Another wonderful themed puzzle from Virgilius. All the across answers from French and quite a few references in the down clues too. As it happens, this blogger is very familiar with French so it was an unusually fast solve. The extra time gave me the opportunity to admire the excellent surface readings from the master.
Solving time: 12 mins
* = anagram
ACROSS
1 CHACUN A SON GOUT Literally, each to his taste. Norman = French
8 ON-DIT (I don’t)*
11 C’EST LA GUERRE Literally, that’s war (a resigned shrug)
17 MOTS Most with last letters reversed (‘twist’)
18 ELAN(d)
19 CRI DE COEUR (Occurred i.e)* literally, a cry from the heart.
22 ENTREPRENEUR Hidden. Congrats on hiding 12 successive letters!
27 VINGT-ET-UN Twenty-one (card game) – Score (20) is ‘slightly exceeded’
28 PARDON MY FRENCH
DOWN
1 CUB A The 1962 Cuba missile crisis
2 AWAY “Where there’s a will there’s a way”!
3 UN G(U)ENT
4 A S SET S-class = s set
14 TARANTELLA Once regarded as cure for dance craze (tarantism) apparently
20 COUNTER Double definition
21 PERNOD (ponder)*
23 NANCY Double definition
24 ET ON one, the pronoun not the number.
25 INCH hidden
I thought this had a certain je ne sais quoi!
Very easy but, as always with Virgilius, creme de la creme in clues and grid par excellence.
I too was impressed by the hiding of 22ac, though I have it on good authority that this is not a French word.
Colin, it was President Bush who said the French had no word for entrepreneur, so I expect you are right.
From my French O-level one of the few things I remember is the French for an undertaker being an “entrepreneur de pompes funèbres”.
My other favourite French language facts are that their words for to kiss and f*** are the same (I always wondered if they draw any distinction) and that they do not have a word for cheap (only less expensive).
I’m told that ‘tigres de salon’ are cats that never go out of le maison.
And I thought I was really clever solving this one in my lunch break, c’est la vie.
Patrick.