Everything typically elegant and natural today.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | FEAT HERB RAINED — One of the signs of a good charade clue is that the long word is split into components that are not themselves suggested by the word. At first I wasn’t sure about ‘on’ and it looked like one of those rather cumbersome link-words that is there only for the wordplay, but in fact I think it’s just ‘rained’ = ‘poured water on’ — just |
| 8 | DR OP I N |
| 9 | ARMY ANTS — (many rats)* |
| 10 | FA(L LSO)FF |
| 11 | IN CANS |
| 12 | REP ENT{r}ANCE — this film‘s English title |
| 14 | B ASH |
| 16 | laST YEar |
| 17 | CO(L LATER)AL |
| 19 | FA(THE)R |
| 21 | CHARTIST — refers to Da Vinci’s Mappamundi |
| 23 | WIND DOWN — 2 defs |
| 24 | A STRID{e} |
| 25 | THE WEAKEST LINK — (he{c}k Kate Winslet)*, ‘being’ a noun |
| Down | |
| 1 | FIRM A (MEN) T |
| 2 | APPAL — “a Paul” |
| 3 | HANG-OUT — 2 defs I think — seems a bit loose and perhaps I’m missing something |
| 4 | ROAD-FUND LICENCE — (red could finance)* |
| 5 | R O MAINE |
| 6 | IRASCIBLE — (Blair sic {on}e)* |
| 7 | ELTON — L in (note)rev, ref Ben Elton and Elton John |
| 13 | EYE SHADOW — “I” S(HAD)OW |
| 15 | SLAPSTICK — (pals)rev stick |
| 17 | CORDOBA — (cab door)* |
| 18 | ADAM ANT |
| 20 | chAP IS Handling |
| 22 | T{a}U{n}T{s} TI{me} |
Yes, excellent from Dac, not too difficult. You’re right about HANG-OUT which I thought was very good. The ? gives it a cryptic definition element, I’d think.
I didn’t understand 21ac. I thought it was CH + artist but I couldn’t justify the CH. I’m not convinced by the mappa mundi explanation – there are much better known cartographers than da Vinci, e.g. Mercator.
I thought it might be CH = church artist, but then thought John may be right, though not very familiar with it all.
I wasn’t sure about 21ac either but I think Nmsindy’s idea seems likely to me. It explains why the “by implication” bit is in there.
Having double-checked that Da Vinci wasn’t actually from Switzerland, I agree that John’s explanation for 21 Ac is the only feasible one. I also thoughht for a while that Eton is a bishopric, having been completely fooled by the ‘see’ and the ambiguous ‘stand-up’ of 7 Dn! Crafty bit of misdirection there from Dac.