Solving time: 28:00, over half of which on 1dn, 10ac and 15ac.
I had a good start on this, stalled a little in the middle until I untangled BODICE RIPPER at 22/21dn, and then came to a complete halt on the three starred clues. Got there in the end, although PINK at 10ac was only a semi-educated guess.
I generally like Shed’s clues, although some of the surface readings are a bit strange and there are a few too many superfluous words and other inaccuracies in this puzzle for my liking.
* = anagram.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 7 | NEMATODE; (ATOM)* in rev. of EDEN |
| 9 | OUT SET |
| *10 | PINK (double definition) – I probably spent 6 or 7 minutes on this clue, looking at all the possibilities for the third letter (C, L, N, R, S etc) and postulating an ‘I’ from 1dn. ‘Pink’ as a noun meaning a pink flower rang a small bell, and as I knew that ‘pink had several other meanings (eight separate entries in Chambers!) I went with it – and it turns out that one of those meanings is ‘to stab or pierce’. |
| 11 | INTESTINAL; IN, + rev. of NITS in TEAL |
| 12 | ME(R.M.)AN |
| 14 | TEMPLATE; (PALETTE)* around M |
| *15 | TINT + IN – I don’t know why this took me so long. I thought ‘in’ might give the last two letters but even with a possible ‘T’ from 1dn, all I could see was ‘tannin’. (And I now learn from Chambers that although tannin is used in tanning and occurs in wines, especially red wines, it is actually a colourless substance.) A very good clue though. |
| 17 | BRIGHT[on] – ‘on departure’ seems clumsy. Why not ‘on departing’? |
| 20 | T(R)OPICAL |
| 22 | BITTE + R – ‘bitte’ is German for ‘please’ but not ‘to please’ (which I believe is ‘bitten’) so the ‘to’ in this clue is awkwardly superfluous. I suppose you could argue that it means ‘next to’. |
| 23 | SPELLBOUND; (ELL in PB) in SOUND – tough wordplay. |
| 24 | PUP + A |
| 25 | SEX + TET – the Tet Offensive was part of the Vietnam War. |
| 26 | TICKLISH (double definition) |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| *1 | PE(DIME)NT – not a word I knew and this took me a long time to get. |
| 2 | MARK (double definition) |
| 3 | LOTION; rev. of TO in LION – for this clue to make cryptic sense, you have to read ‘to’ as a plural (i.e. a group of letters) so that ‘to turn up’ makes sense, but this doesn’t feel quite right to me. |
| 4 | GOSSAMER; rev. of MASS in GOER |
| 5 | S(TRIP)LIGHT |
| 6 | RE PAST – I liked this one. |
| 8 | ENTITY; N.T. in [d]EITY |
| 13 | MANIPULATE; rev. of A LUPIN in MATE |
| 16 | INCUBATE; CUBA in (TEN I)* – a premonition of England’s forthcoming match against Trinidad & Tobago, perhaps? |
| 18 | TRES(SPA)S |
| 19 | FL + AUNT – ‘was active’ for FL (standing for ‘floruit’, meaning ‘he flourished’) is pretty difficult. |
| 22/21 | BO(DICER + I)PPER – I had to dissect the wordplay here as I didn’t know the phrase ‘bodice ripper’. |
| 24 | PELT (double definition) – another superfluous ‘to’ here. The ALF is the Animal Liberation Front. |
In 24dn I suppose the “to” is to give a kind of &lit meaning; especially as “What the ALF might do” is not much of a definition on its own.
I guessed that PINK meant “perforate” from knowing about “pinking shears”, which are scissors with a wavy edge, used by dressmakers. And I got TINTIN easily – there had been a Tintin-themed puzzle earlier in the week so the name must have been still in my mind.
Ah, pinking shears – I have heard of those but didn’t think of them. Thanks. And you’re right about 24ac, which I guess is really a straight definition with a pun on ‘fur’ = ‘pelt’.