This is a new setter to me, and I enjoyed the puzzle on the whole. It didn’t take long to do, and, if the week’s puzzles are to get harder as the week goes on, I would have this as a Tuesday rather than a Thursday.
Across
1 SCALES
2 WARP AIN’T
9 DOWNHILL
10 UP LINE, but I am not sure I have understood the clue. Americans call a queue a line, and I suppose the up line is the one gong to the city centre. is that it?
11 (M) USES
12 FLAMBOYANT, but I don’t know why, except that the worker is represented by ‘ant’. Anyone else know the old pulpit reference? Is it a flam, or a flamb?
14 E M BE DD ED ‘E’ is eastern, and ‘Med’ is the sea going around ‘be,’ to live, and ‘dd’, doctor of divinity.
16 SEA FARE R
20 S WORDS TICK
23 ARDOUR – party is do in rura(l) backwards.
24 W HIT E T IE – this was my favourite clue; wet around ‘hit’, and ‘ie’ for “that’s”.
25 A SSEM BLY
26 DA RING
Down
2 CHOOSE ONES WORDS , anagram.
3 LINKS – first letters of ‘learn in new kids’ school’.
4 STIFFENER – old boy slang for a drink.
5 WELFARE anagram of ‘few real’.
6 R HUM B
7 (W) ALLEYED
8 NONINTERVENTION anagram.
17 F ORB ORE – ‘fore’ being what golfers shout before whacking the ball to warn potential victims of the outgoing missile.
18 RAIL WAY
22 S N EER
10A up line is the line going from the provinces to the metropolis (ie up to London)
12A Ambo is an old pulpit, maybe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulpit
Not a new setter. Audreus a very capable stalwart, and Shed’s mum I think.
Shed’s mum is right – and he often follows on the next day from hers.
Hugely enjoyable puzzle.
10ac: UP LINE is certainly the one going to London, and ‘line’ is ‘queue’ in America, but how does ‘alternative’ give ‘up’?
13ac: ‘Token of love interrupting part of service: touching!’ ??
13ac: ‘Token of love interrupting part of service: touching!’ ??
O (love) in CUP (part of service)+ ON (touching) = COUPON A coupon being a token in that it is used in lieu of money.
10 ac The alternative refers to the queue (ie line) , not to the up; I don’t think it has a double relevance. I found this an unsatisfying clue.
Re 13ac – Coupon – Made all the more difficult by Audreus allowing 3 consecutive unchecked letters, 4 in a six-letter word. Ximenes would not have approved; no more do I.
Thanks Jim for 13ac COUPON
Thanks Simply_Simon for explaining 10ac. I agree not that good a clue.
5 ac – war paint
warp (buckle) + aint (isn’t)
war paint is worn to show defiance.
Apologies – that was in the list but incorrectly numbered, hence my mistake!
In American “queue” = “line up”…does alternative signal reversal?
No one has so far mentioned the slightly duff grid, where 13ac and 19ac have 3 consecutive unchecked letters, and only 2 unchecked out of 6. 19ac was easy but I struggled for ages with 13ac.
Has this grid been used before?
I didn’t do this but the grid sounds like an absolute shocker. I dislike it when lights with odd numbers of letters have just under 50% checking but I think having even numbered lights with so few checked is dreadful. Being a weak solver, my pet hate is weak grids that make solving even harder.