I’ve blogged Quantum 3 or 4 times before, and I think I have been fairly mild with my criticism in each case. I don’t really enjoy solving a Quantum crossword, especially a waorkaday puzzle like today’s.
In the past, the setter has used unusual words or interesting long entries to mitigate the lack of fun in his puzzles, but these are not evident today.
Solved in about eight minutes, although I am not sure about 5dn.
ACROSS
1 HEIRDOM – (hired)*-O.M.
5 H(ILL)OCK – would the wordplay “bad if featuring wine “not indicate that the ILL should be OUTSIDE of HILL, rather than the other way around?
10 THINGUMMY – making its second appearance in recent times
12 TORSO – a good surface, although very easy to solve
13 LA(IT)Y
15 OAST HOUSE – where hops are dried out before they are made into beer. Can’t quite put my finger on why, but I don’t think this clue works, as the hops themselves are not drunk.
18 SUNSCREEN
23 CLINGFILM – clever idea
25 SCRIMMAGE – I’M in (Meg’s car)*
27 REGENCY – (green)*-C(it)Y
28 TREASON – (rate)*-SON – the “an” in the clue is superfluous
DOWN
1 H-ARMFUL
2 IMMERSION
3 DWARF – (fward)* – Nos 2 and 3 (OR) removed from “forward”
4 METRONOME – just not cryptic
5 HOIST – can see Jack, but not the refernce to Lewis?
6 LIGHTSHIP – cryptic definition
7 (f)ORMER(ly)
8 KEYHOLE – very, very easy
14 YACHTSMAN – (Chay n mast)* – if “associated with” is acceptable as an anagrind, this is actually a very good clue, as it relates to the famous yachtsman, Chay Blyth, who was the first man to sail solo non-stop around the world.
17 UNANIMOUS – again not very cryptic
18 SCOUSER – S-(course)* – as a Scot, I tend to have a slight problem with clues which indicate that the northwest is Liverpool/Manchester, as to me they are most definitely in the South.
20 LAMBKIN – sounds like “KIN LAM” (family hit)
22 SPRI(n)G
23 CO-A-L(iabilit)Y
I’d got ‘hoist’ too but didn’t understand the ‘Lewis’ connection. As any fule kno(having checked Chambers) a lewis is ‘a dovetail iron tenon, made in three pieces, for lifting blocks of stone’. A tad obscure reference in an otherwise straightforward crossword.
Thanks for the explanation of Lewis – very obscure. I liked LAITY, but agree about METRONOME and UNANIMOUS – I searched in vain for wordplay in the latter, but I guess it is just a weak CD.
beg to differ re METRONOME — there’s a pretty convincing and deceptive cardiac surface to “Ticker with regular beat”. Of course, cryptic defs can seem weak if you immediately see the answer.