This will be my last regular blog for Fifteensquared as I can’t find the time to write blogs, compile puzzles, find time for my family and my other hobbies, oh! and work, of course. Today is typical – I am leaving for a conference in a few minutes, so this has to be quick.
Good puzzle, with not as many Paulisms (love them or not) as usual. I enjoyed solving this one, but haven’t quite had enough time to work out the wordplay for a couple of the clues.
Bye!
ACROSS
1 COWBOY – as in “cowboy plumber”, and in the Wild West, braves were Indians, not cowboys.
10 ELEMENTARY – MEN in (lear yet)*
12 TERMINUS – As I said, I am short of time today, so although I am sure that this is the answer (TERMINUS = “end of journey”), I haen’t quite worked out the wordplay here – TER = TER(n) – “bird won’t finish”, then I’m stumped.
15 (a)ISLE
16 BRAD-PIT-T
17,13 DO YOU COME HERE OFTEN – (hooey cute Monroe fed)* – that cheesiest of chat-up lines
21 H(OM)EBREW – where OM = Order of Merit
22 S(KIR)UN
24 BLACK MARIA – double definition
26 TID(L)Y
27 SEE(WAG)E
DOWN
1,2,7 CHINESE WATER TORTURE – involved dropping water into the open eye, drip by drip
3 ON E’S-ELF – I struggled to come up with a clue for this in a puzzle I compiled last week, but Paul has done it.
5 (Edgar Allan) POE-TRY
6 IN-TRI(NS-I)C(k)
8 CENTRE FORWARD – again, haven’t had time to work out the wordplay
14 EVANESCED – (seven ace)*-D
16 BOO-K-LET – liked “shocker” = BOO
18 ON(STAG)E
19 MO-UNTIE – definition is a bit weak
20 P(RIM)AL
Bye loona!
12a After the ‘won’t finish’, the clue has a dash, which is also the mathematical symbol for ‘minus’
Sorry to see you go, Loonapick, but I hope you’ll find time to chip in your insights in comment form.
8 down was D for died, after ‘centre for war’ (front line, you might say). Though the front line seems more like ‘centre of war’ than ‘centre for war’, wouldn’t that be the Ministry of Defence?
Thank you for your efforts over the last months. Best wishes! Rufus
12. Ter minus
bird won’t finish = ter(n)
– = minus (math sign)
Good luck loona.
By the way, 1D is one of the few times when I, as an American trying to solve these things, may have had a slight advantage. Over here we don’t associate “dripping” with food ordinarily. The surface meaning virtually disappeared and the answer seemed almost like a straight definition.
19D: ‘Doctor needed to loosen’ is MO + UNTIE and the definition is ‘someone up in Canada?’ – a mountie is a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, therefore ‘up’ refers to being on horseback. That’s a good enough cryptic definition, particularly with the question mark – isn’t it? I thought it was typically clever of Paul.