What does one ever say about Dac’s crosswords except that they are as always quite delightful? He endlessly manages to produce clues that are pithy and smooth (an adjective that is often used in this connection) and do the job perfectly.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | WHITECHapel |
| 4 | CLUB BING — Bing Crosby is the crooner, although perhaps he’s well-enough known not to need a link |
| 10 | A GI SM — perhaps more commonly ageism, but this spelling is probably fine despite not being in Chambers — Google gives 14,400 entries for agism (as well as asking if I meant ageism) as against 1,600,000 for ageism |
| 11 | A N CHOR({b}AG{e})E — either a place for anchoring or the place in Alaska, I’m not sure which one Dac intends |
| 12 | A L LOT TEES — Tees the northern river [= banker] |
| 13 | T{oreador} RASH — trash = rubbish/nonsense/bull |
| 14 | HANG TOGETHER — 2 defs |
| 18 | PRESENT A T(1)ON |
| 21 | LEADS — it is I think def ‘singers principally’, wordplay l{E}ads, where ‘Boy band perhaps’ = ‘lads’ — if so then it seems rather a good clue, although I don’t then quite understand the need for ‘perhaps’ [Boy band perhaps, engaging English singers principally?] |
| 22 | BALL(ERIN)A{d} |
| 23 | VIRGINIAN — V1 gin in (Iran)* |
| 24 | A(M)BLE |
| 25 | R ETCHING — r = rare isn’t apparently given in Chambers or the COD but is no doubt somewhere |
| 26 | PESETA — set in p{r}e{f}a{b} — not really very old, but old enough |
| Down | |
| 1 | HEA{t} DAC HE |
| 2 | TRIP LANE |
| 3 | COME TO TERMS WITH — (mother’s MOT twice)* — a good anagram because the material isn’t immediately obvious and even when you’ve got it you have to work it out carefully (for ‘you’ read ‘the sort of person who thinks MOT twice gives MOT MOT and gets stuck on this idea’) |
| 5 | LUCAS — (SA cul{t})rev. |
| 6 | BE ON THE SAME PAGE — simply 2 defs I think, although the existence of ‘bee’ around the outside leads me to suspect that perhaps there is more [Agree all pupils should, in reading-aloud session] |
| 7 | IN AWAY — home and away, or should I say Home and Away? |
| 8 | GO (E) THE |
| 9 | WATER GAS — (saw great)* — had never heard of it, but it’s there |
| 15 | TING{a}LING |
| 16 | PITIABLE — (bait)rev. in pile |
| 17 | IN CAMERA — (Cinerama)* — both here and in 9dn Dac uses nounal anagram indicators, which displeases some, but seems to Brian Greer (and me, for what it’s worth) to be perfectly OK |
| 19 | C(L)OVER |
| 20 | PARROT — (t(OR)rap)rev. |
| 22 | ballooN AIRBorne — hidden rev. |
Re 3d Yep that was me… 6d I don’t think there’s more to it
Thanks John and Dac, fine as ever.
Re 21. A boy band would be an example of “lads” but boy band couldn’t define lads because there are clearly lads who aren’t in a boy band. Hence the need for perhaps.
Include me in the ‘yous’ for 3d too.
A very fine midweek puzzle. Thanks to Dac and John.
I particularly enjoyed 22a, 3d, 7d, 13a, 11a, 21a & 16d and my favourites were 14a HANG TOGETHER, 1d HEADACHE & 2d TRIPLANE.
New words were WATER GAS, and ‘V1 bomb’.
I’m not in the ‘yous’ for 3d. I guess being a less experienced solver helps sometimes!
Thanks for the blog, John.
Michelle v1 bombs were known as doodle bugs they were basically an unmanned flying plane bomb usually aimed roughly at london in the second world war. By roughly I mean well it should should land within 100 miles. Bit like american smart bombs these days. 🙂
Yes NealH I agree if by ‘boy band’ Dac is referring to something like Jedward or whatever (I think they’re all boys), but I took ‘boy band’ to be simply a misleading way of saying ‘set of boys banded together’.
Thanks John, we were too tired last night after having watched the Apprentice so finished the puzzle this morning.
We were not too sure about 21 across but when we looked at it again, it seems to work fine.
Thanks Dac!