Having just blogged Nimrod’s Thursday puzzle (6637) I can say that I found this one the easier of the two. I’m not really a big fan of long anagrams and I was lucky to get the two here reasonably early on.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1/9 | (AS HOMERS MOTHER FIRST THOUGHT)* – The definition is “to be believed”, which isn’t quite the same thing as STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH but the latter makes the surface reading more readable. |
| 11 | FOR in BEE – quite an easy one to get as BEE leapt out as soon as I saw “spelling contest”. |
| 12 | [-c]UPHOLDER |
| 15 | hidden in “certaIN CURe-alls” |
| 16 | LAST DITCH – Offa has a cropped up a couple of times in recent puzzles so this came to me fairly quickly. |
| 17 | (MOST)* in BRINE – BRIMSTONE, which we now called sulphur. |
| 19 | H in NI in UP – very devious wordplay: “Type of bomb [H] seen in Ulster [NI] to break up [i.e. NHI in UP] square”. |
| 20 | (NYC IS MAD)* – DYNAMICS. |
| 21 | H in SOUL,D |
| 26/27 | (HA HA THEY WALK A BUNG ILL-GOTTEN)* – LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK. At the time of solving I had my doubts about “merrily” as the anagram indicator but I guess it could be justified as merry = drunk = all over the place? |
| Down | |
| 1 | A,HIBS [with the S moved to the top] |
| 2 | RARE,FACTION – reasonably easy given that “mediumfaction” isn’t a word. |
| 4 | HOME? – not sure if this is right. Clue is “In a way, together. The reverse” – “in” could be the definition but I can’t work out what the rest is doing. |
| 5 | (OF TROUPERS)* – FOUR-POSTER. “Sort” is easily-missable as the anagram indicator. |
| 6 | (CHOIR DO)* – OCHROID. The last one to go in as this was a new word for me. With O?H?O?D filled in a word ending -ROID seemed a reasonable bet. |
| 14 | (B O COULD NOT)* – BLOOD COUNT. “Supply” is the misleading anagram indicator. |
| 18 | SO,A in MALI |
| 19 | (HUGE INN)* – UNHINGE. |
| 22 | hidden in “cask-conditioneD ALE Kegs” – I think it’s fair to say that you don’t necessarily have to be a Doctor Who fan to have heard of the DALEKs. |
I struggled long with 4D HOME until a friend pointed out that “a way” should be read “away”. It is HOME because it is the reverse of AwWAY in the phrase “Home and away”
Yes, I thought it had to be home = in, but did not understand the wordplay. Now, that it’s explained, thanks, I think it’s fair because of the ‘together’ and very good. I struggled with the top two lines before working out the anagram. I would think ‘to be believed’ is OK as a definition of STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSES MOUTH.
I struggled with 1/9 so this took longer than the swords one.
I didn’t think of ‘away’ and got 4D wrong though.
15 down omitted. In Bad Part – where ham (i.e. bad actor) isn’t to one’s liking