Guardian 24060/Brummie — a bit of fun.

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Several clues used 12 as the definition in a couple of different ways. I got three card games before I got GAME itself and assumed I was looking for card games, thus PARTRIDGE had me for a while. A lot of the clues were of the very straightforward charade type, A+B, most of which naturally split into two parts. Most of these I have left uncommented upon. A little more invention and variety would have been nice. I found a couple of the words obscure and resorted to a dictionary for RECUSANTS and ALGECIRAS.

Across
1 PARTRIDGE — PART+RIDGE — a ridge is a Gaelic drum.
6 MUSHY — MUSH+(da)Y
9 DACHA — D(ay)+A+CHA — a Russian country home.
10 ALGECIRAS — (GLACIER)*+AS
11 LAST SUPPER — LAST+SUPPER
12 GAME — GAME(te) — ref. TE Lawrence.
14 HANGMAN — HANG+MAN
15 OLD MAID — OLD+MA(I)D
17 LAST LAP — LAST+LAP — I’m surprised this one wasn’t linked to 11. However, the surface reading here was very good.
19 LAMPREY — (PERM)* in LAY — amateur often translates as AM but here LAY, as in lay preacher, etc., is used.
20 SNAP — (PAN’S)<
22 KNOCKABOUT — KNOCK+A+BOUT
25 DISCOLOUR — IS+C IN DOLOUR
26 POKER — double def.
27 SHELL — double def.
28 NUMBER TEN — NUMBER+TEN
Down
1 PEDAL — PE(D)AL
2 RECUSANTS — (ETRUSCANS)*
3 REASSEMBLY — MESS< in (BARLEY)* — this was the best word play in the puzzle, if not quite the best surface.
4 DEADPAN — DEAD+PAN
5 EL GRECO — (LEGER)*+CO
6 MICA — MIC+A — mic is a shorter abbreviation for microphone than mike.
7 STRIA — I IN (STAR)*
8 YESTERDAY — double def.
13 ADAMS APPLE — P in (PAMELA SAD)* — nicely misleading definition.
14 HILLSIDES — (SILL)* in HIDES — hides as in observation structures in, say, bird watching.
16 AIR POCKET — AIR+POCKET — excellently misleading use of appropriate = pocket
18 PONTOON — double def.
19 LOCKRAM — LOCK+RAM
21 AISLE — A+ISLE — ref. Isle of Man
23 TURIN — T(UR)IN — the classic ancient city.
24 POOL — double def. — kitty = pot of money = pool

2 comments on “Guardian 24060/Brummie — a bit of fun.”

  1. I solved this quite quickly overall, but I wondered about the definition of GAME in 12A… what’s the “halting” ref?

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