Rather harder than usual for Dac, I thought, but as usual it’s full of very nice clues.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | TOSH – 2 mngs, not helped by the fact that the mate meaning is new to me. This was the last one I solved. |
| 3 | CARRYING ON – again 2 mngs. I’m not surprised that the colloquial sense isn’t in Chambers (so far as I can see), but I suspect it will be one day |
| 9 | POTSDAM – (mad stop) rev. |
| 11 | MODERNS – Dom rev., Erns(t). The definition wasn’t obvious. |
| 12 | C(A PECAN AVER)AL |
| 14 | L(AND M)ASS – difficult I thought – I was sure NAM was in there and I was looking for an adjective |
| 15 | T(SWAN)A – not an African that came readily to me, indeed I only got it unconfidently from the wordplay and had to look it up |
| 17 | TYRONE – the actor Tyrone Power |
| 19 | MIG RATED |
| 22 | MOANING MINNIE – 2 mngs, one of which I didn’t know. I had thought it was a Mrs Thatcher coinage. |
| 24 | L(OAF)ING |
| 25 | ASSURED – ass (rude)* |
| 26 | SIDE STREET – sides “treat” |
| 27 | teA CERemony |
| Down | |
| 1 | TOPICALITY – (Capitol)* (c)ity. Initially I thought Dac was using “turmoil” as an anagram indicator, which would have offended some, but he’s too good for that. |
| 2 | SET UPON – (one’s put)*, an anagram that didn’t come easily since I was misled by the definition |
| 4 | A D(MON)ISH – again, a cunning definition |
| 5 | REMOVE – 2 mngs, although I wonder just how senior a remove class is. At my schools it was a junior class, and according to Chambers it’s an intermediate one. |
| 6 | IN DIRE STRAITS – a reference to the group, that eluded me for a while. I’d heard of Mark K but was all prepared to use Google to find out who he was. |
| 7 | GO(RILL)A – the state of India always seems to be Goa |
| 8 | NASH – san and H rev. Nice surface. |
| 10 | DOCUMENTARIES – (toured cinemas)*. Easy enough once you get the right words to anagram, which I didn’t. |
| 13 | BANDLEADER – “banned lieder” |
| 16 | D IS GRACE |
| 18 | R(AM)R AID |
| 20 | TANTRIC – (in tract)* |
| 21 | Z IN GER. Yet again we have z as an unknown, which was in the last crossword I blogged. I mentioned it then and said that this always grated since z is really used in higher maths. It was suggested in a posting that if there are three unknowns, z will be used since it goes with x and y, the more common “unknowns”. Fair enough, but then you could say that any letter is an unknown. |
| 23 | w(ALES) I think, although if it is can’t see why the clue didn’t say “drinks”, since “ales” is hardly “a drink”, and only uncomfortably “drink”. |
I, too, found it a little harder than usual from Dac – and I enjoyed ADMONISH too. Excellent puzzle. I thought ‘drink’ = ALES was quite OK.
A Moaning Minnie was the nickname given to a type of German trench mortar by the ‘Tommies’ in the First World War, ‘Minenwerfer’
A good puzzle but I didn’t get the African in 15a
Patrick.