Good puzzle, tough in places with some word meanings new to me. Found 27A, 16D particularly interesting.
Across
9 INHERITOR IN (RHETORIC – C)*
10 AGUES A(-r)GUES
11 UNTRUTH (-p)UNT (bet) RUTH (girl)
12 ALAMEDA A LAME (hobbling) DA (father, dialect form of ‘dad’). Chambers defines ALAMEDA as ‘a public walk esp between rows of poplars’.
13 LIP dd, good one!
14 STIMULATORS T in SIMULATORS
17 OCHRE (CHORE)*
18 SAC hidden in ‘kangarooS ACcelerate’
19 GLEAN A (last of ‘flora’) in GLEN (valley)
21 PHRASAL VERB (RAVELS + B + HARP)* Nicely done anagram.
23 EWE hidden in ‘adversE WEather’
25 SPANGLE SPAN (spread) GLE (move ‘g’ of ‘leg’)
27 CLATTER (RATTLE + C)* Unusual clue, a sort of &lit (?) [CGR and Gaufrid point out a simpler explanation: C + LATTER (succeeding)]
28 TRIBE cd
29 CHASSEING CHASSE (liquer taken after coffee) ING (GIN)*
Down
1 RITUAL (U + TRIAL)* ‘order’ as in, prescribed form of service/ceremony
2 CHUTZPAH CH (child) (PUT + HAZ)* ‘mouth’ = insolence
3 FRAUDSTERS FRAU(D)S (women around dime) TERS (REST)*
4 ITCH (-b)ITCH
5 GREAT UNCLE I had entered GRAND UNCLE at first, had to revise it when 12A got stuck.
6 RAJA JAR (drink) reversed A
7 TUPELO PUT reversed ELO (LEO)*
8 ASSASSIN ASS (backside) (-l)ASS (girl with no top) I N. Not happy about two tops off (4D, 8D) in the same puzzle! [Clue# corrected. Thanks Katherine]
15 INSOLVENCY cd, although I’m not sure I’m reading this clue right. insolvency is bankruptcy, but is it the same as ‘administration failure’?
16 ALGEBRAIST cd. ‘numbers’ in the broader sense of mathematics.
17 OPPOSITE (PIPE SOOT)*
20 ELECTRIC dd
22 ROADIE (RADIO)* E
24 ENRAGE (GREEN + A)* Another well-crafted anagram.
26 GLEE G (good) LEE (boy) Last one to go into the grid, I couldn’t get GLAD out of my head.
27 CHAV CHA (tea) V (dash of violet) New word for me again, ‘chav’ refers to the ignorant working class.
I thought 27ac was C (initial letter of ‘conduct’ + LATTER (following)
7d ASSASSIN: I liked the novel treatment of the word (without fools rushing in) and I have no objection to toplessness however repetitive it is.
My anno for 22d would be (RADIO)*, E
I didn’t get 28a as I too put in GLAD at 26d and was yet to reconsider it.
Hi Shuchi
27a I parsed this in the same way as Rishi, i.e. C[onduct] LATTER (succeeding).
15d I also have a question mark against this clue, and would have preferred to have seen one at the end of it since a failure by the administration can lead to insolvency but this is not necessarily always the case.
Thanks for your comments. I see now that 27A has a simpler explanation – though the wordplay does work the way I read it too!
22D: Yes, an oversight while blogging. I’ll fix that, thanks.
What about 7d? – the one labelled above is actually 8d.
Katherine
7d is TUPELO – PUT reversed *(LEO)
Good stuff today, although 29A was new to me.
I had no problem with 15D. If a concern is “in administration” (or the administrators are called in) then it’s usually because of insolvency. Perhaps I’m too familiar with this as the football team I support has been in such a status for the last few seasons!
My question of the day is 3D. Is Fraus a legitimate, anglicized plural? Shouldn’t, strictly speaking, it be Frauen?
Hi Smiffy
3d Both Chambers and COED give frauen as the plural but Collins has frauen or fraus.
I very much enjoyed a number of the clues here, including 2d and both of 4 and 7 down.
I struggled with 3d both because “fraus” never would have occurred to me and I thought “out of” meant to take W (for women) “out of” a word meaning “a little money,” whereas here it means “outside of.” In the same clue, I think “a little money” more likely refers to D=penny. I’ve never heard D=dime, and can’t find it in any of the dictionaries.
16d I understood as follows: if you solve the algebraic expression 2x=10, you are calculating that the “number” of the letter x is 5.
Hi Agentzero, you’re probably right about D=penny, I got ‘dime’ from dictionary.com. Your reading for 16D looks good too.
A really good puzzle. Good mix of straightforward and challenging clues. I managed to solve all of it except 6d and 12a. I am kicking myself for not getting 6d but am not upset about 12a as ALAMEDA is a new word for me. I have never done a FLIMSY puzzle before but if all of his/her puzzles are as good as this I definitely want to do more in future. Well done FLIMSY!