Much like a Spurs game in the Champions League, seeing Alberich’s name appear above the grid is always a mouth-watering prospect. And somehow, just like ‘Arry’s boys, the subsequent entertainment levels rarely fall short of my lofty expectations.
Across
1 SPITFIRE – s{pot} + pit fire.
6 HOBBIT – hob + bit.
9 REBOOT – (October)* – c[hapter].
10 ROMANTIC – t[ime] in Romani{a} + c[lubs].
11 WELLINGTON – {s}welling + not<. Relieved to see nary a military (or jazzy) Duke in sight, for once.
12 AMMO – A.M. + MO. ‘In the morning doctor makes rounds briefly’. Pure, undistilled genius!
13 MEDICI – medic + I. The Renaissance-era dynasty.
15 MADHOUSE -had* in mouse (= Mickey). The lack of hyphenation in ‘mickey taking’ is a bit of a giveaway that there’s a pseudo-definition lurking here.
18 ALICANTE – (a NT) in Alice.
20 VIEWER – {re}viewer. More effective simplicity.
21 MIME – double def’n. Not being a Ring-master, I had to check the Wagnerian reference online, only to discover that Mime is Alberich’s sibling!
23 FRATRICIDE – D[emocrat] in (a terrific)*. A clue that’ll probably resonate with any JFK conspiracy theorists out there.
25 BLUEBELL – E[nergy] in bulb* + ell.
26 ONAGER – a g{reenhouse} in oner. Once upon a time an onager was also the catap-ultimate weapon of mass destruction.
27 GRATIS – grat{e} + is.
28 THERMALS – Herm (a Channel ‘Island’) in salt*. A meteorologically timely answer.
Down
2 PIECEMEAL – pie + c{h}e{f} + meal.
3 TROLL – t + roll. A ‘pest’ as in those annoying spambots that attempt to hijack the threads here at 15^2.
4 INTENTION – homophone of “in tension”.
5 ERRATUM – rat in (er + um).
6 HE-MAN – Am< in hen.
7 BANGALORE – ban galore (i.e. a very restrictive government).
8 IDIOM – I + d[eserted?] + IOM (Isle of Man).
14 INCLEMENT – L{atin} for r[ight] in increment.
16 DOVER SOLE – dove + (r in sole).
17 SPEEDWELL – peed () in swell.
19 EPAULET – E[nglish] + Paul + et (Fr.). A word that I’ve only ever encountered in the feminine form before.
22 IDLER – hidden reversal.
23 FLEAS – a in self*.
24 CHARM – c{ounteract} + harm.
Thanks for the blog; as you said, a very enjoyable outing today. Laughed at 7D, got 8D despite “deserted = d” controversy as you pointed out. Spent ages on 23D. And decided against Washington for 11A.
However I am still puzzled by 26A. The only “oner” I know of (i.e. c.1970) is a conker that has either (depending on local rules) just been stringed or has smashed another virgin conker. (Sadly, as I live in Singapore I cannot demo this to my son.) So why “a lie = oner”? Is it golf or summat?
Many thanks, Smiffy, and Alberich, for a very entertaining puzzle – a real treat, as usual.
Some lovely surfaces – 12, 23, 27, 21ac, 23dn and – favourite of all [close to home!] – 14dn.
Orlando [Cincinnus] gave us THERMALS in the Guardian puzzle yesterday!
dreadnought
Chambers gives ‘oner’ as an informal term for “a big lie” (as in being economical with the truth).
Yes, this was very good and not too hard at all. Favourites AMMO and MADHOUSE. Thanks for the blog, smiffy, and Alberich for the puzzle.
Thanks smiffy. Alberich is such a delight to solve.
My favourite clues were for words with a personal connection – BANGALORE (where I live) and REBOOT (which my old laptop needs too much of nowadays). Loved the clue for AMMO too.
Lovely crossword (again).
So precise and so many great surfaces [the only one I didn’t understand was 15ac where ‘taking’ went beyond me, but that’s perhaps my fault].
I made two mistakes, one of which prevented me to find 28ac.
In 23d I entered FLIES (I in SELF*), but you can hardly call them ‘jumpers’ – with BLUEBILL (a duck …) instead of BLUEBELL. Thought that perhaps ‘ill’ was referring to a word like ‘ill-measured’.
In 24d I had CRASH, ‘rash’ perhaps being ‘a series of unpleasant occurrences’ (misfortune), but a CRASH is not really a counteract then, more one to make things worse ….
I needed the blog to fully understand IDIOM, which apart from the first I consists of only abbreviations, very unusual.
My Clue of the Day [hard to choose]: WELLINGTON (11ac), because of the originality of the surface (where one usually gets a Duke, as smiffy [TA!!] points out).
Thanks smiffy.
Super puzzle from Alberich
My favourite was MADHOUSE and,like you,was not keen on D – deserted in 8 down,but a quick check shows it listed as that in Chambers,so no quibble from me.This use of obscure abbreviations is something more often found in barred puzzles.