The usual very pleasant offering from Phi. One or two I’m not quite clear about, but that will be me not him I’m pretty sure.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 7 | BI(R)D LIME |
| 9 | appaREL IS Hard |
| 10 | STE(E)P |
| 11 | DEMO{li}TION |
| 12 | PRIVATE PAT(1)ENT |
| 15 | LO(LL)OP |
| 16 | MOR{e} ALE |
| 18 | ALPES-MARITIMES — (seems impartial)* — there’s no acute accent in the online version, but perhaps there’s one in the paper |
| 20 | S(MOULD)ER |
| 22 | maIN DIAgonal |
| 24 | AN O(RA)K |
| 25 | R(EG 1 C)IDE — I suppose it’s ‘serious’ in the sense ‘major’ |
| Down | |
| 1 | MINSTREL — an unusual clue I think but good — ‘minster’ has its last two letters, which are ER (Queen), reversed, then {recita}l |
| 2 | {s}IDLE |
| 3 | SEND-UP — I’m not comfortable here: OK despatch = send, but how does pilot = up, except in the vague sense that a pilot is up in the air? |
| 4 | B RUM |
| 5 | GLITTERATI — litter in (1 tag)rev. |
| 6 | E-S(C)ORT — the Ford Escort |
| 8 | IMPETUOUS — (I am to use up)* — ‘supply’ is an adverb |
| 13 | VOL UP TU {v}ARY |
| 14 | TWO-TIMING — (owt)rev. Tim in g |
| 17 | EYE C AND Y |
| 18 | ALMOND — (old man)* |
| 19 | AU (R) OR A |
| 21 | DU(K)E |
| 23 | DOCK — 2 defs I think, ‘cut’ and ‘service provided by port’ |
SEND-UP has the old question-mark alert, John.
If you were to despatch a pilot, would you perhaps send her up (into the sky)? That’s what m’colleague is nudging at here methinks, thereby achieving a good match-up twixt the SI and the (slighly cryptic) def.
Nice blog, nice puzzle.
Thanks for the post, John, and in particular for explaining the wordplay in TWO-TIMING. Is the definition meant to be “without scruple”? A good fun puzzle as usual for Friday, anyway.
John, if you mean the acute accent in département, I don’t think this applies, as the clue uses the English translation of it – department. Otherwise it would need two Es as well as an accent, which would’ve really wrecked the surface reading!
Re SEND-UP. Just to split a hair or two. The straight clue must be “take-off”, a noun and synomym of the hyphenated solution “send-up”, also a noun. “Despatch a pilot” is a verb phrase, whose synonym would be “send up” with no hyphen.
In a double definition clue there may well be different enumerations for each part, but by convention only one can be given. See perse/per se yesterday.
Very enjoyable puzzle from Phi with MINSTREL my last answer.
Thanks for tidying me up as usual on one or two points: yes of course Mick H, he couldn’t have used the French word for department as that would indeed have made the wordplay hopeless, and yes Roger P of course it’s simply ‘send up?’ for ‘despatch a pilot’.