A fine challenge from Sartori today with some good surfaces and some clues that I found nicely misleading on the first pass through. I have a minor quibble with 7d, and a couple of the homophones, but this was more than adequately compensated for by the rest of the puzzle. Parsing 8d held me up for a little while but once I had done so it brought a smile to my face, as did a number of other clues, particularly 18d.
This is the first Albie Fiore (Taupi/Satori) puzzle to be published posthumously so I would like to take this opportunity to offer my condolences to his family and friends. For those who missed the tributes see:
http://fifteensquared.net/2009/07/29/albie-fiore/
Across
1 WHETSTONE *(THE) ST (street) in W ONE (W1)
6 ROGUE G[irl] in ROUE (rake)
9 EXCEL homophone of ‘x l’
10 ESPLANADE *(AND PLEASE)
11 TOURMALINE TOUR (go round) L (large) in MAINE (US state)
12 FLOG GOLF (game) reversed
14 BLARNEY LARNE (Irish district) in BY
15 EARTHEN EAR (bit of corn) THEN (in that)
17 THESEUS THESE (more than one of this) US (American)
19 SYNERGY *(N[a]S[t]Y GREY)
20 NUMB M (maiden) in NUB (most important point)
22 PIANO STOOL cd
25 CONSULATE *(CLEANS OUT)
26 IDIOT IDI (former dictator, Idi Amin) TO reversed
27 LEAST E (point) in LAST (stick it out)
28 HUMILIATE HUM (pong) TAIL (rear part) reversed in IE (that is)
Down
1 WREST W (with) REST (ease) or simply a homophone of ‘rest’ – the presence of ‘spoke’ in the clue indicates the homophone
2 ENCOURAGE ENtOURAGE with ‘t’ (team’s leader) changed to C (clubs)
3 SALAMANDER SAL (small girl) homophone of ‘Amanda’
4 OVERLAY A in OVERLY (much too)
5 EXPANSE PANS (vessels) in EXE (river)
6,24 READJUST READ (study) JUST (only)
7 GRAIL G (great) RAIL (bird) – I cannot find G=great in any of the usual references
8 EMERGENCY GEN (information) in E MERCY (different quarters) – quarter=compass point=E and quarter=mercy as in ‘show no quarter to one’s enemy’
13 CRANESBILL d & cryptic indication
14 BOTANICAL *(COBALT IN A)
16 HARMONICA hidden in ‘eacH ARM ON ICArus’
18 SPINACH *(AN CHIPS)
19 SUNBEAM BE (to live) in [t]SUNAM[i]
21 MANNA homophone of ‘manner’ (way)
23 LATHE H[is] in LATE (dead)
Thanks, Gaufrid.
Lots of lovely clues, as we would expect from Satori.
I really liked the ‘different quarters’ in 8dn and the use of ‘cod’ as a anagram indicator in 18dn. [Interestingly, SPINACH is also an answer in today’s Guardian Araucaria.]
I’m puzzled by ‘for’ in the clue for 4dn: it doesn’t seem to be necessary and it spoils the wordplay.
‘Stifling’ can be used adverbially, I’m reliably informed. Otherwise, possibly ellipsis in ‘X (is) stifling for Y’?
A lovely bit of work, and nice to see Albie in print so soon after his passing.
Hi Eileen
I had a question mark against 4d but came to the conclusion, once I had ruled out the possibility that lay=stifling, that the ‘for’ was needed to improve the surface and then convinced myself that ‘stifling’ was being used as a noun in the same way that, say, ‘xx covering a …’ gives xax as does ‘xx covering for a …’.
Thanks, both.
FT crossword ED is there a back dated amount of Satori puzzles ? due to circumstances…..
Another Satori is scheduled for September 4. And I have three more to be published after that.