It is Wednesday today and not the last of the month, so it has to be Dac, and indeed it is!
I found this towards the tougher end of the Dac spectrum, and apart from a few easy fill-ins at the start, I had to chip away at this from then on until the end. 12 and 17 were new to me, but could be worked out satisfactorily from the wordplay; that said, I needed Google to check whether it was –Best (=top) or –Vest (=top) in the middle of 17. The last clues to be solved were those to the intersecting entries at 18 and 28, and my favourite clue today just has to be 2, for its smooth surface and tight construction.
Incidentally, I can see that the completed grid is a pangram.
*(…) indicates an anagram
| Across | ||||
| 1 | AGGRO | A + G (=good) + GRO (ORG=organisation; “suffers a setback” indicates a reversal) | ||
| 4 | LACERATED | LACE (=material) + RATED (=deemed) | ||
| 9 | SQUILLION | QUILL (=old writer, i.e. writing implement) in SION (=holy city, i.e. alternative spelling of Zion) | ||
| 10 | PASTA | Reversed (“rejected”) and hidden (“partly”) in “thAT’S APparently” | ||
| 11 | EXPOSE | EX (=former) + POSE (=model, as verb); the definition is “bare”, as a verb, i.e. uncover, reveal | ||
| 12 | BRANDADE | BR (=British) + AND (=with) + A + DE<al> (“50% off” means” half of letters only are used); brandade is a Provençal dish made of salt fish cooked with olive oil, garlic and cream | ||
| 14 | DAMN | DAM-N for E (=lady); “changing” direction” means N (=north) replaces E (=east) | ||
| 16 | IAN FLEMING | [A (=article) in IN (=popular)] + FLEMING (=Belgian, i.e. person from Flanders); the reference is to Ian Fleming (1908-64), the UK writer of spy novels and creator of James Bond | ||
| 19 | MASKED BALL | M (=maiden, i.e. in cricket) + ASKED (=invited) + B (=bachelor) + ALL (=everyone) | ||
| 20 | JILL | J (=jack, i.e. in cards) + ILL (=wrong); & lit. from the nursery rhyme | ||
| 22 | CHAMPERS | Double definition | ||
| 23 | KINDLE | KIND (=sort of) + L<iteratur>E (“vacuous”, empty, i.e. all but first and last letters are dropped) | ||
| 26 | EVIAN | NAÏVE (=green, i.e. inexperienced); “has turned” indicates a reversal | ||
| 27 | HEARTFELT | HE (=chap) + *(FLATTER<y>); “endless” means last letter dropped; “affected” is anagram indicator | ||
| 28 | HIGH HOPES | HIGH (=humming, i.e. stinking) + HOPE’S (=old star’s, i.e. Bob Hope’s); High Hopes is a song popularised by Frank Sinatra in 1959 | ||
| 29 | ROMAN | Double definition: Roman Polanski, the Polish-French film maker (1933-) AND Roman type, in printing, cf. Times New Roman | ||
| Down | ||||
| 1 | AMSTERDAM | *(DRAMA SET) + M (=Malta, in IVR); “improvised” is anagram indicator | ||
| 2 | GRUMP | G (=good) + RUMP (=piece of meat); the definition is “pet”, i.e. sulk | ||
| 3 | OWLISH | *(L<earner> + WHO IS); “working” is anagram indicator | ||
| 4 | LUIS | I (=one) in LUS<t> (=desire; “briefly” means last letter dropped); the reference is to Spanish film maker Luis Buñuel (1900-83) | ||
| 5 | CENTREFOLD | *(CENTRE) + F (=fine) + OLD (=vintage); “review of” is anagram indicator | ||
| 6 | REPENTER | REP (=one selling) + ENTER (=record, e.g. date, as verb) | ||
| 7 | TOSCANINI | *(SANCTION) + I<taly> (“No 1” means first letter only); “troubled” is anagram indicator | ||
| 8 | DRAKE | D (=daughter) + RAKE (=Lothario); the reference is to English navigator and explorer Sir Francis Drake (1540-96) | ||
| 13 | BARBERSHOP | ER (=Queen) in [BARBS (=unpleasant remarks) + HOP (=bound)] | ||
| 15 | MASSAGING | MASS (=lots of people) + AGING (=getting old) | ||
| 17 | GALVESTON | GAL (=female) + VEST (=top, i.e. garment) + ON (=performing); Galveston is a 1969 Glen Campbell hit from the album of the same name | ||
| 18 | KEYPUNCH | KEY (=essential) + PUNCH (=magazine, i.e. former British satirical weekly) | ||
| 21 | LISTER | “LISTER” (=one with leanings, i.e. tilting); the reference is to Joseph Lister (1827-1912), British pioneer of antiseptic surgery | ||
| 22 | CZECH | C (=caught, i.e. in cricket) in *(CHEZ); “Dicky” is anagram indicator | ||
| 24 | DREAM | E<vening> (“start of” means first letter only) in DRAM (=a drink) | ||
| 25 | BASS | B<r>A<i>S<e>S; “regularly” means alternate letters only are used | ||
Thanks for blogging, RR. I agree with you, definitely at the hard end of the Dac spectrum. GALVESTON I had to do a wordsearch for; knowledge perhaps a bit too esoteric required there. OWLISH and KINDLE were good though.
I think you’ll find 2dn is GRUMP, although I see that online dictionaries do give your version. He’s in a grump; he’s in a pet; or hereabouts in Derbyshire, he’s in a right mard. Mardarse (n): someone who is habitually in a mard.
I still don’t understand how JILL works though.
Thanks to Dac too.
surely 2down is grump, as rump for piece of meat is better than lump?
Many thanks, Kathryn’s Dad and chris bramall, for the correction – how coincidental that there should be two words so similar with the same meaning and both (more or less) fitting the wordplay. I hadn’t thought of GRUMP since the adjective is so much more familiar to me than the noun. In any case, the blog has been duly amended.
I can’t think of any other way of explaining JILL, alas, but perhaps others will be more inspired!
Thanks Dac and RatkojaRiku.
Small typo in 5D – should be (RECENT)* rather than (CENTER)*
Cor Dac proving rather harder than usual for me today, I’m sure there’s more to the Jill clue, something nagging about Jill meaning cheat but that might just be my brain flipping.
A bit puzzled about 2 dn grump. Presumably before alteration we had (as I did) glump http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=glump.
Grump is certainly better , but glump does seem an acceptable answer. I’d have put grump in if I’d known a pet was a sulk.
It seemed a trickier Dac as I had not got far during a couple of goes during the day, but it all went in in 15 mins in bed.Maybe this is support for the theory of “morphic resonance”. I read it’s best to do a the crossword late after others have done it as morphic resonance suggests you can somehow benefit from the thought by others that has been expended already. I’m not a believer by the way; just amused by the idea
No morphic resonance felt in our bed last night!
Had to finish the puzzle this morning – we use the word ‘finish’ rather loosely as we totally missed LISTER unfortunately and had to search electronically for BRANDADE. No complaints though as all were clued very fairly.
Thanks Dac and RR.
Didn’t start this till this morning (busy all day yesterday) but no morphic resonance, at least in the SW corner. Or maybe it doesn’t last long.
In 2dn I knew ‘pet’ can mean ‘sulk’ but it was a while before I realised this was the meaning intended, but then GRUMP seemed obvious. I didn’t know ‘glump’ but the ‘of meat’ in the clue pointed to ‘rump’.
In 17dn I worked out GALVESTON from the wordplay. I knew of the song though I’d no idea whose it was. Another oldie fished up from the subconscious was HIGH HOPES in 28ac.
Thanks, Dac and RR