Apologies for the late appearance of a post for this puzzle. The scheduled blogger forgot that it was her turn and did not solve it so I am standing in at the last moment. Since I cannot remember what I did whilst solving the puzzle a month ago this will just be an analysis of the clues.
Writing up the following parsing did remind me that I found this puzzle enjoyable, if rather easy for a Genius. Solving was greatly helped by the omitted letters being consecutive though I am sure that this must have made setting the grid more tricky.
The letters to be omitted from the grid entries are shown in lower case.
Across
7 OCTaGON OCT (month) GON[e] (almost over)
8 bROUHAHAS HAHA (laugh) in *(SOUR)
9 STAUNcHES UN (internationalists) in A H (a hospital) in SETS reversed (revolutionary groups)
10 dEMONIC *(INCOME)
11 SONDeLI *(IS ON L[an]D) – the Indian musk shrew
12 NOSE fLUTE NOS (numbers) ELUTE (wash)
13 STARTINg HANDLE *(HAD RANT SILENT)
17 SEALYhAMS SEA (coastal water) LYAMS (hounds)
20 MiRACLE RC (Roman Catholic) in MALE (man)
22 jACK TAR KT (man on board {chess}) in A CAR (a vehicle)
23 kAISERDOM *(MORE SAID)
24 AlEHOUSES USE (employ) in *(A HOSE)
25 mINNIES I (one) in INNES (crime writer)
Down
1 ACAnTHOUS CAT (pet) in A HOUS[e] (a home less than adequate)
2 AGRoUND G[arden] RUN (enclosure) in AD (notice)
3 pANTHEIST ANT (worker) HEIST (robbing)
4 SqUEERS U (university) in SEERS (wise men) – Wackford Squeers, the cruel schoolmaster in Nicholas Nickleby
5 PATrOLLED PA (old man) TOLLED (sounded)
6 sHARIAT ARIA (song) in [t]H[a]T
8 RESt ON ONE’S OARS *(SO EARNERS SOON)
14 ADuLATION LATI[n] (language that’s dead almost) in ADO (fuss) N (new)
15 ADMISSIvE A D (a daughter) MISS (young girl) IE (that is)
16 wELL-BORER *(ROLL BEER)
18 ExACTER C[hef] in EATER (diner)
19 ‘ARRyISH A RR (a bishop) I SH (shut up)
21 AzURINE A URINE (wee)
Thank you for the blog, Gaufrid. I actually made a few notes when I had completed this one. A month is a long time to remember ones thoughts.
I am full of admiration for the ingenuity displayed by the setters of the Genius crosswords and enjoy them, but I was disappointed with this one. Knowing which letter was missing from the full solution made the puzzle much easier than many weekday offerings.
I was only challenged by a few words and definitions which needed to be confirmed by Chambers: sondeli, arryish, … all of which were easily solvable from the subsidiary parts of the clue plus the missing letter.
25 was the only one which taxed me. I had not heard of Michael Innes and really didn’t think that minnies could be Scottish mothers. Thank you, Google and Chambers.
I did enjoy the mental picture of someone playing the NOSE LUTE and wondered if the ROUHAHAS disturbed the Australian bush. 🙂
Apologies to all for my failure to check the rota, and hence to give this one a miss. Many thanks to Gaufrid for standing in at very short notice.
… sorry — the first sentence doesn’t quite make sense, but I’m sure you get my meaning.
I thought it was one of hubby’s clues.