Solving time: 15’
Rather fast solve for me… nothing really held me up with the long clues falling almost on first read. I think this means that I’m no longer an Everyman GREENHORN.
Across
| 1 | BACK-TO-BACK – two meanings: I suppose “terraced houses” are BACK-TO-BACK since they are connected to each other. |
| 10 | G[et],RACE – Even I know that WG GRACE was a “famous cricketer” (with a big beard). |
| 11 | REM(BRAND)T – BRAND in term*. |
| 12 | TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT – The enumeration and the clue transparency made this a very easy double/cryptic def. |
| 13 | LAMB,ENT – Charles LAMB is a popular cryptic essayist as is the ENT hospital ward. |
| 15 | A,T (HEAR)T – My last clue, I think because I resisted defining AT HEART as “really” for a long time. Recall that the TT race is a motorcycle race in the Isle of Man. |
| 17 | END,GAME – interesting clue that took a bit to decode: ENDGAME is the Beckett “play”, where the wordplay is (the verb) GAME for “trick” and END for “purpose”. Note how “X on Y” produces Y,X. |
| 20 | DUTCH ELM DISEASE – quite an impressive anag &lit: (causes the middle)*. |
| 22 | GREEN,HO,RN – another interesting clue that takes a bit of decoding: definition is “raw, inexperienced youth” and “new” produces GREEN, “house” abbreviated as HO and finally “outskirts of Ripon” is RN. |
| 23 | AMIGO – hidden in “PotsdAM, IGOr”. If you’ve read “The Good German” you’ll know that Igor was a common name at Potsdam – too bad the Spanish weren’t involved, would have been a great &lit if so. |
| 25 | ST, BENEDICT – BENEDICT “Arnold” isn’t considered much of a saint to Americans – but I imagine the British are rather grateful. |
Down
| 1 | B(A,GAT)ELLE – it’s a table “game” and GAT is slang for a “piece” or gun. |
| 3 | THE (TIME) MACHINE – I’m pretty sure that TIME is “the enemy” here (as in, old age I suppose) and “infiltrating” indicates insertion. |
| 4 | B(URN)OUT – for some reason I put in BLOWOUT here initially which slowed me down. |
| 5 | C(A,MILL)A – at first I thought this was CAMELIA which is also a “plant” but “plant” is MILL here and CA is our Chartered “Accountant”. |
| 7 | WINNEBAGO – (Now I began)*. I usually think of WINNEBAGO as a huge US-style camper. |
| 8 | GO(T) AT – def is “unfairly influenced” and GOAT is our “foolish person”. |
| 16 | TURNED OUT – quite liked these two quite different meanings: “Came to be expelled”. |
| 18 | EE,L(P)OUT – hadn’t heard of the EELPOUT but the wordplay was tractable enough. Don’t need to know what “panchax” means just that its first letter is P but do need to know that “yobbo” is LOUT and “extremely ExquisitE” is EE. |
| 20 | DOG,MA – nice simple charade for “teaching”. |
| 21 | ALIBI – easily spotted hidden in “MexicALI BIllionaire”. |
Time is ‘enemy’ in Bradford, from the idiom.
1A: Back-to-back housing was much grimmer than terracing – three shared sides rather than just two, and usually only three rooms.
My gran lived in a back-to-back in the seventies (before that she lived in a post-war pre-fab!) The three sides were only shared at the first floor level. On the ground floor there were only two shared sides since a separating passageway was needed between each alternate pair of back-to-backs to give access to the rearmost houses. Despite the size, the back house of a back-to-back benefited from being away from the road and having a small enclosed garden. In some ways this was much less grim than a standard terrace. Although many back-to-back developments were, along with terraces of the same period, slums.
I suspect Engels had something to say about them!
Colin