Solving time: 4:42
Araucaria has had a monopoly on the prize crosswords in recent weeks, so this was a nice change and probably my quickest time for a Paul puzzle. The theme was fairly straightforward, comprising 5 clues consisting of single words backwards (“kcul?”, “ylper?”, “ytud?”, “eert?” and “tew?”), leading to solutions with ‘wordplay in the answer’. I was helped enormously by spotting the answer to the longest of these (“kcul?”) immediately, and by knowing the phrase ‘neap tide’ which I solved next.
Music of the day: Playing music backwards was pioneered by The Beatles in the 1960s, but we had a Beatles song last week so today’s pick is Don’t Stop by The Stone Roses, which is essentially Waterfall played backwards with a few tweaks and new lyrics written to fit.
* = anagram.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 8 | PA’S + ADEN + A – home of the Rose Bowl which hosted the final of the 1994 World Cup, a terrible game about which (apart from Baggio’s penalty miss) I honestly can’t remember a thing. |
| 9 | BRE(V)E[d] |
| 11/15 | REVERSAL OF FORTUNE (thematic: “kcul?”) |
| 12/24 | ANSWER BACK (thematic: “ylper?”) |
| 20 | MO[n]TH + BALL |
| 22 | RESORT (double definition) – ‘ultimate strategy’ as in ‘last resort’. |
| 23 | TAX RETURNS (thematic: “ytud?”) |
| 25 | UNFED; F in (NUDE)* |
| 26 | TIN + NIT + US – ‘in The Listener’ looks at first to be part of the wordplay but in fact forms part of a misleading definition. |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | W + AL(KIN)TO |
| 4 | HAR[d] + VEST |
| 5 | ABE(R + RAN)T |
| 6 | REGARDLESS; (LARGE DRESS)* |
| 7 | HERO(I)N – another well-crafted clue with a cunning definition (‘Horse’). |
| 13 | WIT(C)H + CRAFT – ‘withholding’ needs to be split into two parts for the wordplay. |
| 16 | NEAP TIDE; (PAINTED)* + E – luckily I spotted this from the initial N and the definition, because even then wordplay took a few seconds to see, as the anagram indication (‘Wave painted…’) reads so well. |
| 18 | SPRUCE UP (thematic: “eert?”) |
| 19 | C(LAR)ITY – ‘housed’ here goes with ‘God’, not ‘in’; a Lar was a Roman household god. |
| 21 | OPAQUE (hidden) |
| 22/2 | RISING DAMP (thematic: “tew?”) – ‘backwater’ was my first thought here. Actually I’m not convinced this clue works – the wordplay is in the answer so ‘rising’ has to describe the clue, which is (of course) written horizontally; the fact that it’s a down clue I don’t think matters. |
| 24 | B + RIM |