I hope I have got the serial number right here, for the puzzle published on 2 January. Because I don’t like writing on newsprint (sorry!), I scanned it in and printed it onto ‘normal’ paper, but omitted the title line. And the recycling bin has bin and gone.
13a is definitely my favourite clue this week. There’s a good anagram at 4d, too.
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ALMA | A; L = learner; MA = degree | |
| 3 | ANGLES | ALES = beers; ‘drinking’ NG = no good | |
| 7 | SETTLE | Double definition. Settle | |
| 8/25 | ANGSTROM UNIT | *(Aunt storming). An internationally recognized unit of length equal to 0.1 nanometre, and named after Anders Jonas Ångström. | |
| 11 | REFINER | REFER = apply (presumably — Chambers doesn’t seem to give it as such; please put me right if necessary); IN = home | |
| 12 | TIBETAN | TIBE = almost Tiber; TAN = brown | |
| 13 | BACK NUMBERS | ‘no’, short for NUMBER, is reversed (so BACK) in the phrase ‘on and on and on’.
Chambers defines back number as ‘a copy or issue of a newspaper or magazine of a previous date; a person or thing out of date, old-fashioned or no longer useful’. |
|
| 16 | RUNNING MATE | As well as someone who co-campaigns for election, this could be someone who runs in the same athletics team. | |
| 20 | RAPHAEL | Double definition — Painter and archangel | |
| 21 | EPITOME | EP = record (‘extended play’ in the far-off days of vinyl discs); I = one; TOME = large book | |
| 22 | CHARTIST | CH = church; ARTIST = painter. The Chartists | |
| 23 | STRIPE | S = first letter of ‘song’ (though I’m not sure that ‘beginning with song’ works); TRIPE = rubbish | |
| 24 | DIRNDL | DI = little woman (short for Diana. I don’t like this device, I’m afraid — many two-letter combinations can be rather arbitrary abbreviations of names; and anyway, someone’s name being abbreviated doesn’t make her little); RN = Royal Navy, sailors; DL = alternate letters of ‘doll’.
An Alpine peasant woman’s dress with close-fitting bodice and full skirt |
|
| Down | |||
| 1 | ARTEFACT | Hidden backwards (‘hung up’) in ‘that cafe traditionally‘ | |
| 2 | MELANIN | *(inn meal). Melanin | |
| 4 | NONE THE WISER | *(Heroines went) | |
| 5 | LAST BUS | LAST = a shoemaker’s model of the foot on which boots and shoes are made or repaired; B = black; US = American | |
| 6 | SPRITE | STRIPE (23a) with its inner letters re-ordered | |
| 7 | SCRIBE | CRIB = a key or baldly literal translation, used as an aid by students, etc; SE = the south-east of England, the Home Counties. The definition is ‘writer’. | |
| 9 | MANX | MAN = fellow; X = cross.
This refers to an inhabitant of the Isle of Man, though I am not sure that ‘Manx’ on its own can be used as a noun to mean an individual islander. |
|
| 10 | CRIMINALISED | *(in dire claims) | |
| 14 | CANOEIST | *(Ocean its). &Lit definition | |
| 15 | SERENE | Hidden in ‘Fusser energetic’ | |
| 16 | REACTOR | RE = Royal Engineers; ACT = take the initiative; OR = other ranks (soldiers, collectively) | |
| 17 | GLISTEN | G = good; LISTEN = pay attention | |
| 18 | CROC | C = caught; ROC = enormous legendary bird of prey. Short for crocodile | |
| 19 | UPLAND | Hidden in ‘You plan day’s’ | |
You’re right about clue 13 – very clever – though I didn’t know that definition. You’re also right about the being number 1090 (I downloaded it into Crossword Solver to check, and it’s also on the Indy website for the rest of today).
Thanks, by the way, for the links to background info.
Excellent blog jetdoc. Re 9dn. I have scoured through many old dictionaries to find a singular definition of Manx. The nearest I could find gives the collective ‘The Manx’ for the islander(s).
9d is 100% definitely a mistake by Quixote, and it should have been picked up in the editing process.
@Nick Corney, can there be <100% definite? Should have been picked up on a pre-comment edit. Glasshouses…