A change of pace after yesterday’s Paul brainbuster. It still required two coffees, Mrs Stan and Crossword Buddy (http://www.loquax.co.uk/puzzles/) to complete however, which probably says more about the state of my mind than the level of difficulty.
Across
1 DECADE – sounds like “decayed”
4 BAND-I.T – Maybe a little strained to included mobiles as I.T
9 OMER – Had to look this one up – it’s a Hebrew measure of grain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_of_the_Omer
10 SPIN DOCTOR – (NIPS)< DO (CT) OR – is there a general move among compilers to use up the Blair references quickly before we all forget who he was ?
12 FOREMOST – FORT with SOME backwards inside – using the meaning of “van” as in “vanguard”
13 ACCOUTRED – ACTORCUED*
21 BATHROOM – Thanks go to ilancaron for bailing me out – Bath = Spring, Room = Assembly
26 THAIRM – TM for trademark with HAIR inside. Thank heavens for the shortage of 4-letter musicals. Thairm is the intestine used for Haggis – also for fiddle-strings.
Down
1 DEMONIC – COMEDI(A)N*
2 CAREY – George Carey the current Archbishop of Canterbury – Carey Street is where the bankrupcy courts used to be in London.
6 DE-CAMERON
7 TROTS-KY – Abbreviation for Kentucky – If you have the Trots you are in urgent need of a washroom.
8 DIE FLEDERMAUS – MADEFIELDERSU* A little German goes a long way – comic opera by Strauss.
14 OCTAHEDRA – ACTORHEAD*
16 BRA-VEST – very much my sense of humour. Bra vo !
18 H-ACKERS – “Ackers” is Northern slang for money, allegedly from the Egyptian “akka”
20 DORTER – had to look this up – it’s where monks sleep. As opposed to “apricots”, which is where monkeys sleep …
Any help on 23/25? They’re the last ones I’m stuck on.
DEEP / DRIVE are the two stabs I’ve had at it but I don’t have any wordplay to back them up.
23 DAN-CE – Tribe of Dan, CE for church
25 NOES – sounds like ‘nose’
I reckon 25A is NOES as in the opposite of Ayes and homophone “nose”; and 23D is DANCE – there is biblical tribe called Dan.
I was amused to see ACCOUTRED having only recently seen it for the first time in Bill Deedes obituary where as an example of his old-fashion turn of phrase he was quoted using it.
I got held up by writing in READY TO EAT with a flourish and not having the german to be sure of the Fledermaus spelling, but got there all but THAIRM for which I thank you.
I thought that it was BATHROOM (with spring referring to the town BATH) — WASHROOM is more of a Canadianism (in my expericen at least).
Thanks Stan!
Beermagnet – seems to be that the homophone in 25 is Ascent/assent rather than the nose/noes, but it works both ways
Sorry to be a pedant but Carey was the previous archbishop of C. The current one is Rowan Williams.
Ciaran
23 is a hidden word. (h)ave sta (tus). Zoroastrian text.
25 is just a charade. ex e mp t.
HTH
sorry Ciaran, wrong puzzle. (Must stop smoking that stuff. It confuses me).
(lies down in darkened room).
I accept Ilancaron’s view of the world – I have changed to BATHROOM.
Conradcork : My legendary attention to detail strikes again – yes, Carey was the last guy.
Decade in the UK is pronounced
de-CAYED, but in the US, it’s pronounced DECK-ade
re Bathroom: My interpretation of spring assembly is a collection of fixtures that supply runnning water.
(sink, toilet, bathtub, shower), which makes the entire clue a CD.
As I used to live in Bath, I assumed that the Assembly Rooms, where one takes the water that rises from the spring, is the reason why it is Bathroom.
25 across is ‘a scent’, meaning a nose – wine tasters use the term; so it isn’t assent, as that doesn’t mean to go up.
Just to confuse matters, definition 38 out of 55 in dictionary.com for wash is “a small stream or shallow pool”.
Could yet be “washroom”
Wasn’t OCTAHEDRA an answer in another Guardian puzzle just a short while ago?
Is this just coincidence, or do the setters sometimes each try to get the same word in a puzzle? Or do they come up with multiple clues to the same word and don’t want to waste them, or what?