Something must have been right with the world this morning because I raced through this in a little over 20 minutes. The same thing happened with Nimrod’s recent Saturday puzzle, all of which means I’m hopefully getting more accustomed to his style. Experience of solving (and, as of late, trying to compile) Listener-type puzzles was a definite help with some wordplay, e.g. R for ‘take’ in 8A and ‘up’ as an anagrind in 12A. Some very nice clues in here too, so an enjoyable distraction from the madness that is London public transport on a Tube strike day.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | TRANSVESTITE – S in (VAT + INTEREST)* – ‘Basque infiltrator’ is a very nice definition |
| 8 | CHIRRUP – CH,I,Rx2,UP – R is used as an abbreviation for the Latin recipe (I think!) |
| 9 | POULENC – N in (COUPLE)* |
| 11 | USURPER – P in USURER |
| 12 | SPIRAEA – 1 in (PEARS)*,A – ‘Up’ in this sense means ‘in an excited state’. I seem to remember learning that from Azed |
| 13 | APERY – [-p]APER,[-stor]Y |
| 14 | ENIGMATIC – (ACE TIMING)* |
| 16 | IN THE SOUP – (HOUSE)* in (PINT)* |
| 19 | GRASS – Initial letters of Get Ready And Somethin’ Stupid |
| 21 | NEEDLES – Double def. |
| 23 | LUSTRAL – LUST,R[-eligious],A,L |
| 24 | LEAFIER – FIE in LEAR |
| 25 | TORPEDO – R,P.E in TO-DO |
| 26 | LYSERGIC ACID – (GAY CLERIC’S)*,I.D |
| Down | |
| 1 | TRIBUNE – RIB in TUNE |
| 2 | ATROPHY – A,TROPHY |
| 3 | SUPERHERO – (EUROPE[-an] HRS)* |
| 4 | EXPOS – EX,P.Os |
| 5 | TOURISM – This looks to be OUR,IS,M, but not sure where the T comes from |
| 6/10 | THE LAST CHANCE SALOON – A in (CAN ONE CALL THE SHOTS TOO)* – Lovely stuff |
| 7/17 | OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY – Cryptic def. |
| 15 | IMPOLITIC – IT in I’M POLIC[-e] |
| 18 | EEL-LIKE – KILLE[-r] rev. in Ex2 |
| 19 | GASTRIC – (TAR CIGS)* |
| 17 | NARRATE – RAT in [-s]NARE |
| 20 | AIRHEAD – RHEA in AID |
| 22 | SHRUG – Cryptic def. |
5 down is, I think, RI in TO US. I found this easier than usual for Nimrod too.