Some rather tricky wordplay from Aardvark today with quite a few answers being formed from a combination of an anagram and/or parts of words. On the first run through the clues I thought this was going to be more difficult than it eventually turned out to be once I started to dissect the clues rather than just reading the surface. All in all, an interesting challenge.
Across
1 PIGEON PI (constant) G (golf) *(ONE)
4 IN KIND INK (writer’s agent) IN (wearing) D (diamonds)
8 PULL OFF LL (lines) [pant]O in PUFF (drag) – ‘drag’ in the sense of cigarette or cigar smoking.
9 BIOLOGY IO (moon) in BLOG (online journal) [stud]Y
11 PATISSERIE PA (father) *(SITS) ERIE (lake)
12 MOOT O[xford] in MOT (annual exam)
13 MOGGY [ex]MO[or] G[limpse] G[risl]Y
14 ICE LOLLY ICE (reserve) LOLLY (money)
16 BLINKERS dd
18 DURER DURE[ss] (seconds away from imprisonment) R (runs)
20 RING GRIN (smile) with G moved to the end
21 MONTSERRAT MON (day) REST (holiday) reversed RAT (shop)
23 TSARINA *(IRANS) in TA (army) – I assume this is the intended parsing but am not 100% sure about the wordplay, ‘crossing’ appears to be the anagram indicator with ‘meeting’ the insertion indicator.
24 HOMBURG H (hospital) MO (doctor) reversed GRUB (food) reversed
25 NEATEN EAT (dine) [nurs]E in NN (notes)
26 NEWTON d&cd – I think that ‘apply’ is intended to be a pun on ‘apple’.
Down
1 PAULA PAUL (religious book) [camer]A
2 GELDING *(LED) IN in GG (another {horse})
3 OFFA’S DYKE homophone of ‘offers’ (presents) K (knight) in DYE (colour)
5 NAIVE VIA (Roman road) reversed in NE (rivals at bridge)
6 IN LIMBO IN (favoured) LIMB (leg of chicken perhaps) O (ring)
7 DOG COLLAR G (government) CO (business) in DOLLAR (foreign brass)
10 CROISSANT I (one) in CROSS (bad-tempered) ANT (worker)
13 MEL GIBSON GI (soldier) BS (surgeon) in MELON (fruit)
15 ENDOSCOPE OS (bone) C[ell] in *(OPENED)
17 NIGERIA AIR (atmosphere) EG (say) IN reversed
19 RAREBIT *(BRIE) in RAT (shop) – the second time that shop=rat has been used in this puzzle.
21 MINCE C (clubs) in *(I MEN)
22 APRON dd – ‘poacher’ as in someone cooking an egg.
thanks for blog. I found this rather easy going for Aardvark, though I laughed at 13dn’s name being entered as it seemed out of place. I solved this clue by remembering the films he appeared in!
Good stuff. Yes rather interesting.
I can recall We Were Soldiers and ER, but when did he play a fruit?
Ferret –
re: Fruit
I’ve got nothing on that one. Although he was once ‘the worlds sexiest man’, so he could be a bit of a fruit from a women’s point of view?
Thanks, Gaufrid.
It’s a pity about the duplication of ‘rat’: I thought 18dn was a really good clue.
I liked the idea of PAULA / Radcliffe / Camera – but PAUL = religious book?
Eileen
I had “Paul” as base for religious book (ie Acts of the Apostles).
Thank you Gaufrid: this was not the easiest puzzle to blog.
JamesM
I was taking ‘base’ as meaning that the A of camera comes after PAUL. I think your interpretation would need something like ‘subject’ – and it’s rather unfair on St Peter et al!
RAREBIT was my favourite clue in this today too.
Hi Eileen
This topic is far from being my ‘specialist subject’ but there are many references on the web to ‘The Book of Paul’, comprising the Pauline Epistles, rather than each Epistle being considered as a separate New Testament book. I cannot vouch for the validity of these references but they do seem to occur in several branches of Christianity.