue from the definition and checking letters as I’d never heard of him – don’t know whether to be embarrassed by that or not. |
| 26 |
(f)ACTION |
| |
| Down |
| 3 |
A,ST in POLE |
| 4 |
TALL,AHA’S,SEE – there can’t be that many Norwegian pop groups famous enough to appear in a UK cryptic crossword but I wonder if this tripped a few people up. I would provide you with a Youtube link to their innovative video for “Take on Me” but access to Youtube is blocked where I’m writing this so you’ll have to make do with their Wikipedia entry. |
| 5 |
T in (SHORES OF FRANCE)* – FATHER CONFESSOR. |
| 7 |
hidden in “roAD JUNCTion” |
| 8 |
(INTO A DRESS)* – ADROITNESS. |
| 19 |
OR,ONE in CT – very good &lit clue. |
| 21 |
hidden in “raIN FOrest” |
| 23 |
DEE(p) – a reference to the Phil Spector-produced “River Deep Mountain High”. |
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