A corking puzzle from Virgilius with a subtle theme, explained in 17A. (The clue in the blog title is, I think, by Enigmatist – but apologies to the setter concerned if I’ve got that wrong).
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 8 | REV – I think “ultimate book” is a reference to the Book of Revelation, the last canonical book of the New Testament. |
| 9 | (SOME BETTING)* – MISBEGOTTEN. I’m not sure I understand the definition here: “seen as contemptible”. MISBEGOTTEN means illegally obtained or ill-conceived or it has an archaic meaning of illegitimate (i.e bastard) but none of that suggests contemptible to me. |
| 11 | G, I in OREGON,G – I got this from the def and crossing letters and it took me a while to work out what was going on as it’s quite a complex clue to parse. |
| 15 | F,ACTORS – I didn’t know the Scottish meaning of this word but the wordplay puts the answer beyond doubt. |
| 17 | EGOCENTRICITY – revealing the theme of the puzzle: 6 across answers have EGO in the middle of them. Note that they don’t just contain the word EGO; it is literally in the centre of all of them. |
| 20 | hidden in “pART IS TErrific” |
| 21 | E in GR,GORY |
| 22 | LIT,HO[graph] – a cryptic definition but not a cryptic definitio clue, if you see what I mean. |
| 24 | (CEO TRAGIC)* – CATEGORIC. As in “I categorically deny the charges against me”. |
| 26 | PROLE,MEN in GOA – excellent clue but quite tough, especially picking out “of working class” for PROLE. |
| 27 | NAP – a triple definition. In horse racing, it’s a tip that’s thought to be a certainty, and it’s short for the card game Napoleon. |
| Down | |
| 1 | OF in PRESS |
| 2 | W in OVER EIGHT |
| 3 | hidden in “seiSMOGraph” |
| 5 | BERG – I didn’t what the “looked up to in South Africa” bit meant so I’ve just looked it up. Turns out, that a BERG is a mountain in SA. |
| 6 | MOTORCYCLE – marvellous cryptic def. “Race of Man” is a reference to the Isle of Man TT Race. |
| 10 | (MINUS,D) – NUDISM. Excellent &lit clue. |
| 14 | (NO CIA CODES)* – OCCASIONED. |
| 15 | OR,EG in FATHER. |
| 19 | NY< in SCOPE – SYNCOPE is one of those words that I knew but didn’t know the exact meaning of so this was a semi-guess. The wordplay leaves little room for doubt, as is often the case with Virgilius. |
| 23 | hidden in “desTROYed” |
| 25 | GO,A,L – another good &lit. |