A pleasant (but long — 35 clues) solve today from Merlin, although as is usual one or two seem a bit odd. The grid is very strange, in that there is a word (not actually a word) that could be clued but isn’t (but see 9dn below).
Rather a clever Nina, although I’m not sure of the identity of the one at the top left: top right is Cheshire, bottom right is Felix, bottom left is Macavity (from T.S. Eliot) and top left is I think Tiber. Will look this up on Google in due course. No, can’t find it, so offers open.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | BIT CHER Y — I think — presumably Cher is an actress although isn’t she better-known as a singer? |
| 5 | CA{t}CHES |
| 10 | RO{lling Stones} STRUM |
| 11 | ISMAILI — 1 (Islam)* I, an &lit. |
| 12 | BAG — 2 defs |
| 13 | HEEL BAR — refers to the snob used by shoemakers |
| 14 | IN GLOBE — a Miltonian word, according to Chambers — shouldn’t this have been signposted? Few would think of this as a word |
| 15 | SNAPPING TURTLES — snapping (= photographing) t ((result)* — never heard of them, although I can imagine |
| 19 | DOH — 2 defs — whenever Homer appears nowadays one expects The Simpsons |
| 20 | PUSS IN THE CORNER — refers to the fact that there is a cat around each of the corners of the completed grid — never heard of the game |
| 25 | SITCOMS — Sims around Oct(rev.) — she didn’t immediately come to mind — the only Joan I could think of was Kempson and she’s Rachel Kempson anyway. Like that thing The Times does now — Name That Joan(Sid/Bill/Kim/…) — I’ve seldom heard of half the people there and suspect the bottom of the barrel is sometimes being scraped |
| 26 | ICE CUBE — I suppose ice=hit, and a cube is a third power — even I know that Ice Cube is a rapper |
| 28 | QED — 2 defs, although the theory of charges one was a bit of a struggle — apparently it stands for quantum electrodynamics as well |
| 29 | fulMAR ABOUt |
| 30 | DASHIKI — (kid has 1)* (thanks Twiddlepin) |
| 31 | CAV(IT)Y |
| 32 | TENERIFE — (teen)* rife |
| Down | |
| 1 | SlumBER THere |
| 2 | TESSERA — (Ares set)rev. |
| 3 | HARD BOP — had never heard of it although Chambers gives it — and is a harmonica a harp? Surely not — well yes, a harp includes the set of harmonicas, so does this make it OK? Not sure |
| 4 | REMBRANDTESQUE — (quarter men’s bed)* |
| 6 | ARMIGER — MIG in (rear)* — pity that ‘arm’ was repeated |
| 7 | HAI(ROI)L |
| 8 | S HIRE |
| 9 | PIG IN THE MIDDLE — and that explains the strange non-word — shown ‘up’ it is HOG |
| 15 | SOP — (po’s)rev. |
| 16 | PAS — (sap)rev. |
| 17 | TAR — 2 defs |
| 18 | S(1)R — although I initially thought of Sri, which isn’t actually a teacher anyway |
| 21 | SATURN V — urn in (vast)* — rather a strange anagram indicator |
| 22 | IN ORBIT — 1 (Briton)* |
| 23 | O(VERSE)E — not the usual meaning |
| 24 | NAUTILI — “naughty lie”, although some would dislike this pronunciation and have it as “naughty lee”, which of course is no good here |
| 25 | SUMAC — (Camus)rev. |
| 27 | E(XI)LE{ven} |
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