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We were very happy that Quixote went easy on us this week, as we completed this one with considerable hangovers after the joy of the Azed 2,000 lunch. Nothing too taxing here, but all manner of pleasing turns of phrase. An entirely suitable companion for a cup of tea.
ACROSS
5. FARe IN A this is a cereal food. Gettable because of the French ‘Farine’ for flour
7. S P(UR)IOUS
9. P A ELLA we wonder how often ‘dish’ means a meal compared with a platter or similar
10. CALIGULA anagram of ‘clai’ (half of ‘claiming’) plus ‘Gaul’. His name means ‘little soldier’s boot’, because he liked marching alongside his dad’s soldiers
11. ZE(T)Al
12. CHARACTERS dd as in ‘he’s a bit of a character’
14. LADY-IN-WAITING (a palatial room)*
16. A D(VENT)URER the artist’s woodcut of a rhinoceros is an interesting visual example of Chinese whispers – worth looking up on Wikipedia
18. TIDE sounds like ‘tied’
20. DE CREASE
22. ST(R)UCK ‘same position in charts’ works well in the surface reading here, and makes some sense in phrases like ‘stuck at number two it’s Ultravox’s Vienna’ and so on
23. GENEROUS (urges one)*
24. SE(A)T ON part of the Jurassic Coast
DOWN
1. DAM AGE
2. MILLIARD ‘mill’ then (raid)* ten to the power of nine, various internet pages tell us. Didn’t actually know this word, but the clue is very clear
3. GULLy
4. BU(LL)(FRO)*G by which we mean ‘bug’ around ‘ll’ for ‘lake repeatedly’ and an anagram of ‘for’
6. A N ARCH I ST that one off The Young Ones, Vyvyan, is an example
7. SOCIAL WORKER (sailors crew OK)*
8. InN GOT
13. APIARISTS cd, because bees buzz. ‘Electricians’ would work with the same clue, although not the enumeration
14. L(ADDER)ED ‘was first’ is ‘led’, around ‘Adder’ (‘snake’). ‘Ran’ as in a run in one’s tights.
15. INTER VAL made us laugh
17. E(Y)RIE not a word we had heard for ‘nest’ before
19. DO(CT)OR a nice use for the verbal form of ‘doctor’.
21. ALO(n)E
Thanks for the blog, Handel, and to Quixote as well for his as-usual.
A seldom heard word 2D MILLIARD (completely overwhelmed in usage by “billion”). Favourites 2D, 4D BULLFROG, 16A ADVENTURER with its “drinking port” misdirection, 15D INTERVAL, amongst many good clues.
Re 7A SPURIOUS, isn’t there a little grammatical inconsistency in an adjective, “pious” = “holiness”, a noun? The only other connection could be His Holiness(es), the series of Pope Pius’s, but that’s without the “o”.
re. Handel’s comment on 9a
Paella in Spanish refers to the food eaten AND the vessel in which it is cooked/served. A ‘dish’ in both senses.
Re scchua’s comment at 1, I think pious = “affecting holiness” in this clue taking it into adj country. Always an enjoyable puzzle, this, aimed at being accessible, I’d think.
Re 14Ac, LADY-IN-WAITING an anag. of “a palatial room”? Er, not quite!
Thanks, nms, for the clarification.
Apologies for the error at 14ac – unfortunately I don’t have the puzzle anymore so can’t correct it now. But it was an anagram of some description!
Handel, the whole clue is
Woman at home expecting a visitor? She may be in a palatial room (4-2-7).
“Woman” = “lady” + “at home” = “in” + “expecting a visitor” = “waiting”. Quite straightforward, so didn’t even realise there was an error until you pointed it out.