A few manly answers: TESTOSTERONE (which figured in a Times puzzle today or yesterday as well), and an ARTILLERYMAN wearing an EPAULETTE. I did this in fits and starts throughout the day so I don’t really have a “first impression” that colored my reaction. I seem to recall thinking that the clues were fair and some of the wordplay clever.
Across
| 1 | STA(T,IS)TIC – lies, damned lies and… |
| 6 | MISER – need to separate “nit” from “picker” and then remove “nit” from “minister” to produce MISER who is indeed a “picker over expenditure”. |
| 9 | STRAP=rev(parts) |
| 10 | DAM,NATION – I like this though I suspect I’ve seen it before. |
| 11 | MEAD,OWL,ARK – great explanation from Shirley in the notes below! |
| 12 | S,TOW – 7D is SPITTOON. |
| 14 | T(ESTOSTER)ONE – our first manly clue: “rosettes” in TONE. |
| 21 | STOP=rev(pots) |
| 22 | RED S,NAPPER – it’s a fish (“scaled one”) and I guess RED is the color of Liverpool (when foot is applied to ball) and according to the online COED a NAPPER is “a person’s head” (informal). |
| 25 | C(ANT,A,L)OUP – quite a COUP for me to solve this. |
| 26 | S(WOO)N – “ig” in “sign” is replaced by WOO (for court). |
| 27 | E(GYP)T – but doesn’t GYP derive from EGYPT anyway? (ET’s our movie). |
| 28 | EPAULETTE – cryptic def: our third manly def. |
Down
| 3 | IMP(ROPER)LY |
| 4 | TI,LAD=revi(lad,it) |
| 5 | CAMERA-SHY – kind of a cryptic def I guess since a RED SNAPPER that’s light could I supposed be a camera. |
| 6 | M(O)AN |
| 7 | SPITTOON – (points to)* with a slightly cryptic def (“one holding gob”). |
| 8 | RENO,W(N)ED |
| 13 | MET,AT,ARS[en]AL – remove two points from Arsenal (“Gunners”) where MET AT is “satisfied by” and you end up breaking what David Beckham et al need to play football. |
| 15 | THE,REF,O,R,[gam]E |
| 16 | MASS,AC(R)E – clever apparent overlap of wordplay and def: MASS is our “service”, our “winner” is an ACE and the whole thing is (well, almost) “overwhelming”. |
| 19 | SP,ROUT – “Odds” is SP (Starting Price). |
| 24 | FAST – two meanings. |
Am away for the w/e so won’t see blog until Sunday evening. Couldn’t resist 14ac Meadowlark.
Bird = owl, Drink = mead, boat = ark, and Meadowlark is a bird AND another boat in the novel Swallows & Amazons.
A brilliant clue I thought.
Will somebody please explain the wordplay for these answers:
16. massacre; 17. attorney
22. red snapper
As far as I can work it out (Taupi produces some very intricately wrought clues!):
16dn Definition is ‘overwhelming’ (ie as a noun); ‘service’ is MASS, ‘winner from such” is ACE (ie a service winner at tennis) ‘rank beginner’ is R – MASS AC(R)E
22ac RED’S (‘Liverpool’s – football team or supporters) + NAPPER (slang for ‘head’); ‘scaled one’ = fish
17dn ATTORNEY is ‘legal representative’, but I can’t work out all of the rest either. I think the ‘general’ is Marshal NEY (French commander in Napoleonic Wars) and the ‘exposed top’ may be TOR – hence AT TOR NEY
Mea culpa.
Ney was a marshal not a general. I usually double-check everything including the things I think I know, but I missed that one.
Thanks for picking it up.
5dn: ‘Avoiding 22 that’s light of colour’ CAMERA-SHY
Remove the colour (RED) from 22 to get SNAPPER. If you avoid a snapper you’re camera-shy. Not sure of ‘that’s light of’ to mean remove. And ‘light of colour’ could have meant pink. As Geoff says, quite an intricate clue.
5dn: ‘that’s light of’ seems fine to me – it doesn’t mean ‘remove’ (in a transitive sense), but to be ‘light of’ something is to be deficient in it. If RED SNAPPER is ‘light of’, ie deficient in, colour (RED) it becomes SNAPPER etc.