One of Dac’s easier puzzles I think, but none the worse for that. Consistently excellent clueing as usual.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | DOMINICANS. The islanders and the monks. |
| 9 | AMOROSO, which is both a lover and a dark sweet sherry |
| 10 | TOSTADO? I put this in as a result of the wordplay, which is possibly s (= small??) in tot ado, and although Chambers only gives “tostada” as a fried tortilla there is possibly a variant spelling (which there evidently is). |
| 13/14 | CATHERINE OF ARAGON – (to go in a French area)* |
| 16 | SPLI(N)T |
| 18 | RO(TUN)D |
| 19/22 | CABERNET SAUVIGNON – cab (enters)* A(u)vignon. Very neat and elegant. |
| 23 | H AVER. I had wanted to put in “waver”. |
| 25 | B RING UP |
| 26 | RESERVE – 2 mngs. |
| 27 | (DO)YENS. This use of “avoid” always seems a bit odd, but I suppose it is roughly equivalent to “shun”. |
| 28 | ARCHPRIEST – (parish rect(or))* |
| Down | |
| 1 | DIABOLO – i in (a bold)* o. Not a game I’ve ever come across except in crosswords. |
| 2 | MO(O)TS – good clue if you can accept shape of wheel = round = o |
| 4 | CHOW-CHOW |
| 5 | NOTATE – (at Eton)*, although it isn’t just maths in which you notate. Dac seems to go along with the trend for omitting “perhaps” or some such. |
| 7 | I NA(NI)TION. |
| 8 | SLOWEST – low in (sets)* |
| 11 | STEEPLECHASER – pl in (see the races)*. Excellent &lit. |
| 15 | AR(THUR)IA N. When this puzzle appears in book form “Thur” will be a problem. |
| 17 | F(A RN)ORTH |
| 20 | TOR RENT |
| 21 | SNI(P)PER |
| 22 | V ERNE(ST) |
TOSTADO A new word to me, but I think yr explanation is right ie. S = small (as in clothes sizes) TOT “goes without” ADO. Not too difficult a puzzle, but good as always from Dac.
Made a right mess of this one, I’m afraid. A lot of unfamiliar words meant I struggled. I usually start with the anagrams and work from there – but couldn’t quite untangle either 28ac or 11d, which with the other problems left me with large gaps I couldn’t fill.
Enjoyed this one a lot. I knew 10a but couldn’t work out all of the wordplay straight away so waited a while before filling it in. 7d was a guess for me but a reasonably confident one. I was also suprised by the Thur reference in 15d.
John queries the use oh ‘wheel’ to denote O. I’m not too keen on indicating letters by things of the same shape, but this is just a matter of taste and there is nothing unsound about it. I was much more concerned about the use of ‘ball’ to denote O in 1D. I don’t see how a 3-dimensional object can be considered equivalent to a 2-dimensional one.