Arthur is having problems with his computer so I am standing in this week. For me this was a gentle Sunday morning warm-up prior to the stiffer challenges of Azed.
The only clue that took any time was 14ac (my last entry), an obscure (well let’s just say I’ve never heard of it) film made 70 years ago and clued in a somewhat less than user-friendly manner. The other answer with which I was not familiar (4dn) at least had an obvious anagram as the wordplay. It was pleasing to see that the usual bird/golf connection had been avoided in 21ac though I think the sever/severe link in 18dn is now well past its sell-by date. My pick of this week’s clues has to be 1dn.
Across
1 IMPOSITION I (one) M (month) POSITION (situation)
6 FLEA F (fine) LEA (meadow)
9 SALTIRE SALT (sailor) IRE (anger) – “an armorial emblem in the form of a St Andrew’s cross (heraldry)” or “loosely, the national flag of Scotland, a white St Andrew’s cross on a blue background”.
10 BLANKET dd
12 CRACK dd
13 ESTATE CAR STATE (condition) in RACE (TT {Tourist Trophy}) reversed
14 PENNY SERENADE PENNY (girl) A D (duke) in SERENE (honoured) – ‘honoured’ as in His Serene Highness. This film.
17 ROUGH-AND-READY *(NO ARGUED HARDY)
19 FROGMARCH [evenin]G in FROM ARCH (vault)
21 EAGLE hidden in ‘onE A GLEbe-house’ – “a gold coin of the United States, formerly worth ten dollars and now available in denominations of 5, 10, 25 and 50 dollars”.
23 CORN DOG CORN (cereal) DOG (follow)
24 IMITATE IT in I (one) MATE (friend)
25 DATA A TAD (somewhat) reversed
26 STAG BEETLE S (son) TAG (handle) BEE (insect) *(LET)
Down
1 INSECT IN (batting) SECT (order) – a very pleasing surface.
2 PALMA PAL (friend) MA (old lady)
3 STICK-IN-THE-MUD dd
4 TREVELYAN *(VET NEARLY) – Wikipedia tells me that Alec Trevelyan is a character in the Bond film GoldenEye.
5 ORBIT hidden in ‘moOR BITterns’
7 LIKE CRAZY dd
8 ATTORNEY *(ONE RATTY)
11 AT THE SAME TIME dd
14 PLUTOCRAT *(OP ART CULT)
15 EARTHLING EAR (organ) L (left) in THING (body) – I had a little difficulty equating ‘thing’ with ‘body’ but Chambers Thesaurus gives them as synonyms in the sense of ‘article”.
16 PREFACED PREFACE (foreword) D (daughter)
18 SEVERE SEVER (cut) [yuletid]E
20 RIGHT homophone of ‘rite’ (religious ceremony)
22 GRANT GR (Greek) ANT (social worker)
14 and 15 were last two in for me. Got 14 from wordplay; 15 from definition.
It’s difficult to comment one week later.
I’d never heard of the film, either, or a corn dog, but the wordplay was qite clear. I guessed Trevelyan, as it’s a reasonably common surname, and sounds like one Fleming would choose. but didn’t bother to check it.
The rest was pretty straightforward, thogh I needed your explanation for 25ac.
Thanks Gaufrid and Everyman
Yes, thanks Gaufrid and Everyman!
A fun puzzle, which I managed to finish with only a little confirming research required at 14a and 4. Finishing without marking any clues as “unfair” or “how does this one work?” is always a pleasure, too.