This had everything you could ask from a daily cryptic from this top setter. Excellent misdirection, great variety, and all with everyday words. Flawless construction. Solving time, 25 mins.
* = anagram
ACROSS
1 BROW BEAT
5 FOR FAR
11 MANI(c) KIN
12 TUITION (U = university into it)* A nice &lit, though in the surface reading, I’d hope it’s more than just ‘possibly’!
14 PERMA-TAN Clue of the puzzle for me “Redecorated most of apartment, using non-fade brown colour” (apartmen)*
22 CHEQUER “Checker”
25 DO (YE) NNE’S
DOWN
1 BIG (A = adult) MIST Epic film ain’t “Gone with the Wind” or anything like that – it’s ‘big mist’! Victorian novel by Mary Elizabeth Braddon – Lady Audley’s Secret. I got it from the worldplay once I’d crossing letters.
2 ORLANDO Bloom (actor). Home of Disneyland in 7 down.
3 BREAKS NEW GROUND Wembley having been recently rebuilt.
4 A RD EN (in in French)
7 FLO RID A Refers to Andy Capp comic strip – but it had to be a US State so not too hard.
15 N EUROS IS
19 SOUP CO(r)N
22 CREDO A cunningly concealed hidden, which was the last I solved.
Only 25ac and 19d gave me any real problems, the latter being a new word for me. I spent too long in 14ac looking for paint colours that ended with tan, from the rest of the anagram fodder, before the obvious dawned on me. 45 minutes here, compared to normally at least an hour.
Nmsindy said it all in his intro really – terrific puzzle. Agree that 14a is the best of the lot.
Agreed – an absolutely brilliant puzzle. Since I generally blog Dac, Virgilius or Phi I run out of adjectives. I solved much of this packed in like a sardine on the Northern line.
I particularly liked BIGAMIST and SOUPCON but I think I take issue with ISSUE which is presumably a double definition but, to me, “announce” is not a very close synonym.
ISSUE I’d similar thoughts when doing the puzzle, but ‘announce’ is in Collins under ‘issue’ as a vb so it’s definitely OK, I’d say.