An enjoyable puzzle, with some clever clues and tricky wordplay from Neo. Sorry to be a 15 dn today; I didn’t have a chance to turn to the puzzle this morning.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | LEONARDO DA VINCI *(AND LOVED IN CAIRO) A lovely anagram. |
| 9 | TOO TRUE TOOT (cocaine use) RUE (regret) |
| 10 | UNIFORM dd |
| 11 | TRAIL T (last in studenT) RAIL (bar) |
| 12 | DALMATIAN *(AT [houn]D ANIMAL) |
| 13 | LITHOLOGY LIT (drunk) HOLY (without sin) around O (nothing), G (gallon) |
| 15 | LOGIC LOG (record) I C (of which “see” is the phonetic spelling) |
| 16 | HOTEL dd; HOTEL follows GOLF in the phonetic alphabet |
| 18 | COURTESAN *(OR NUTCASE). “Losing plot” is novel as an anagram indicator |
| 20 | NIGHTWEAR NIGHT (dark) WEAR (the river); “bed suits” is the definition |
| 23 | CALVI A LV (luncheon voucher=”meal ticket”) in CI (Channel Islands). Roberto Calvi, head of Banco Ambrosiano and murdered in London in mysterious circumstances, was known as “God’s Banker” for his close association with the Vatican |
| 24 | OLOGIST *(TO SLIGO) Based on Chambers, this is a facetious reference to a scientist, who is generally some kind of -ologist |
| 25 | SAMURAI UR (ancient city) in *(MASAI) |
| 26 | TO THE MANNER BORN *(NORTHERN BOATMEN) |
| Down | |
| 1 | LET IT ALL HANG OUT *(GUT THE + LATIN LOLA) |
| 2 | ODORANT DO (party) in OR (golden) ANT (worker) |
| 3 | APRIL FOOL cd |
| 4 | DREAD RE (about) in DAD (old man) |
| 5 | DOUBLE-YOU DOUBLE (folded in two) YOU (solver) |
| 6 | VOILA VA (“goes,” to Pierre) around OIL (black gold) |
| 7 | NOONING [r]ONIN in NOG which, at least in East Anglia, is a strong local beer as well as an egg-based alcoholic drink |
| 8 | IN MINT CONDITION d&cd |
| 14 | ORCHESTRA *(CHARTER SO) |
| 15 | LATE-COMER *(MORE CLA[r]ET) |
| 17 | TUG-BOAT UG (semi-ugly) BOA (snake) in TT (races) |
| 19 | SALERNO *(ORLEANS). I have also seen this clued as “City of New Orleans” |
| 21 | TWINE T (Tango) W (women) IN E (Spain) |
| 22 | RISEN hidden in matteR IS ENding. Took me a while to spot this: I thought “little matter” was going to be RES and was trying to find a basis for RESIN |