Solving time: 8½ mins
Excellent stuff from Paul with an impressive grid and virtually faultless clueing. 27ac (GENE POOL) was perhaps my favourite.
Music of the day: sometimes I struggle to find something appropriate, but today I’m spoilt for choice. Take your pick from R.E.M. (16ac), the Crash Test Dummies (9/24ac), U2 (4dn) or Supergrass (8dn).
* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | SIDE + STEP – ‘supplementary’ as in ‘side order’. |
| 5 | EVICTS; C[ouples] in rev. of ST IVE[s] – nice clue. I spent too long looking for a longer Cornish town from which to remove something before the reversal. |
| 9,24 | CRASH TEST DUMMY; ASH (= ‘Tree’) + TEST (= ‘flower’, the river in Hampshire) + D[ied], all in CRUMMY (= ‘second-rate’) |
| 11 | CHAMP (2 defs) – ‘Tyson’ as in the former heavyweight |
| 12 | BOTTOM DOLLAR; T (= ‘model’) + TOM (= ‘male’) + DOLL (= ‘model’), all in BOAR (= ‘swine’) |
| 15 | [s]EVEN |
| 16 | SIDEWINDER; DEER (= ‘Animal’) around WIND (= ‘breath’) after rev. of I’S |
| 18 | OPTIMISING; OP, + IS in TIMING – my last entry, but I’m not sure why; ‘the secret of great comedy’ had to be ‘timing’. |
| 19 | ZEUS; rev. of SUEZ |
| 21 | SPECTROGRAPH; (PERHAPS GOT + C[olou]R)* – some slight meandering here via ‘spectographer’ (sic). |
| 25 | MELON TREE; (TORN)* in MELEE |
| 26 | RECITE; rev. of E[n]TICER |
| 27 | GENE POOL; LOO (= ‘can’) + PEN (= ‘writer’) + E.G. (= ‘say’), all reversed – excellent clue which I didn’t get when solving. |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | SACK (2 defs) – ‘the axe’ as in ‘the sack’. |
| 2,22,23 | DEAL OR NO DEAL; (LEONARDO)* + DEAL (= ‘wood’) – referring to the TV programme. I think ‘no questions asked’ is just a dig at the inanity of this particular show, but there may be more to it. |
| 3 | SCHOOL (2 defs) |
| 4 | ELECTRIC STORM; ELECT (= ‘Choose’) + R.I. (= Rhode Island = ‘state’), + R.M. (= ‘marines’) under (COST)* |
| 6,20 | VICTORIA SPONGE; VICTORIA’S PONG + [grim]E – had to laugh at this. |
| 7 | CHARLADIES; CHARLES around (A + DI) |
| 8 | SUPERGRASS; E.R. in SUP + GRASS – the plural ‘drugs’ for ‘grass’ is slightly loose, but I suppose ‘into drugs’ is used coloquially to mean ‘into a particular drug’. |
| 10 | TIM BERNERS-LEE; TIMBER (= deal = ‘2’) + NER[d] + SLEE[p] – ‘web designer’ and the enumeration was sufficient here; if I hadn’t known the name this would probably have been my last entry and have added 25% or more to the solving time. |
| 13 | RECONSIDER (hidden backwards) – superbly hidden. |
| 14 | GEOTHERMIC; (THE RIG + COME)* – another very smooth clue. I just wonder whether ‘X has Y loose’ properly indicates that X is part of the anagram, but that’s a very minor quibble. |
| 17 | AMETHYST; A + ME (= ‘setter’) + THY (= ‘your’) + ST[one] |
Many thanks Rightback this was a joy.
Everything worked nicely with CRASH TEST DUMMY being the last for me.
And, yes, GENE POOL was my favourite, too.
Thanks rightback. Lots to like here, including the diversionary ‘perhaps’ in 21a. Some challenging answers for monarchists, in 6 and 7d, and some others that got a chuckle after eventual elaboration, like 10d and 27a. Several were easy to get but left lingering queries, like the fragments making up 13d.
2 had to be DEAL OR NO DEAL but never having heard of the show I had to seek confirmation from the internet. I still don’t understand the NO QUESTIONS ASKED though unless it is only an indication that luck is the sole arbiter here.
13 is hidden backwards molonglo.
This was an enjoyable solve, without any overly difficult clues but also without any “laugh out loud” moments I usually expect from Paul. It is a tribute to the cluing that I was able to complete this without having heard of the web designer, the TV show, the river (flower) and not knowing any Cornish towns.
I think RECONSIDER was the best hidden answer I have seen and so my CotD.
Thanks Rightback. I agree with comments so far identifying some delicious clues. I’ve never seen the game show DOND but a quick glance at the Wiki entry suggests that there are no conventional quiz questions in the format apart, of course, from the eponymous one. But I’m quite possibly missing something.
Thanks rightback,
I found this very very difficult to get into but got there in the end over the weekend and it took me slightly more than your 8.5 minutes. Does the extra half minute indicate the difficulty of this puzzle ?.
The effort I put into this was well worth it and it’s a good feeling to decode Paul’s clues. The highlight for me was Victoria’s pong and who else but Paul could have come up with this construction. I had a real good laugh over that so thanks Paul. Other great answers were OPTIMISING which took a lot of thinking about and CHARLADIES which had a funny clue. Also the clue for SPECTROGRAPH had an excellent surface.
Thanks Rightback and Paul.
10d certainly slowed me down until I eventually found him in Wiki.
Some excellent clues and good laughs here.
Last one in was 9/24, for no other reason than that it just didn’t occur to me 🙂
Many thanks, rightback. I wondered whether 2etc might also be alluding to one of those dodgy deals done down the pub where ‘no questions asked’ is probably good advice !
Deal Or No Deal goes out at about 4.15 or 4.30 on weekday afternoons, after Countdown on Channel 4. The host, Noel Edmonds introduces it with words such as “22 sealed boxes, a quarter of a million pounds, and just one question – Deal Or No Deal?”
That one question isn’t really a question, more a number of predefined decision points, so I’d say the clue is faultless.
Especially enjoyed 2,22,23 plus 18’s secret of great comedy.
No comments about the pleasingly biting surface of 7dn, or is alluding to the troubled marriage of the “People’s Princess” to the Prince of Wales still regarded as a bit close to the bone?