Lorraine: Good morning all,
I hope you enjoyed this weeks offering as much as myself.
Nothing taxing this week for me, I thoroughly enjoyed this crossword. Favourites were 12, 14, 17 and 26ac and 7, 13, 15 and 16dn.
Big thank you to Everyman for another excellent puzzle.
| Across | |||
| 1. | Two wind instruments producing piece of music for dance (8) | ||
| HORNPIPE | HORN+PIPE | ||
| 5. | Afternoon nap in cosiest armchair (6) | ||
| SIESTA | hidden: coSIEST Armchair | ||
| 9. | Soldiers using minor railway (8) | ||
| INFANTRY | INFANT+RY | ||
| 10. | Trounce in throwing event (6) | ||
| HAMMER | dd | ||
| 11. | Part of NI city right for bishop (5) | ||
| DERRY | DERBY(city) with R(ight) for B(ishop) a county of Northern Ireland |
||
| 12. | Officer in U-boat to adjust to North (9) | ||
| SUBALTERN | SUB+ALTER+N | ||
| 14. | Supreme commander’s vague mission cut short at sea (13) | ||
| GENERALISSIMO | GENERAL(vague)+(MISSIO[n]*) | ||
| 17. | Prince rather confused about absent queen (9,4) | ||
| CATHERINE PARR | (PRINCE RATHER*) around A(bsent) | ||
| 19. | Controversially ban niterie mostly responsible for causing drunkenness (9) | ||
| INEBRIANT | (BAN NITERI[e]*) | ||
| 21. | Duck in game – I’d erred (5) | ||
| EIDER | hidden: gamE I’D ERred | ||
| 23. | Incapacitated boy receiving one at college (4,2) | ||
| LAID UP | (I in LAD)+UP | ||
| 24. | Country holding alternative view (8) | ||
| PANORAMA | OR in PANAMA | ||
| 25. | Small seal gets in wreckage (6) | ||
| SIGNET | (GETS IN)* | ||
| 26. | National song about a leader in Africa is something one loathes (8) | ||
| ANATHEMA | (A in ANTHEM)+A | ||
| Down | |||
| 1. | Musical act is cut (6) | ||
| HAIRDO | HAIR(musical)+DO | ||
| 2. | Either way, consult (5) | ||
| REFER | pun on the solution being a palindrome | ||
| 3. | Girl, possibly ten, describing a game of poker (5,4) | ||
| PENNY ANTE | PENNY+((TEN*) around A); ‘describing’ = ‘going around’ | ||
| 4. | Special peers, triumvirate reforming economic policy (11) | ||
| PERESTROIKA | (PEERS*)+TROIKA(from Russian, a ‘set of three’ hence = triumvirate | ||
| 6. | Completely at home with everyone (2,3) | ||
| IN ALL | IN+ALL | ||
| 7. | Edited memoirs about the Spanish butler (9) | ||
| SOMMELIER | (MEMOIRS*) around EL | ||
| 8. | By chance, matador injured around noon (2,6) | ||
| AT RANDOM | (MATADOR*) around N | ||
| 13. | Speedy traveller, slug on path! (6,5) | ||
| BULLET TRAIN | BULLET(slug)+TRAIN | ||
| 14. | Swelling crowd (9) | ||
| GATHERING | dd | ||
| 15. | First to spot head assault whipping boy (9) | ||
| SCAPEGOAT | S(pot)+CAPE+GO AT(assault) | ||
| 16. | Greek hero getting cold in the Aegean, say, capsized (8) | ||
| ACHILLES | CHILL in (SEA<) | ||
| 18. | Navy girl giving support to member (6) | ||
| ARMADA | ADA after ARM | ||
| 20. | Way to comprehensively defeat Spain (5) | ||
| ROUTE | ROUT+E(spana) | ||
| 22. | Seaman, one at home on the water (5) | ||
| DRAKE | cdd | ||
| …. | |||
Thanks Lorraine, and Everyman.
Smooth even solving. Liked 14A GENERALISSIMO, 4D PERESTROIKA, and 14D GATHERING, a nice dd which makes sense of “a gathering gathering”.
BTW, there’s a typo for 19A INEBRIANT: something “responsible for causing drunkenness”, an intoxicant. And I’m not sure of “sommelier” (a wine steward or waiter in a restaurant) = “butler”.
Oops, sorry. I withdraw my comment about “butler” – there’s another meaning that’s connected with wines and liquors.
I found this one quite a bit harder than usual. I especially hate clues like 16d, where you first need to find the word (“SEA”) before you can ‘capsize’ it (I was stuck thinking this was “MED”, as in the Mediterranean). Similarly 11a where you first need to find a city with a ‘B’ in it and then replace it with ‘R’. Phew.
Many thanks Lorraine & Everyman this was a breeze.
And very enjoyable.
Many thanks, Lorraine.
Sunday morning and Everyman seem to go together – relaxing day, relaxing and enjoyable puzzle. Hard to pick a favourite in this one – it all seemed to come together nicely. My main piece of muppetry was not understanding how DERRY worked, despite living only a short distance outside DERBY …
Sorry, scchua, could you explain the problem with inebriant?
Nice relaxing puzzle, many thanks to Everyman and Lorraine.
Re: no. 6
I put in inebriate instead of inebriant, but have amended my typo.
Lorraine
11across: I understood this as NI city = Londonderry, part of = Derry, and this is right (correct) when talking of the Bishop of Derry.
Hi Stephen
As I mentioned previously, I struggled to parse this clue, but now Lorraine’s explained it, I think it works like this: the definition is ‘part of NI’, in other words County Derry; then it’s a substitution of R for ‘right’ for B for ‘bishop’ in Derby, the English city.