Once again we solved this while on a rail-replacement bus service. Plently of good surfaces and very enjoyable overall. We felt that 2dn was particularly good. One unresolved point at 25ac – suggestions welcome as always.
ACROSS
1. DISCUS(s)
4. A SIAN S
9. A T TIRED
10. ACADEME (dame)* in ‘A CE’
11. B LIMP
12. MAKESHIFT (mask thief)*
13. DRESDEN CHINA cd
17. IN CON SIS TENT
20. CAMEL HAIR (meal)* in ‘chair’
22. NORTH (thorn)*
23. OR I F ICE
24. (a) VERSION
25. EC HO ES don’t quite get this: ‘traces of French art at the back of city house’ EC is city and H or perhaps HO is house, but about ‘French art’?
26. PRIMUS dd didn’t know this could be a bishop, but remarkably we had a copy of Chambers with us so this was easily confirmed!
DOWN
1. D (ET) AIL didn’t know ‘dail’ for parliament either, but the definition is clear and C confirmed the word
2. SCRAP IRON clue of the puzzle, this: ‘female becomes male if you do this? Matter of recycling’ Nothing too challenging, but an inventive approach to the clue
3. UNDOMESTICATED (deaden music OTT)*
5. S NAG S
6. A PERI TIF<
7. SPECTRAL dd
8. BACKSEAT DRIVER (verdict a brake’s)
9. ASBO hidden and reversed in ‘yob, say’
14. CO(NUN)D RUM
15. D IS CLOSE
16. SCAM PISH
18. TRAINS ‘strain’ with first letter moved to last
19. SHIN(e)
21. LO IRE
In French “you are tall” is “vous être grand” but when “you” is a familiar person, I think, it is “tu es grand”.
Now, ‘art’ goes with ‘thou’ which is ‘you’, familiar, though archaic.
So art = are = es in French.
I’m not surprised you had trouble at 25 across. Ridiculous and obscure!
Thanks for the explanation, Rishi. That is a tough way of clueing ‘es’! Might have been nice to give some hint that ‘art’ was being used in an archaic sense in the clue, but I imagine that didn’t work well with the surface reading. Having recently set our first puzzle, we have a new-found sympathy when it comes to such things!
I found this a bit tougher than usual for Quixote, esp that SE corner with PRIMUS, TRAINS, and SHIN. Just in case anyone does not fully understand SCRAP IRON Fe is the symbol for Iron.
That ‘French art’ = es would be familiar to solvers from way back, though one sees it less now. As Rishi has explained, you are = thou art = tu es.
Favourite clue, LOIRE.
DÁIL is the Irish equivalent of the House of Commons (pronounced Doyle).
The use of the ‘french art’ thing is pretty widespread, so much so that it counts IMHO as a dead giveaway.
My sheltered life then Conrad, I’d never heard of it. I remember the chat about Araucaria’s ‘art lecturer’ definition for TEACHEST though.
Though on the plus side, no recondite words!
Although in 17 across I worked the answer out I still don’t get ‘tent’ = red wine. Not one I’ve encountered before.
Just a question of which crossword cliches you know! We’ve certainly seen this one quite a bit though, along with ‘sack’.
Tent:(archaic) A kind of wine of a deep red colour, chiefly from Galicia or Malaga in Spain
Happy with long anagrams and top half of puzzle.Having seen answers wouldn’t have made too many others.