What’s Phi doing on a Wednesday? There must be something devious lined up for Mayday on Friday, and no doubt we’ll be seeing Dac on Saturday. Or perhaps he just needs a holiday, for he certainly deserves one. In any case his sub today has maintained the usual Wednesday high standard with a good crossword that I found fairly easy, but which every now and then I perhaps didn’t fully appreciate.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | BISH(op) |
| 3 | NAUTICAL — (a lunatic)*, nice &lit. |
| 10 | THE AFRICAN QUEEN — 1 in (each infrequent)* |
| 11 | W(HERE FOR)E |
| 12 | natIONAlists |
| 13 | NERDISH — (hinders)* — I’m never quite comfortable with the equivalence of an adjective and a phrase like “being irritating”, but perhaps it’s just “irritating” and the “being” is merely padding |
| 15 | SH(A BB)Y |
| 17 | V I NOUS — but I’m not absolutely sure why: “vinous” means “relating to wine”, but is this the same as “drunk?”? |
| 19 | DOUB(LE)T |
| 20 | AC(N)E — what a good clue |
| 21 | POWERPLAY — (lawyer Pop)* — my first thought was that a powerplay was a word coined by the one-day cricket administrators and so was only tenuously pressure on defence, but a look in Chambers confirms that Phi has it absolutely right: “strong attacking play designed to put pressure on the defence, …” |
| 24 | WHERE EAGLES DARE — (see warhead glee)* around r{egiment} |
| 25 | BAKER LOO — for non-Brits, a line on the London Underground, and a little joke |
| 26 | H{eavil}Y P{romot}E — very clever |
| Down | |
| 1 | BOTSWANA — (wasn’t)* in boa |
| 2 | SUED E |
| 4 | AMADEUS — not absolutely sure I’m seeing everything here: OK Amadeus was Mozart’s second name, and there’s “A” for “one” and “made us” for “got us”, but “a fortune?”?… |
| 5 | TEQUILA SUNRISE — (tisane liqueurs)* |
| 6 | CHER(NO B)YL |
| 7 | LYNX — “links” |
| 8 | A FLEA IN ONE’S EAR — (none safe aerial)* |
| 9 | KIBOSH — (bish OK), bish being the answer to 1 Across |
| 14 | {b}RAIN CHECK — but how is a rain check a further engagement, when it seems only to be a ticket to a delayed engagement? |
| 16 | ETHYLENE — (then lye)* e{ngagement} |
| 18 | SOPRANO — “so piano” with r for i |
| 19 | DIWALI — (1 law I’d)rev. |
| 22 | LO AMY |
| 23 | SWAB — (baw{l}s)rev. |
Re 4 down, I think it’s in the sense ‘that lottery win made us’.
In NERDISH, ‘being’ is a link, I’d say, which also helps the surface reading.
Dac may deserve a holiday, but I’m not sure if the Indy pays for them…
Unfortunately not, Nmsindy. Dac generously offered to take a holiday to allow me to accommodate other setters, but I wouldn’t hear of it. He’ll be in the paper some time this week.