One clue I can’t quite figure out (5 down); I’m sure someone will help.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | RABBIT WARREN RABBIT (gas, as in to talk excessively) WAR (conflict) RE (on) N (new) |
| 8 | POLENTA POLE (European) N (northern) TA (thanks) |
| 9 | SHAVING S (son) HAVING (maintaining) |
| 11 | NOMADIC *(CAN DO I’M) |
| 12 | EYEBALL E (English) YE (the old) BALL (Globe) |
| 13 | TIPSY TIPS (ends) Y (yankee) |
| 14 | BOOKSHELF BOOK (reserve) SHELF (informer, in Australian slang) |
| 16 | ROAST BEEF *(SAT BEFORE) |
| 19 | HASPS H (end of “March”) ASPS (snakes) |
| 21 | FOOTAGE EG (for example) A (answer) TOO (overly) F (fine), all reversed |
| 23 | RHUBARB dd |
| 24 | SUAVEST SUIT with AVES (birds) substituted for I (one). |
| 25 | OUTFLOW OUT (not in prison) F (female) LOW (unscrupulous) |
| 26 | MONETARY UNIT *(ANYTIME RUN TO) |
| Down | |
| 1 | ROLLMOP ROLL (turn) MOP (cleaning tool) |
| 2 | BONE DRY BONED (filleted) RY (gutted “ray”) |
| 3 | IRASCIBLE *(ISRAELI) around C (caught) and B (British). “Caught by British” doesn’t quite work, since the B is not next to the C |
| 4 | WASTE *(A STEW) |
| 5 | READERS Whence the REA? It must be some acronym that I do not know. After that it appears to be D (first in debt) + [t]ERS[e] (“endlessly terse”) |
| 6 | EMIRATE EMIGRATE (settle elsewhere) minus G (good) |
| 7 | SPENDTHRIFTS *(FIRST TEN PHDS) |
| 10 | GOLDFISH BOWL dd |
| 15 | OFFERTORY OFF ER (from Queen) TORY (Conservative) |
| 17 | AVOCADO [h]AVOC + ADO (difficulty) |
| 18 | TRAPEZE TRAP (net) + homophone of EASE (without difficulty) |
| 19 | HOUSTON dd |
| 20 | SCARLET *(CLARETS) |
| 22 | EXTRA hidden in tEXT RAmbles |
Thanks for the blog, Agentzero.
Re 5d, “in debt” = “in the red”, and “first” indicates the first letter of the alphabet.
So it’s A in RED + [t]ERS[e].
Thank you Az for the blog.
I read (sorry!)5D as “first” = A, inside “in debt” = RED and ERS as you say.
Do you think this might be right?
JamesM
Sorry, Tom_I: crossed wires!
JamesM
Tom and James, thank you both. I have seen and admired the “red = in debt” device before, but did not recognize it here, possibly because once I thought of “first in debt = D”, my mind couldn’t let go of the idea. In other words, I was successfully misled!
In 3d, C can also stand for caught by as well as caught.
Thanks for the explanations. I didn’t get “shelf” as Aussie for informer, but liked that clue otherwise though, good surface reading. I only knew 5D was “readers” because I knew that was the term for senior lecturers. Also I didn’t get why “offer” was “from Queen”.
This is the first cryptic crossword I’ve (almost) finished – must have been particularly easy!