Apologies for a bit of a late posting due to illness. As a result the post is a little rushed and mistakes may well have crept in. This seemed fairly tough in places with some new vocabulary and a type of dog of which I’ve never heard, but certainly nothing to complain about.
*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, cd=cryptic definition, dd=double definition.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | HICK – [t]HICK[os]. |
| 3 | SHIPMASTER – (EAT SHRIMPS)*. |
| 9 | MAN-O-WAR – dd? I’m not certain, but this may be a reference to Portugal. |
| 11 | PALPATE – PAL + PATE. |
| 12 | DETER – D[i]ETER. |
| 13 | EGLANTINE – EG + (ANT in LINE). |
| 14 | REPRODUCTION – PRO in REDUCTION. |
| 17 | FRONT-END LOAD – (DAFT LONDONER)*. A new term for me. |
| 21 | OVERTHROW – dd. |
| 23 | IVANA – VAN in A1<. |
| 24 | BITTERN – BIT + TERN. |
| 25 | THE KING – def. + cd. A reference to Elvis, and to the fact that princes may become kings. |
| 26 | ROD STEWART – (RATED WORST)*. |
| 27 | WHAT – W + HAT. |
| Down | |
| 1 | HUMIDOR – HUM + I DO + R[ecognise]. |
| 2 | CENOTAPH – NOT in (CE + A PH). |
| 4 | HARLEQUIN – (HEN + QUAIL + R)*. |
| 5 | PUPIL – UP in PIL[s]. |
| 6 | ALL IN GOOD TIME – ALL IN + GOOD TIME. |
| 7 | TRAVIS – VI in STAR*. |
| 8 | REELED – RE + IC[e] + LED. |
| 10 | WARDOUR STREET – (DOUR in WARS) + hom. of “treat”. |
| 15 | TEESWATER – (EAT STEW + ER)*. |
| 16 | WOMANISH – (IN MAIN SHOW)*. |
| 18 | DRAUGHT – dd. |
| 19 | BOMBER – dd? |
| 20 | VETTED – VET + TED. |
Sorry to hear about the illness, Simon. I think is A NOW in MAR (sea in Spanish).
Enjoyable puzzle, not too hard.
9A MAN-O-WAR A NOW (one currently) inside MAR (portugese for sea?)
19D I had BOMBER. Reefer is in the clue but I don’t know how Bomber = Reefer
Pleasing crossy as usual from Dac
Thanks chaps. 19d was a typo, now fixed. I’ve added a “?” as I didn’t fully understand it myself.
beermagnet
Both bomber and reefer are names for a cigarette containing marijuana.
There’s also a BOMBER JACKET, I thought it might refer to that, tho was not 100% sure.
Bomber. Yes I found this page. Look for the “Common Slang” section about halfway down. I thought I knew most slang for joints, but there are many there I didn’t know, and thinking about it I am about 35 years out of date. Some of that must be recent, e.g. Muggle.
I thought 25 ac “the King” was utter and complete genius seeing that Prince became “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince”: actually my daughter says he gave up having a name at all identifying himself by a symbol, but no-one knew how to refer to him in speech other than this extended phrase
The usual Dac excellence, but it’s as if someone has said to him “Make your crosswords a bit harder: put some unusual words in”. Thus PALPATE, FRONT-END LOAD, TEESWATER. But the clueing was so good that they still weren’t all that hard.
Dac, please be warned that a writ will be served on you soon by that Scottish man known, inter alia, as “velvet on sandpaper” for defamation and libel and for bringing public scandal, odium and contempt to aforesaid singer by clue 26Across.
Uncle Yap, who was known, in the early 70’s, to have played Maggie May twenty times in a row, will be second-chairing the plaintiff 🙂
Just did this in I dated 28th Jan 15. I think Portugese man-o-war is a kind of jellyfish seen in the mediteranean but also sometimes off the UK coast.