Lovely stuff as ever from Dac, and pleasingly not too difficult to solve post-midnight
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | RUSTLE – ST. in RULE |
| 4 | TAFFRAIL – A,FF in TRAIL |
| 9 | SARONG – SA,”Wrong” |
| 10 | SCHEDULE – “Shed Yule” |
| 12 | BACON AND EGGS – Double def. It’s a ‘birdsfoot trefoil’, so says Chambers |
| 15 | CANNONEER – ONE in ANNE, all in CR |
| 17 | TAHOE – O in (HATE)* |
| 18 | ELSIE – E + 1 in LSE |
| 19 | LAGER TOPS – SPOT REGAL rev. |
| 20 | STAGE MANAGER – NAME rev. in STAGGER |
| 24 | EMIGRANT – E.M.I GRANT |
| 25 | UNDONE – Hidden in foUND ONEself |
| 26 | FAMISHED – A.M in FISHED |
| 27 | PAST IT – (PITTA’S)* |
| Down | |
| 1 | RUST BUCKET – R,(TUBE STUCK)* |
| 2 | SPRUCENESS – SPRUCE,NESS |
| 3 | LENIN – LE,[-natio]N,IN |
| 5 | ANCIEN REGIME – (IN GREECE MAIN)* |
| 6 | FREIGHTER – I think this is a double def. |
| 7 | ARUM – A[-llen’s] on RUM – Great clue |
| 8 | LEER – Alternate letters of bLuEbEaRd |
| 11 | INTELLIGENCE – Double def. |
| 13 | THROUGHOUT – “Threw out” |
| 14 | SEA SERPENT – (PARENTS SEE)* |
| 16 | OVERTURES – Double def. |
| 21 | NINJA – N (Knight),IN,J(apan),A |
| 22 | PELF – Hidden in chaPEL Funds |
| 24 | FIRM – Double def. |
I do the puzzle on-line and I am used to the little pop-up congratulating me on finishing (whether I actually finish myself or finish using REVEAL). I completed all the answers today but no pop-up. So, I must have got something wrong. I double-checked and realised I still had the remnants of ELISE for ELSIE at 18ac. I corrected that, still no pop-up. So, I went through each answer double checking it with REVEAL. The error? 5dn! I had ANCIEN REGIME. The “official” solution had ANCIEN RÉGIME, with the accent.
Very nice puzzle despite this foible.
I suppose there is some way of getting an e acute into 5d. (other than REVEAL), but I don’t know what it is. I read 6d. as RE (on) in FIGHTER.
As a fan of groanworthy homonyms, I particularly savoured ‘SHED YULE’ – very nice clue.
Very good from Dac as always – found it a little easier than usual from him. Nice to be able to work out two answers that were new to me from the clear wordplay – TAFFRAIL and LAGER TOPS. I read FREIGHTER also as petero did.
I saw FREIGHTER as RE (Royal Engineer) in ‘fighter’ plane, but that meant no definition, so petero must be correct.
To get É if you’re on a Windows PC (DOS underneath really):
Hold down Alt key and type 144 on the Numeric keypad (make sure the Num Lock is “on” first), then let go the Alt key.
This Wiki explains more: wiki/Code_page_850
I’m not sure how many of the odd characters will show up on this blog. (OK. Nobody say we’ve got enough already.)
6dn is as Petero said, and ‘aircraft’ is the definition: Military man (FIGHTER) ‘s carried on (RE); aircraft (FREIGHTER.)
LAGER TOP’s just a pint of lager with a squirt of lemonade in the top (as I remember from my bartending days, it’s a bad idea to put the lemonade in first – or is it the other way round?)
In my comment I used the HTML element É I have a Mac so I’m not sure how I would enter the single character into a Java applet grid square.
Anyway, I suppose my point—more directed to eimi than anyone else—is that the solution grid should contain an E rather than an É. Other than a thematic puzzle about accents, accents themselves don’t appear in the answers. If they did then surely the anagram fodder would have to contain an É otherwise the clue would be faulty.
Mick H: The last lager top I ordered, not for me I hasten to add, had the lemonade added after the pint was poured.
Fair point, Colin. Obviously it hasn’t been an issue until the advent of the online version. I’ll look out for it in future.
The diacriticals, that is, not the lager tops.
Beermagnet,
Danke schön
Regarding lager top, the lemonade must go in last else it would be a lager bottom. It sounds disgusting – how to make nasty fizzy stuff even worse.
I enjoyed the puzzle, especially rust bucket.