This appeared in the IoS on the day that Don Manley’s guide to cryptic crosswords was given out free with the paper. I thought perhaps some of those new solvers might turn to this puzzle (Quixote being Don’s Indy pseudonym), but it’s more likely they’d look at the puzzles in the guide itself.
Maybe just as well because I found this extremely hard by Quixote standards, got there in the end though, solving time 38 mins.
* = anagram < = reversal
ACROSS
1 SAP PH O have not seen that PH = measure of acidity for a while.
4 SEN D UP Democratic Unionist Party (in the news just now in London as well as NI)
7 I’M PERFECT The imperfect tense (grammar)
9 GORE cf OGRE
11 ASTATINE (sea taint)* Very subtle. The definition is At (the chemical symbol for Astatine)
12 WIND ER Another very tricky one. ‘times’ refers to winding watches, I think. Been a while since I did that.
14 UN H ITCH
15 Greta GARB(o)
17 TEST Hidden
19 ART IS T(h)E not sure about ‘is’ = ‘needs to be’ acquired by, but it has to be right
21 SIT-IN G Very good
23 TURN E D ON
25 BASE Double definition
26 TYR (ANN IS) E
27 D (ES) IRE Es a bit of a cliche by now tu es (French) = thou art (‘you are’ in an older guise) so es = French art
28 MAO RIS< Very tough, my second last entry
DOWN
1 SEMOLINA (a lemon is)* Not had that as a dessert for a good while.
2 PEE RED Doesn’t bear thinking about
3 HU(e) FF as in ‘hue and cry’, I think
4 SET Double definition
5 DOGFIGHT Excellent pun on ‘boxers’
6 PARSE C c = speed of light (maximum speed) as in e = mXc(squared)
8 C (consulted initially) ASE HISTORY (so hysteria)*
10 C ASTLES (slates)*
13 RU S(players finally) TIER
16 BA (RR) IERS (Serbia)*
19 SYNOP SIS Pony’s<
20 ST (R) AND
22 TANNER A for E in tenner – A and E are both musical notes. And, yes, if you can remember back that far, there were 2 tanners (sixpence) in a shilling, and 20 shillings in a pound so a tanner is 1/400th of a tenner. Phew! This was the last clue I solved – it crossed 28 ac. But it lives on in football speak e.g. on Sky ‘he can turn on a sixpence’. I like asking younger people if they understand that – no one has yet so I explain it was a very small coin.
Maybe I was in a slightly more inventive mood. I remember constructing a dislocated grid just because I felt like it, and maybe I was in that sort of a mood with the clues. The timing of this puzzle with the booklet was pure coincidence.