Guardian 23963/Orlando — Let’s Dance

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I did most of this puzzle within my 30 minute bus journey (the schools aren’t back yet!) However, I failed to get a couple of answers on the Eastern edge until a few minutes ago when I revisited the puzzle. I am still uncertain about one answer.

Across
1 SPRING-CLEANING — double definition — the uppercase em of May is hidden by the word’s position. A nice clue for me as we are in the process of spring cleaning, as in cleaning our water supply!
9 IRONWORKS — IRON(WORK)S — Jeremy Irons is at least one acting Irons, there may be more.
10 CRAZE — “Crays” — for some strange reason this clue eluded me, even though I new the twins in question I failed to pluralise their name and make the connection with “in vogue”.
12 METROLAND — MET+ROLAND — Met is the Metropolitan Opera House, New York. Metroland is a work by John Betjeman.
14 SCRAPE — double definition — I’m still not sure about the second definition here. A fix is a scrape. How does bark mean scrape? To me bark and scrape both mean to graze, usually my shins on the side of the bed, is that the synonym being used here?
22 AFTERGLOW — (RAF GET + OWL)* — Nice anagram and surface though WATERGOLF was the first “word” to go through my mind.
24 HYPER — double definition — however, I entered HYPE+D (spin = hype, D = doctor) until the obvious anagram at 8 down forced me to think again.
26 ARAUCARIA — double definition — the second definition being Orlando’s fellow Guardian setter.
Down
2 ROOMIER — ROOM(I)ER — roomer is a US term for a lodger.
3 NEWSFLASH — N+E+W+S+FLASH — “every way” signifies each of the four cardinal points.
5 ERSATZ — ER+SAT+Z — “last?” gives Z, ersatz is a word borrowed from German meaning false or phoney.
8 LEND ME YOUR EARS — (MERE ROUNDELAYS)* — a nice inverse anagram, ie the answer “out” gives the fodder.
15 CHA-CHA-CHA — three teas (CHA) make up the first dance.
20 APPAREL — A+PP+ARE+L — nice surface using centre of SHOPPING to give PP rather than the more usual “very quiet”.
21 ALPACA — ALP+A CA(t) — Manx cats have no tail.
23 RUMBA — RUM+BA(nd) — a second dance.

1 comment on “Guardian 23963/Orlando — Let’s Dance”

  1. I read SCRAPE as referring to what you do when you bark your shin. An enjoyable puzzle with some nice cryptic definitions.

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