Indian wrestling
Across
1 Omitted on purpose
10 CHAMOIS – anag. of a, h, si(-t)com
11 STAPLER – L. (“line”) in anag. of ‘paster’
13 DEMIJOHN – appears to have no cryptic element in it; in early stages I was thinking OS goes into a word meaning ‘wicker’; though familiar with the word, I learnt only now that a demijohn is enclosed in wickerwork.
15 HOMECRAFTS – anag. of ‘forms teach’ – Till a couple of decades ago parents in India seeking bridegrooms for their daughters used to say in matrimonial ads that the latter were “domestically trained”.
20 NEGOTIATOR – solved at a later stage from def. and crossings but I am unable to parse it fully; I can see “possessed” = GOT IT, “gold” = OR. I rarely feel the need to use a scribble pad for breakups or even anagrams. Here I give up even after some jottings.
22 RESERVED – two definitions – ignore that “started the game again” is ‘re-served’
27 ANILINE – a Nil(in)e – “all the rage” = fashionable = in
28 Omitted on purpose
Down
2 REALISM – anag. of R A, smile
3 SHOELACE – CD – “Oxford” refers not to the University but to shoes; can “I” in such clues be an inanimate thing?
4 WEST – W (“the centre of NeWry”), est, L. for “is”
6 KHAKI – marginally cryptic – “material” being fabric not equipment
8 Omitted on purpose
9 Omitted on purpose
17 FILTHIER – anag. of “hit” with “rifle”, “inaccurate” being the anag. signal – I knew the word must end in -er, yet I solved it only at the finishing stage; that is because I was not on the same 14dn as the setter’s.
21 TANKING – t(-h)anking – ‘tank’ is slang for ‘thrash’
23 ROOST – roo (“animal”, short for kangaroo), ‘s, t (“time”)
20ac is NEGOTIATOR = GOT I in NEAT OR
I can’t see why 28ac is DUTCH COURAGE – what was your reasoning?
Also 26ac is surely ERELONG but is this not one word rather than the two indicated?
Thanks for your anno. for 20ac.
I have always known “ere long” as two words. After your query I looked up Chambers, which records it as “ere long or erelong”.
As for reasoning for the answer to 28ac, I am still thinking! Maybe someone else can help!
Thanks, I should have looked it up.
“Dutch courage”, as we know, is “artificial courage induced by drinking alcohol”. Is it, in any British TV show, a character that drinks perpetually?
What I meant was “Is Arry’s missus a character etc. etc.”
In popular tradition, “My old Dutch” = “my wife” for a Cockney = ‘Arry. Apparently rhyming
slagslang from “Duchess of Fife”, as reported at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Chevalier – A C had a song ‘My Old Dutch’. Please don’t ask where the ludicrous middle names came from!