* = anag, < = reversed, () = dropped
A moderately difficult puzzle with a couple of excellent clues in 3 and 22 dn. There was one I didn’t quite follow (12 down).
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Stuccoed: cuts< + co-ed. |
| 6 | Cusack: Cu(p) + sack. You can take your pick on which actress it is – it could be Sinead, Niamh or Sorcha. |
| 9 | Away from it all: (warm foal it lay)* |
| 10 | Staler: S + taler (taler was a European coin from which the word dollar was derived). |
| 11 | Launcher: Launch + re< |
| 13 | Crimewatch: Crew around i m + (chat)* |
| 15 | Note: Not(t)e. I don’t speak any Italian, so had to take a guess that notte is Italian for night. |
| 16 | Scag: Sag around c. This puzzled me for a long time as the only meaning of the word scag I know is as slang for heroin rather than an equine. However, eventually I recalled from somewhere that “horse” is also slang for heroin. |
| 18 | Restaurant: (near a trust)*. |
| 21 | Somerset: homophone of summer + set. |
| 22 | Entomb: M + (bet no)*. Top class clue with a good football-related surface reading. |
| 23 | Dustin Hoffman: Dust + in ho + (naff)< around m. Never heard of dust as meaning fuss before but it’s in the dictionary. |
| 25 | Crunch: Crutch with t swapped for n. |
| 26 | Landseer: Land + (rees)< |
| Down | |
| 2 | Traitor: Trait + or. Refers to Anthony Blunt. |
| 3 | Charlemagne: magne(t) after charle(y). An excellent and very deceptive clue which had me convinced for a long time that it was a synonym for “frank” rather than a reference to the Frank people. |
| 4 | Offer: Soundalike of “offa”. |
| 5 | Droplet: Drop + let (let being a rule on a tennis court). |
| 6 | Chihuahua: Cryptic def. |
| 7 | Spa: Spa(des). |
| 8 | Culvert: rev< in cult. I’m not convinced about cult as a synonym for fashionable. A cult movie is one which a small group of people like rather than one which is universally popular. |
| 12 | Contretemps: Didn’t really get this one. “Cameron’s lot set about opening of this network – causing spat”. Cameron’s lot = con, spat = contretemps, but I don’t get the wordplay in the middle. |
| 14 | Wordsmith: Cryptic def. I might have missed the point, but I didn’t like this clue much. It was quite difficult to get unless you had a lot of letters in it and I’m not sure I’d describe a wordsmith as someone with an “automatic” communications facility. A “natural” communications facility perhaps, but not automatic. |
| 17 | Chowder: Chow + red<. |
| 19 | Satchel: Hidden word. |
| 20 | Nominee: mine in (eon)*. |
| 22 | Elfin: F in nile<. |
| 24 | Sun: nus< (NUS = National Union of Students). |
12down, cameron’s lot will be con mps, then its t (opening of this) and tree for network ?
a rete is a network.
6 across – or Cyril, their father.
12 down, yes, I agree CON T RETE MPS.
Found this very enjoyable and quite tricky – quite happy with WORDSMITH which was my favourite clue. Thought CRUNCH and NOMINEE were excellent too.
Sorry, it said actress, didn’t it?
I agree with NealH – WORDSMITH seems very feeble and like him I wonder what I’m missing. Cyril Cusack was quite major in his time and I wonder why Hypnos ignored him when he could easily have said “Actor or actress” or even just “actor” – it seems to be PC nowadays to call them all actors. And there’s also John Cusack (as I discovered when trying to see if Cyril C was still alive).
Smith…Smith and Wesson maybe…?