Apparently Dac’s recent Saturday crossword was quite tricky. He seems to have continued in the same vein here — this took me far longer than a normal Dac. The usual crop of very nice clues, but one or two that I don’t fully understand: whether this is as a result of feebleness of mind, greater difficulty, or atypical unsoundness from Dac I’m not quite sure.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | JAGGER — Jag (reg)rev. — I had doubts about reg for registration number, but it’s in Chambers |
| 4 | SCAB IOUS |
| 9 | CA(STELLA)N |
| 11 | A TOLL |
| 12 | SPORT — 2 defs, and the question mark stops the second one from being definition by example |
| 13 | WEAK-KNEED — I think this is “week need”, which can (?) be thought of as lack of time |
| 14 | PRESENT I(MEN)T |
| 18 | C(RASH B)ARRIER |
| 21 | SQU{Ir}E AMISH |
| 22 | PLAY A — but where is the beach? According to the COD it is there in the derivation of the word, but evidently now a playa is an area of dried-up land |
| 23 | OATES — {b}oa{t} (set)rev. |
| 24 | TAPAS BARS — (pasta)* bars as in bars or cakes of soap — some might feel that a tapas bar isn’t the same thing as a bistro, but Chambers says that a bistro is a small restaurant or bar |
| 25 | M{oan} A RAD(ON)A |
| 26 | RE PEAT |
| Down | |
| 1 | JO(COS)E |
| 2 | GAS CON |
| 3 | {athlet}E VENT |
| 5 | CONTAINER SHIP — (ports in E China)* |
| 6 | BLACK BILE — lack in (Bible)* |
| 7 | O DOME TER{m} |
| 8 | SO(LID IT)Y |
| 10 | LEWIS HAMILTON — (will he aim)* around s, ton — clever &lit. although s for bend seems a slight stretch; but Chambers says that it is anything shaped like the letter S. I can’t find S-bend anywhere, although surely it’s somewhere. |
| 15 | RE(HEARSE)D |
| 16 | ICE STORM — e in (cor mist)* — ‘wintry weather in the west’ seems a bit odd — I suppose ‘in the west’ refers to North America, where an ice storm is a common (?) meteorological phenomenon |
| 17 | B(A)LUSTER |
| 19 | DAMAGE — (mad)rev. age |
| 20 | BASS {m}E{a}T |
| 22 | rePOSSEssing |
John
22a PLAYA is ‘beach’ in Spanish.
Hi John
Collins has: ‘something shaped like an S; [in combination]: an S-bend in a road’.
Definitely harder than the usual Dac I thought. Took me quite a while to get going and I failed on 1A and 1D, despite knowing they must have GER and COS in respectively.
I also had 13A as a straight homophone of ‘week need’.
I struggled with the South West corner and couldn’t get going until I finally had a moment of inspiration and thought of Lewis Hamilton. I should have thought of him much sooner, but getting the Lewis and seeing “aim” in the clue convinced me it was something to do with Lewis guns. I was also thrown off the scent by the “in the west” in 16 down. Although it looked like an anagram, the extra bit convinced me there must be something more to it than that.
I too found it more difficult than usual from Dac, excellent as always with great variety and top-quality surface readings. SW quadrant I found the hardest.
Tough today indeed. The LEWIS HAMILTON &lit is wonderful – I thought Paul had that one all sewn up with “F1 driver’s ‘otel in southeast London?” in Guardian 24407 🙂
Yes, mhl, I immediately thought of that one – it’s hard to choose between them!
Ha, I was going to mention Paul’s Lewisham clue in my earlier comment too. It’s definitely one that sticks in the memory!
Sorry, I thought it was worth mentioning on the (admittedly very) slim chance that people hadn’t seen the clue before 🙂