Solving Time: 15 minutes
Dear Diary
Woke up to doorbell ringing, stumbled downstairs and found delivery man with nice box of goodies from Amazon. New Bradford’s plus the new set of Guardian compilers’ books and some Christmas pressies for friends.
Impressed with new Bradfords, finish Azed with it. Look through Guardian books. Well done Prof Hugh, nice idea with good introductions from the setters. More please!
Take self to clinic for leg lagging and treat self to lunch. Finish Times and Enigmatist, over lunch, am sure there’s something I need to do.
Get home, snooze, suddenly wake up, remember what I had forgotten. To blog today’s Indy!
Spend 1 hour trying to find a copy of the Indy, eventually get one at Luddendenfoot Newsagent, having tried over half a dozen others.
Get home,knackered, do crossword, finish setting questions for tonight’s Todmorden Quiz League matches, put them into secure envelopes and now….
ACROSS (* = ANAGRAM (CD) = cryptic def (R) = Reversal)
1 SLOPED OP inside DEL’S (R) DEL = Del-Boy Trotter from Only Fools & Horses
5 HEADCASE HEAD (Take charge of) + CASE (Criminal Investigation)
9 GOING OVERBOARD D Def
10 STEP DOWN NOW DEPT’S*
11 REBUFF R.E. BUFF (Expert on Religious Education)
12 FOR CERTAIN FORCE + R + TA + IN
16 STAB ST + AB On is used as in “on the end of”
18 CRIMEAN WAR This held me up as I thought it had to be “Israeli War” Then realised it was CRIME + ANWAR (Sadat)
20 APERCU Hidden answer
22 LIGAMENT Good clue GAME = injured inside LINT
24 REPORTED SPEECH PROPHET’S DECREE*
25 UNITEDLY TUNE IDLY*
DOWN
2 LIGHTS OUT WINDOWS = Lights
3 PRIAPIC Oo-er Mrs! PRIA(M) + PIC
4 DOGGO G inside GOOD*
5 HAVING A FIELD DAY (CD)
6 AIR FRANCE R inside AFRICAN* + E
7 CLOBBER L inside COBBER
8 SERIF SERF with I inside
13 RECOUNTED Dbl def
15 STAUNCHER Dbl def STAUNCH as in to stop bleeding
19 NUMBERS (CD)
21 PREEN Down as in feathers. (CD)
23 GAPER An Only In Crossword Land Word – GASPER minus S. Does anyone use the word now?
Thanks to Dac for an enjoyable puzzle, which demonstrates good elegant clue writing.
Now to go and play question-master!
Yes, another excellent puzzle from Dac. Struggled a bit with 12 across, in my edition it said ‘solders’, wondered if it should have been ‘soldiers’ ie FOR CE. I got it in the end. Esp liked harmonious = united in 25 across exploiting the musical context to the full.
Is 5D a cryptic definition? Surely it’s a double definition. And I’m not sure that 19D is a CD either. Numbers = songs, and “from the sixties” indicates “numbers”. But 21D definitely is, and a rather good one too.
I too had “solders” not “soldiers” in 12A, and thought it was probably a misprint and meant “force”.
Nice to see Del Boy in the Indy as well as the Guardian today!
Any chance of a link to that new Guardian book?
There’s more than one book in the series. Go to Amazon.co.uk and search for “guardian setters” under Books – that should display all 4 of them.
Interestingly the list price for each of the four is £6.99 but Amazon offers different discounts on each. Paul is the cheapest while Bunthorne is the most expensive.
Colin