A tough, but generally fair, puzzle from Monk today. I was held up briefly by entering a wrong (but I thought justifiable) answer at 8d which meant that 10a was not as obvious as it should have been. The use of foreign words as part of the wordplay seems to be on the increase. Recently, in various publications, we have had the customary French plus German and Italian and today we have Spanish. I did not know prior to today that ‘here’ in Spanish is ‘aqui’ so it is fortunate that I did know that Aquila is the golden eagle genus or, as in this case, a constellation.
Across
1 WARFARIN WAR[m] (tepid) FARIN[a] (meal)
6 SMARMY SM (sergeant-major) ARMY (his employers) – it is a pity that the incorrect spelling of ‘sergeant’ got through the proofreading process and ‘his employers’ should have been ‘his employer’
9 MORASS MO[o]R (half-hearted Arab) ASS (fool)
10 SHAMROCK SHAM (fake) ROCK (diamond)
11 SNUB BUNS (cakes) reversed
12 UNRIVALLED cd – a reference to Captain Absolute in Sheridan’s ‘The Rivals’
14 ASSYRIAN AS (for instance) SYRIAN (from Damascus)
16 NOUS NOUS (we, Monk and FT solvers, in French)
18 DOWN dd
19 CHAIRMAN CH (chief) AIRMAN (pilot)
21 ADRENALINE I (one) in *(LEND AN EAR)
22 ORGY hidden reversal in ‘BloomsburY GROup’
24 FLAPJACK LAP (drink) in F (small feminine) JACK (chap)
26 AQUILA AQUI (here, in Spanish) LA (note)
27 EXODUS EX (former) SUDO[ku] (puzzle more than half) reversed
28 NEST-EGGS [i]N[t]E[n]S[i]T[y] EGGS (urges)
Down
2 ADORN A DO (a party) RN (sailors)
3 FLAMBOYANCE *(FALCON MAYBE)
4 RASPUTIN S (spades) PUT (placed) in RAIN (bucket)
5 NO SPRING CHICKEN SPRING (jump) in NO CHICKEN (not at all cowardly) – for me, ‘having’ is not a good insertion indicator
6 STARVE R[ound] in STAVE (bar)
7 AIR [m]AI[l] [p]R[y]
8 MOCTEZUMA *([s]UMMO[n] AZTEC) – my first entry was MONTEZUMA *([s]UMMON AZTE[c]) – either of two Aztec emperors
13 LUNAR MODULE cd
15 SPONDULIX *(POUNDS) LIX (homophone of ‘licks’)
17 RABELAIS BAR reversed ALE reversed IS – François Rabelais, French writer
20 HARASS HAR[m] (most of injury) ASS (donkey)
23 GULAG U[nnatura]L in GAG (silence)
25 PUD [s]PUD (top vegetable)
Hi Gaufrid – and thanks for the blog.
I did exactly the same as you with 8dn – I didn’t know the alternative spelling – then wondered why I hadn’t got the simple 10ac on the first run-through.
I thought initially that 12ac was not much of a clue, then remembered Jack Absolute in time.
I know this is a common grouse but, before seeing 2dn, I confidently put in BUNS for 11ac, because that’s what the clue seemed [to me] clearly to indicate.
I got 13dn a few moments before ‘mare’ made sense – great clue!
Hello Gaufrid
10ac was my first answer so I didn’t suffer with 8dn (though I needed the five across clues to work out what part of the “summon Aztec” I needed to withdraw.
26ac – Aquila wasn’t so much of a challenge as it was an answer in yesterday’s Dante also.
And well done Monk – every letter of the alphabet incorporated into a most accessible puzzle!