*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Pass round the hat: CD based on Panama hats. |
| 9 | Carafe: Hidden, reversed in “brief a racehorse”. |
| 10 | Twenties: (newest it)*. |
| 11 | Sevens: Even in s[emifinal]s. I think sevens is a variant of Rugby, although it may be other things as well. |
| 13 | Airstrip: Air + s + trip. |
| 14 | Tropic of Cancer: Topic around R[ouen] + (co France)*. |
| 16 | Slap on the wrist: “Naughty, naughty – it should be on the face!” Not entirely sure how to interpret this one. It’s a sort of CD, although there’s no clear-cut definition of the answer. Possibly the hyphen is meant to signify a missing expression as in (“naughty, naughty, slap on the wrist”), although I’d have preferred something a bit more obvious. The second part refers to make-up (also called slap derisively). |
| 19 | Tone down: Didn’t follow this – “Moderate distance from A to B ? Quite the reverse”. Moderate is the definition, but don’t understand the rest. |
| 20 | Settle: Double def (Settle is a town and presumably parliamentary seat in Yorkshire). |
| 22 | Stealing: Sing around teal. |
| 23 | Storey: Store + [polic]y. |
| 24 | Armed to the teeth: I think this is (Meet the horde at T)*, where presumably T can be an abbreviation for Troy in the sense of Troy weights. |
| Down | |
| 2 | Amateur: T in Rameau*. |
| 3 | Stake: DD. |
| 4 | Ode: Hom. of “owed”. |
| 5 | Not half: DD. |
| 6 | Tiebreakers: (Arbiter seek[s])*. |
| 7 | Estate car: Race< after (a test)*. |
| 8 | Atelier: Hidden in “frigate lie rusting”. |
| 12 | Sociologist: Solo around IOC* + gist. |
| 15 | Place Name: (Nepal came)* + &lit. |
| 16 | Stouter: T[id]e in Stour. |
| 17 | Tonight: Tot around nigh – very nice and rather cute clue. |
| 18 | Salient: (At lines)*.This was very tricky unless you’d heard of the Ypres Salient, as the natural assumption was that the anagram was “at Ypres” or ry after ypres* |
| 21 | T bone: Tone around b + hom. of stake. |
| 23 | Sue: [Is]sue. |
19d: If we think music, we see how it works, I think.
Hi Neal
19a If you go from A to B on the musical scale you go up a tone. ‘Quite the opposite’ indicates the reverse ie ‘tone down’.
I think 20a is a triple definition:
‘Take up residence’ = settle
‘in Yorkshire’ = Settle (the town)
‘seat’ = settle (a long, high-backed bench)
Found this hard to get into though I may just have been suffering a mental block as when I did get going I got about half fairly quickly.
I’m not really sure what ‘Stake’ has to do with ‘Martyrdom’. I guess you can get burnt at the stake? Or staking someone could cause them to suffer… Seems a little fuzzy to me. Hmm… Wheres that dictionary…
Chambers has this to say on STAKE:
a post to which someone condemned to be burned was tied (history);
hence, death or martyrdom by burning
I solved this one online quite late last night due to all the bother at home, and perhaps I was NOT IN THE MOOD, but I couldn’t get comfortable with the way this setter writes. That’s not my general experience with Indy puzzles, as anyone who reads my rather amateurish contributions will know.
One thing I do know is that Troy does abbreviate to T in Chmabers, for one dictionary, so I agree with Neal it’s how ‘armed to the teeth’ worked.