Guardian 24,418 – Taupi

by

Struggled with this for a while, but got there in the end. Several nice clues in here, and nothing too difficult, although I had to guess 13dn and at some of the wordplay.

Across
9 PENINSULA (lines up an)* – took me a while, as I hadn’t heard of “bill” in this sense before.
10 CREDO Originally thought this was C,RE,DO with two uses of “about” and was slightly annoyed – kicked myself when I saw it was C,REDO
11 TWIN,E Nice misleading surface.
12 AUBERGINE AUBERGE around IN
13 SCUTTLE double def – I assume the “basket” half refers to coal scuttles.
17,19,20 STAGE MAN,AGING put this down as an &lit, as “getting on”=AGING seems needed for the definition as well. STAGE=”coach” and MAN=”member of group”, I suppose.
21 LINCTUS Cough medicine if I recall correctly, sounds like “linked us”, us=Guardian
22 S,HATTER
24 LASSITUDE “2’s order reversed” gives SITU IN (deals)*. Clever.
26 TRIAD TAD around RI, but I don’t know where the latter comes from, unless it’s a bit of scRIpture, which seems unlikely
28 STINT double def.
28 TURNTABLE (battle)* around URN
Down
1,24 SPOT,LESS
2 IN SITU (unit is)*
3 INSENTIENT not sure about the wordplay. My best guess – “Sentiment engulfs male so” ~= Sentiment engulfs male IN SENTIENT, i.e. M engulfed IN SENTIENT gives “sentiment”
4 CURARE AR in CURE
5 BARBICAN BAR and BAN, around, presumably, IC = “in charge”
7 BERIBERI BRIBER around E=drug, I=one
8,27 COMEDIES COME=happen, DIE=to go, S[hakespeare]
13 SISAL I in rev(LASS). A fibre used to make rope.
15 STALACTITE cryptic def. I suppose, but I got it only from checking letters.
16 NIGER rev(REGI[o]N)
19 MOSQUITO low=MOO around S[outh], QUIT=part
23 TRILBY I LB in TRY

12 comments on “Guardian 24,418 – Taupi”

  2. 26ac: Over the years, Religious Education in schools has been called, among others, Divinity, Scripture and Religious Instruction {RI} so RI can=Scripture.

    I thought there were some great clues here. Having got 22dn, for instance, I puzzled over ‘shy’ then remembered ‘shy of the mark’. I also got 19dn a while before I ‘got it’. And I liked ‘shred’ in 25dn.

    I don’t really get 3dn though.

  3. TURNTABLE is marvellous, and MOSQUITO made me laugh too.

    I spent a while trying to work out how “Be spare” could be SWIFT, unfortunately, having never heard of the “wading bird” sense of STINT 🙁

  4. “Bill” = “Peninsula” as in Portland Bill, though I must admit I’d never made the connection before now. It’s apparently the same as bill=beak, from the shape.

  5. 13d I took this to be SAL + IS. Giving up = yielding

    We have had sisal as an answer often recently

  6. 29ac TURNTABLE – I agree, brilliant. I was completely fooled by the surface “vessel’s”, so overlooking the record player.

    Similarly with 11ac – “east” hid the verb “wind”. Well, it did for me!

  9. STINT and STILT are both types of wading bird. Add in SWIFT and S-I-T gives quite a choice of birds.

    I think STINT as in a stint in prison would have needed a fuller definition since it’s not as colloquial as stretch, time, etc.

  10. So can anyone better explain (defend the setter on!)3D please.

    Also why is STALACTITE = dependency?

    Finally as someone who’s worked in music and theatre how does STAGE MANAGEMENT = orchestration?

    Thanks as ever

  11. As I said, I put stalactite in only thanks to checking letters – I assumed “dependency” has a meaning similar to “something that hangs down from something else”.

    “orchestration” isn’t a great definition.

    I was really hoping that someone would come along with a better explanation of 3dn..

  12. thanks anyway

    I like that you say it’s not a great definition. Some of the bloggers are a little too deferential to the setters IMHO.

    cheers

Comments are closed.