Solving time: 25 mins, two missing (26ac and 8dn).
The ‘cloth hats’ referred to in the preamble were all reptiles (REP = ‘cloth’, TILES = ‘hats’), though unless KOMODO DRAGON at 19dn/29ac (my favourite clue in this puzzle) counts as two answers I can only find 11 (asterisked below).
Music (14dn): Crocodile Rock by Elton John.
* = anagram.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| *1 | IGUANA; rev. of ‘AN AUG 1’ – August 1st is Lammas Day. |
| 9 | PETER HAIN; (HER)* in PETAIN – Henri Pétain of ‘ils ne passeront pas’ fame, although according to Wikipedia it was someone else who actually said this. |
| *11 | [i]S NAKE[d] |
| 12 | METHYLENE; ME + THY + “LEAN” |
| 13 | DICTION[aries] |
| 15 | READER; (ARE RED)* |
| *17 | GO(R + G)ON – who had snakes for hair. |
| 19 | KALENDS; KALE and ENDS merged – the first day of the month. According to Chambers, ‘telescope’ can mean ‘to slide into one another like the movable joints of a telescope’. |
| 22 | AMORPHISM; AMO (= ‘I love’ in Latin) + (SHRIMP)* |
| *24 | GEC + KO |
| *26 | S + KINK – I didn’t know this lizard, but should probably have got ‘kink’ from ‘peculiarity’. |
| 27 | GO + D(STRUT)H – the lesser-used Lawrence, behind T.E. Lawrence. |
| 28 | CHE V. RON – nice clue. |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 3 | NURSELING; (GUNNERS)* around LI[ttle] |
| *4 | MONITOR (double definition) – also a type of lizard. |
| 5 | DUSTY (double definition) – as in the phrase ‘a dusty answer’, meaning ‘a bad answer’. |
| *6 | CH + AME(LEO)N |
| 7 | MUGGER, from ‘facer’ |
| *8 | CAIMAN/CAYMAN – I couldn’t get this without electronic help. I should probably have concentrated on the definition (which I knew was ‘a reptile’) rather than the wordplay, as I have heard of this animal but still can’t explain the clue (“Grand place for a bank account!”) – some reference to the Cayman Islands, perhaps? |
| *14 | CROCODILE – as in, “See you later, alligator/In a while, crocodile” |
| *16 | ALL + IG(AT)OR – ‘at heart’ meaning ‘put ‘AT’ in the middle’ is horrible. |
| 18 | NAIL GUN; N + (LINGUA)* – terrible clue. How on earth can ‘lingua franca’ be interpreted as ‘anagram of LINGUA’? |
| *19/29 | KO + MO + DO + DRAG ON – I love, and strongly empathise with, this clue’s surface reading. |
| 20 | SI(OB + HA)N – a little easier if you have a sister called ‘Siobhan’ than if you don’t. |
| 25 | C + LUNG |
7dn: A mugger is also a sort of Indian crocodile – there’s the last reptile
8dn: Cayman Islands are rather well known as a tax haven for offshore accounts. Made more obscure because crossword solvers aren’t usually rich – we spend too much time in non-profit making activity!
18dn: ‘Lingua franca’ originally meant ‘language of the Franks’ but franca in Italian also means open (frank) or ‘free’ – hence Araucaria is using it as a highly unusual anagram-signalling word. Unorthodox, as one might expect from the good reverend, but I rather liked it – as I did the ‘at heart’ trick in 16dn. I’m always pleased to see novel ways of signalling in cryptic clues.
7dn: MUGGER is ‘a broad-snouted Indian crocodile’ according to Chambers. That makes 12 reptiles.
8dn: the CAYMAN islands are also known as ‘Grand Cayman’
All becomes clear. I think you’ve just about persuaded me that ‘lingua franca’ isn’t as bad as I claimed, although I’m unmoved regarding ‘at heart’ meaning ‘AT at heart’. Thanks to both commenters.
Interesting to learn about “mugger” being a croc; post-solving, I spent a couple of minutes googling random answers to try to find the 12th reptile, and came up with something called a CHEVRON skink. It seems to be rather an obscure creature, however (I don’t suppose it’s in Chambers); I’m sure “mugger” was what Araucaria intended.