The usual impressive offering from Dac, full of simply-constructed but very satisfactory clues. One or two I can’t quite explain, and one or two words that were new to me.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | S WELTERED – I suspected this to be the answer from an early stage, but had hardly heard the word ‘weltered’ |
| 6 | AN GEL |
| 9 | THEOREM – (mal)e in mother* |
| 10 | OR(BIT)AL |
| 11 | chapATTI Plain – hidden rev. I wasn’t sure about ‘rolls’ to indicate the reversal. |
| 12 | DISCO M(usic) F IT |
| 13 | REINSTATEMENT – not absolutely sure about this: I think the def. is simply ‘Restoration’ and it’s rein, then “meant” next to (‘by’) state |
| 16 | BUTTERFINGERS – but (first green)* |
| 20 | CHARACTER – M is not only a character in Bond films but a letter or character |
| 22 | N(OR)SE – am never very comfortable with these clues that vaguely ask you to find a random selection of quarters (sometimes it’s notes, not quarters) |
| 23 | RAKE SUP |
| 24 | ENTRUST – nutters*, although ‘entrust’ and ‘commend’ aren’t very close synonyms |
| 25 | welcomES TOPers |
| 26 | S(US)PENDER |
| Down | |
| 1 | SET A(P(ersonal) A(ssistant))RT |
| 2 | ELECTRIC BLANKET – a CD I think, although ‘allowance’ may have some significance that I can’t see – it only seems to be there to help the surface |
| 3 | TARTARS – if you have a tar (1) and tars (at least 2) you have at least 3 |
| 4 | RE MEDIA TE(rm) – not a word I’d ever heard and not evidently one that Chambers gives in this sense, but it’s in the COD |
| 5 | D(iana) ROSS – Diana Ross played Billie Holiday in the 1972 film |
| 6 | A(MB)ROSE – which reminds me, there’s a one-day international on the radio. Rain. |
| 7 | GET OFF THE GROUND – 2 defs, I suppose one of them saying “get off” (= play, achieve) “the ground” (the ground-bass) |
| 8 | LOLITA – o in (a till)rev., &lit. |
| 14 | ENFORCERS – not sure I get this: it seems to be def. ‘police officers?’, f(ine) in corners* (anagram indicated by ‘tight’), all after E(nglish), but this doesn’t seem quite right: what is ‘introduced’ doing? |
| 15 | ASSENTOR – senators* |
| 17 | TEARS UP – pasture* – a niggling criticism of the grid: there are two similarly shaped answers at 17dn and 23ac |
| 18 | NANETTE – a small version of ‘nan’, as it were |
| 19 | SCAR(FA)CE – but ‘taken out by gangster’ means ‘taking out gangster’, which seems wrong |
| 21 | TAPAS – a in (spat)rev. – I thought ‘tapas’ was more dishes than dish |
Tapas means a snack, which in Spain is a small appetizer that comes free with your drink, but in UK tapas bars is more what Spaniards would call ‘raciones’ – smallish plates of stuff you pay for. Either way, dish is not quite right as a definition, I agree.
I think 19dn works fine though – FA is taken out by SCARFACE, in the sense that if I take out my false teeth they are no longer in me (hypothetical example only!)
I liked 5 down and 18 down. And 26 ac, very nicely worded.
Enjoyable puzzle from Dac, with easy wordplay for less familiar words. I read 7 down as Start = get off the ground (fairly common usage) and finish playing = e.g. football players leaving the field
Mick, I’m not surprised you found 18D to your taste after yesterday’s GAZETTE! (I liked them both too)
I don’t think I have many quibbles with this puzzle at all. I thought that “commend” and ENTRUST are pretty close synonyms
given that one definition of “commend” is “To commit to the care of another; entrust”. I agree about 22A though as it’s a bugbear of mine.
In 11Ac, I see no problem with ‘rolls’ as a reversal indicator, but surely here it needs to take the plural form ‘roll’ in order to be grammatically compatible with ‘chunks’ in the cryptic reading?
Might the ‘M’ referred to in 20Ac be the Fritz Lang film from 1930 starring Peter Lorre?