As Shuchi is not available today, I am writing this, so the blog stays in India!
I enjoyed solving the puzzle, which is none-too-difficult.
Across
1 PRE-RAPHAELITES – anag. of HITLER-APPEASER
10 RIFLE – deleting T (time) from TRIFLE (toy, v.)
11 RELIGIOUS – O (old) U (university) in RELIGIS (anag. of GIRLIES)
12 DREAM UP – E (drug) in DRAM (spirit) + UP (at Oxford)
13 SKITTLE – SKIT (satire) + TLE (prime bits, or initial letters, of ‘that lovely entertainer’)
14 SAHIB – SA (short for sex appeal, ‘it’) + HI (greeting) + B (British)
16 SLEEPIEST – PIES (pasties) in SLEET (wet weather)
19 STRICTURE – if you put I (one) instead of U (university) in STRUCTURE (building) you get ‘condemnation’) :: I trust my interpretation is correct and that it’s not the other way about
20 EVICT – E (English) + VICT[or] (winner)
22 UNSEATS – S (seconds) in UNEATS, that is, UN (‘a’ or ‘one’ in French) + EATS (food)
25 GERBERA – ER (queen) in GB (country) + ERA (time)
27 BRIDE-TO-BE – DETO ( rev. of O (old) TED (man) in BRIBE (bung, which means tip). I got the answer easily but had to look up before being able to write this anno. The def is “one anticipating a successful match”
28 BATHE – BATH (West Country city) + E (energy)
29 ROGER BANNISTER – Anag. of I RAN STRONG BEER, ‘drunk’ being the AInd. Part of anag. fodder “I ran” does double duty as def. The tag “Surely not” disavows the first sentence. The name was familiar to me from an earlier crossword.
Down
2 REFRESHER – RE (short for Religious Education, which is “education in various faiths” + FRESHER {I would think that education in just one faith too is “religious education”)
3 RHEUM – HE (high explosive) in RUM (drink). “Once a cold” is the def. “Once” because the meaning ‘a cold in the head’ is obsolete.
4 PARI PASSU – PA in PARIS + US. It’s a Latin phrase that means “with equal pace, together”
5 ATLAS – deleting T from AT LAST (finally).
6 LAGNIAPPE – anag. of APPEALING
7 TROUT – TOUT (hawk, v.) going around (“crossing”) R (river)
8 SUSPECT – US (you and me) in SPECT (first half of SPECTators defind as “game’s watchers”)
9 TRADES – TRAD + ES :: The last one that I solved. Rather from definition and the crossings (without using any word pattern search software) than wordplay. I looked up the dictionary to learn that TRAD is ” traditional jazz as revived in the 1950s”. That leaves ES. With my very little acquaintance with French (which I can’t speak anyway), I think that ‘thou art’ will be ‘tu es’; so maybe ‘art’ yields ES. I need someone’s confirmation here.
15 BUCCANEER – BUC (rev. of CUB, “youngster”, “growing up” being the rev. ind.) + CAN (given gratis) + EER (e’er, a contraction of ‘ever’ used mostly in poetry)
17 EVERGREEN – C & DD – (If we look at it as ‘ever green’) “being unable to reach maturity” – “pine [n.], maybe”
18 EPICENTRE – EPIC (grand) + ENT (the spealist ward that is “part of hospital”) + RE (about), a component also used in 26d below but defined there as ‘regarding’
19 SLUMBER – S (sun, as in weather maps) + LUMBER (trudge).
21 TEASEL – SE (outside bits of SomE) in TEAL (duck) – Def is “plant”. See pic below.
23 STING – Two meanings: smart, v. / piece of deception
24 STOMA – Reversal of MOT (test) in SA (South Africa) For MOT, Chambers has: “a compulsory annual check made by order of the Ministry of Transport (now the Department of Transport) on vehicles over three years old”
26 REBUS – RE (regarding) + BUS (alternative to the car) – I would think ‘bus’ is one of the alternatives to the car. One might take the train.
Hi Rishi
Thanks for standing in. I think you are right with both 19ac and the parsing for 9dn, though you have a typo in 27ac (a ‘B’ missing in the wordplay).
Many thanks for a great blog, Rishi and Bradman for yet another great puzzle.
I really enjoyed this. The two long anagrams are excellent and I also particularly like 12, with the reference to Oxford’s ‘dreaming spires’, 13 and 20 ac and 4 and 9 dn.
I pondered for a while before, like you, plumping for STRICTURE but I think it works either way, which is a pity.
I’d never heard of LAGNIAPPE and was rather surprised by RELIGIOUS = ‘fussy’, but I see it’s OK.
Thanks, Gaufrid. I have fixed the typo.
Eileen
Chambers does have the meaning ‘strict, very exact’ for ‘religious’. And ‘fussy’ coluld mean ‘finicky, requiring careful attention’. So I didn’t have much reservation over Bradman’s def. I have heard people say:”Oh, whatever he does, he does very religiously.”
Hi Rishi
Yes, I’ve no problem with RELIGIOUS = ‘fussy’, now that I’ve seen Chambers’ definitions. I’m familiar with the usage you quote but I’d have thought of it more as ‘scrupulously’, which is not quite the same thing – but I’m not quibbling. ‘Fussy’ is an apt epithet for ‘girlies’! 🙂
Thanks for the blog Rishi.I did put STRUCTURE but I think your reading makes more sense. Thought ROGER BANNISTER was brilliant, what an image! GERBERA defeated me and was dissapointed to have to use a dictionary in order to get LAGNIAPPE, but overall really enjoyed this puzzle which was clued very fairly with some great surfaces.
Today was Parent’s Day at my college, and I/we killed the hours-in-between with this crossword, which I/we thought was great.
I know Pasquale is more challenging, but I have a soft spot for Bradman. Don’t know what that is – perhaps, Bradman feels like Pasquale Lite [oops] and therefore just right (for me, that is).
No need to say that the clueing was extremely fair.
[well, “art in France” – just about]
We too entered STRUCTURE at 19ac, but nót because of its ambiguity – we simply thought ‘structure’=’building’ and, er, couldn’t explain it …
Today’s favourites: 29ac (ROGER BANNISTER) and 18d (EPICENTRE).
The Monday Prize Crossword 13525 set by Dante has messed up the crossword pattern. Most clues do not seem to fall in line with the pattern. Hoping for a corrected version of the crossword. Would like to know if the paper version also suffers a similar fate.
Hi Shyam
Make the NW and SE corner squares black and then renumber the grid accordingly. The clues will now fit.
Thanks Gaufrid
Had finished the SW zone in spite of the trouble, assuming a renumbering of clues. But was stuck when the first and last clues were amiss.