Silly me, I forgot that I’d be nowhere near a PC all day today, so I set about solving this one online at midnight in a bid to get it blogged before bed. As I write/post this, I’ve no idea who the setter is, but it was done and dusted by 12.20am, with no major probs along the way. There’s no Nina that I can see, so I’m guessing it might be Dac. There are some fairly odd/obscure answers in the bottom half though, which always makes me wary, so I’ll have an each-way side bet on it being a Virgilius special that’s gone over my head.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | HEARTY – Double def – As in “Ahoy, me hearty” | |
| 4 | SWAPPING – S,WAPPING – Cheeky, as Wapping is in the East End! | |
| 9 | NEPALI – I,LA,PEN rev. | |
| 10 | GRUESOME – [-corps]E in (MORGUES)* – A nice &lit | |
| 12 | GET AROUND – GET A ROUND! | |
| 14 | INTELLIGENT – IN,”telly”,GENT | |
| 18 | GO TO THE WALL | |
| 21 | OVETT – O,VET,T | |
| 22 | EARLIER ON – (NEAR LOIRE)* | |
| 24 | CHAPATTI – CHAP,ATTI[-c] | |
| 26 | SCHILLER – S,CHILLER | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | HANDGRIP – HAND,GRIP | |
| 2 | AMPUTATE – “Cut off” is the definition here, but not sure about the wordplay | |
| 3 | TILER – RELIT rev. | |
| 5 | WORLD BEATERS – (WAR BOLSTERED)* | |
| 6 | PRESENTEE – PRESENT,E,E | |
| 7 | IMOGEN – MOG,[saf]E in IN | |
| 11 | MUSIC THEATRE – (ARTISTE MUCH,E)* | |
| 15 | LIGHT RAIL – LIGHT (get off),RAIL (complain) | |
| 16 | MARRIAGE – RI (Rhode Island) in MARGE (Homer’s better half) | |
| 17 | ALAN LADD – I’m guessing that ‘visiting’ is the container indicator here, giving us LAND in A LAD | |
| 19 | DORCAS – Hidden in fooD OR CASh – Had never seen this word before – “in the Bible (Acts 9.36), the name of a woman famous for good works” says Chambers | |
| 20 | PESACH – S in PEACH – aka Passover | |
2dn is PUT in A MATE.
It’s a DAC.
The wordplay for 17 is A,LAN(LAD)D I think.
I was slightly unconvinced about handgrip. I assume it’s help=hand, member of (film) crew=grip, but that leaves bag=handgrip. I would have thought a handgrip was part of a bag, rather than the whole thing. Alternatively, the definition is “to get bag”, which means handgrip being used as a verb and I’ve never heard of that before.
Thinking about it some more, I suppose it must be a definition based on what the object does, as in “I’m used to get bag”.
I think the wordplay for handgrip is:
def. is help. (a handgrip helps one to get a hold on something)
member of a crew is: hand, and a bag is a grip.
Handgrip confused me at first too, but Collins and COED confirmed that it is also a name for a bag.