Nice puzzle from The Editor with an appropriate Nina for a puzzle that appeared the day after that amazing opening ceremony in Beijing: in the unchecked letters on the grid perimeter we see CITIUS,ALTIUS,FORTIUS (the Olympic motto meaning “faster, higher, stronger”) and OLYMPIC.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 8 | C,O,C in (TENOR)* – CONCERTO. Cleverly done, with an excellent surface reading. |
| 10 | I,(MUD) in OPEN – OPIUM DEN. |
| 11 | LE VELO (reversed) |
| 13 | SHIFT KEY – excellent cryptic definition. I especially liked “Case worker” (because the SHIFT KEY changes a letter’s case). |
| 17 | (OF MALTS)* – FLOTSAM. |
| 20 | INFER,[-d]IOR |
| 22 | M in SCRIP – a SCRIP is a provisional share certificate issued before a formal one is drawn up. |
| 24 | UT,URNS – filled this in fairly quickly as the enumeration gave it away for me but I didn’t understand why UT = Do. Just looked it up and UT is the syllable that used to indicate the first note of a scale, like do (or doh). |
| 26 | SPITFIRE – “crate” is slang for a decrepit car or plane. |
| 27 | ASTI in MC |
| Down | |
| 1 | L in COUPE – clever use of “item” as the definition (as in “they’re an item”). |
| 2 | IMP[-r]UDENT |
| 3 | TRAD,E[-p]S |
| 5 | (C[-or]IOLANUS)* – UNSOCIAL. I’m not sure why the definition is “a bad job?” Something to do with unsocial hours? But that wouldn’t necessarily make it bad would it? |
| 6 | SELE[-s],CT – the former tennis star is Monica Seles. |
| 9 | (ASH TREE)* – THERESA May, the MP as opposed to Teresa May, who’s a glamour model. Apparently. So a friend told me anyway. |
| 15 | WIN,GTI,P |
| 16 | MAINSAIL – Spooner would say “sane mail”. |
| 18 | I,I in US MART (going up) – TIRAMISU. “Dessert from Italy” would work as the definition but “Italy repeatedly” is part of the wordplay. |
| 22 | IM,ALAS (going up) |
| 23 | MO(RR)IS |