A gentle mental workout today with nothing too difficult though the proverb at 14,18 is probably not one of the most well-known. 29a was nicely misleading and had me trying to think of a homophone of ‘Quito’ for a (very) short while.
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Across
1 ISABEL IS AB (sailor) EL (the, in Spanish)
5 IMPUDENT IMP (devil) [st]UDENT (undergraduate throwing stone)
9 SWEETSOP SWEETS[h]OP (husband leaving place selling confectionary)
10 RENOWN E (east) in RN (our sailors) OWN (have)
11 FERRET RR (bishop) in FEET (walkers)
12 RANDOLPH *(ARNOLD) PH (public house) – Thomas Randolph, 17th century English poet
14,18 HANDSOME IS AS HANDSOME DOES HANDSOME (striking) I (one) SAS HANDSOME (good-looking) DOES (females)
22 TARTUFFE TAR (sailor) TUFFE[t] (footstool briefly)
25 SALLOW ALL (everything) in SOW (pig)
26 BANNER dd
27 NOISETTE SETT (badger’s earth) in *(ONE I)
28 MENSWEAR MEN (husbands) SWEAR (use four letter words)
29 ESTATE E (Ecuador’s capital) STATE (say)
Down
2 SAW RED *(WADERS)
3 BEE ORCHID OR (soldiers) in BEECH (tree) I (one) [almon]D
4,5 LAST TANGO IN PARIS d&cd
6 PERON *(PRONE)
7 DINGO DIN (row) GO (shot)
8 NEWSPEAK NEWS (noteworthy information) PEAK (summit)
13 DEE DEE[p] (far from shallow for the most part)
15 MOONSHINE dd
16 INSOLVENT V[odka] in INSOLENT (rude)
17 CARAPACE CAR (vehicle) APACE (quickly)
19 SOU SOU[p] (starter not quite)
20 ELEANOR *(ONE REAL)
21 TOMTIT M[illet] in TOT (young child) IT
23 TUNIS I (one) in TUNS (casks)
24 FORTE T[sunami] in FORE (warning)
Hi Gaufrid – thanks for the blog.
As you say, nothing too taxing. I think the ‘proverb’ [I’d call it more of a saying – it’s not particularly profound] is reasonably well-known but I wasn’t very impressed by the clue. In a long answer like this, it’s usual to have some elaborate wordplay: to clue ‘handsome’ as ‘striking’ and then ‘good-looking’, with SAS already supplied, is rather weak, I thought.
However, there were some nice surfaces: 1, 28, 29ac, 16dn.
Just one more niggle, re 5ac: there are postgraduate students, too.
I too think the proverb is well-known. I don’t remember in which context but just a few days ago this came to my mind.