*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, CD=cryptic def, DD=double def
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Huston: (hot sun)*. |
| 4 | Evildoer: Reviled* around o[ffences]. |
| 9 | Batten: Bat + ten |
| 10 | Adams Ale: hom. of Adams’ ail. Two of the first six presidents of the US were called Adams. |
| 12 | Ambassador: A + bass in mad OR. |
| 13 | Form: DD |
| 15 | Squirrel away: Squire + law + ay around r. |
| 18 | Bit on the side: Amusing DD. |
| 21 | Hood: DD. This one gave me a lot of trouble because, although I thought of hood straightaway, it didn’t seem like a sensible answer. However, having checked the dictionary, I find that hood is a slang term for neighbourhood. |
| 22 | Sheet Music: (Use theme)* + hom of sick. |
| 24 | Diazepam: I in Daze + Pam. |
| 25 | Cleave: C[runch] + leave. |
| 26 | Shoppers: S + hoppers. |
| 27 | Infant: In Fant[asia]. |
| Down | |
| 1 | Hebraist: [T]heist around bra. |
| 2 | Set upon: DD. |
| 3 | Overstrain: S[ocialist] in over train. |
| 5 | Video nasties: (Vetoes India’s)*. |
| 6 | Lamb: Lam + b. |
| 7 | Orator: Hidden in “for a tory”. |
| 8 | Rheims: hom of reams. |
| 11 | Take to the air: DD. |
| 14 | Watermelon: (women later)*. |
| 16 | Kinshasa: I think this is Kin[g] + S (South) + has + A (Africa). The alternative would be Kin[g] + has* + SA, but that would mean using visited as an anagram indicator. |
| 17 | Tea Chest: Test around ache. Closing here is being used in the archaic sense of enclosing. |
| 19 | Shades: Disguised DD. |
| 20 | Dorado: (A rod)< + do (in the sense of “do the dinner”, I suppose). |
| 23 | Keep: DD |
Glad not to be the only one for whom that corner put up a bit of a fight. For me it was in part because I’ve never heard of a dorado, and probably wouldn’t have got it from the clue despite parsing it about right.
I thought BIT ON THE SIDE was jolly good though, and let out an involuntary guffaw when the penny dropped.
“but I had some trouble with the SW corner. For some reason, that often seems to be the section that gives me the most trouble.”
Interestingly, the link below was used in a reply to another puzzle on 15squared sometime this week. Ximenes writes about ‘how long does it take me’:
How Long Does It Take Me?
In it, he states that usually the SE corner ends up with most of the common words, so I guess from logic maybe the SW corner ends up with more obscure words? I don’t know, but a strange and maybe relevant observation.
Nick
I don’t remember ever seeing KINSHASA in a crossword before, and today it appears both here and in the Times.
I knew Dorado as it is also the name of a beer brewed in The Canary Islands. It’s useful for dodgy expense claims where alcohol can’t be claimed for since a receipt from a bar looks like a heavy session in a fish restaurant! (Not that I’d ever do this myself, of course.)