Quite an easy puzzle from Phi, I thought, getting quite a bit from definitions, verifying wordplay later. Solving time, 15 mins.
* = anagram < = reversed
1 TIME S H(E)ET
6 STUB Buts< Was doubtful at first as to which was the answer but a closer reading made it clear “Objections after (my emphasis) returning”
10 PAR (FORTH) E COURSE Got this straightaway from definition and enumeration. A river I’ll see this weekend.
11 STI(n)G MA
12 HE (LID E) CK Nice to work out a new word from the wordplay as I did here, once I’d the crossing letters.
14 LE M ((c) ON CUR) D Definition: spread
15 SET-TO Hidden reversal
16 TI (BE) T
18 I (GUANO) DON This came up recently in a Nimrod puzzle I think, when I misspelt it, so I’d no problems this time.
20 A NAPA EST (is in French) Foot from poetry
21 A (R) N OLD
24 GRANULATED SUGAR (Urged natural gas)*
25 CROW(d) Excellent surface
26 DYSPEPTIC D (Cit (PEP) y’s)< Personal Equity Plan
DOWN
1 TAP A S
2 MAR (XIS) M six<
3 STORM IN A TEACUP (Opens traumatic)* Another I got straightaway from definition and enumeration.
4 ERTé Hidden
5 TRE (ME) ND OU’S Open University
7 TOR RENT
8 BREAK DOWN
9 ROBINS ON CRUSOE (course)*
13 MUSIC STAND Cryptic definition
14 LETHARGIC (The garlic)* Very good
17 BRAVA DO Brava = excellent (addressed to a female cf bravo) “Soprano’s excellent party, offering daring stuff” Not very familiar with operas or sopranos so not quite sure why.
19 DROUGHT hidden
22 D(I)RAC Physicist (racing) card<
23 MEWS Tricky – means the sound of cats and you might hear whinnies there (sounds of horses) i.e. in the stables so double definition.
17d: ‘Soprano’s excellent’: maybe because BRAVA is ‘excellent’ in Italian and ‘soprano’ is Italian?
A soprano is (generally) a female singer which would then give BRAVA rather than BRAVO.
I wonder is Phi has just read the newly published biography of Paul Dirac. Nice to see him appear in a puzzle.
Thanks, Colin, that possibility did occur to me so, before posting the blog, I looked up ‘soprano’ in dicts but no indication that a soprano was female was given – as you say, this may be because it’s usually but not exclusively the case.
Wikipedia, for what it’s worth, suggests that soprano is typically a female voice with various other terms usually used to refer to a male soprano. I guess terms like this are always debatable.
Wikipedia entry for soprano
If I was talking about male sopranos, I’d use counter-tenor. In the general SATB usage (as given by Chambers’ abbreviations) it’s a female voice.
Dirac – I’d noted the biog, but I think I must do Bohr first. Dirac is undoubtedly a fascinating and peculiar character, as Segre’s book on the Copenhagen conferences makes clear (can’t remember its title, nor put an acute accent on the author’s last e).
Many years ago, at the start of my scientific career and at the very very end of his, I did attend a lecture by Dirac.
26ac: I’m not sure the parsing in the blog is correct, since it would give dsypeptic. Isn’t it d (cit(peps)y)rev.?
6ac: Doesn’t it depend on whether ‘returning’ is transitive or intransitive? The clue as written could lead to either, which in my opinion is unsatisfactory.
26 ac – You’re perfectly right, Wil, thanks.