Financial Times 13761 Jason

Thanks Jason, I continue to enjoy all your puzzles to date.  The easiest of the Big 3 today, but great cluing, clever surfaces and some spicy definitions.  (Definitions are underlined in the clues)

Across

1 Food sheikh’s dished out and child cut (5,5)

SHISH KEBAB :  Anagram(dished out) of {SHEIKH +(and) BAB(child,“baby” with its last letter deleted,cut)}

7 Hold back this sly look (4)

PEEK :  Reversal(back) of KEEP(as in “I’ll keep,hold this for you”)

9 River right in Ukraine beside lake (4)

URAL :  R(right) in UA(International Vehicle Registration,Internet domain code for Ukraine) beside L(lake)

  

10 Where ladies go – a place for explosive stuff (6,4)

POWDER ROOM :  Whimsical expression for a room,place where gunpowder and other explosive stuff are stored.  Properly called a gunpowder room.

Defn:  Euphemism for the ladies’ loo, where they go to supposedly powder their noses.  Nice surface with the “powder” bit.

  

Powder room at Changi Airport Terminal 3

11 Women confuse the Penguin’s gait? (6)

WADDLE :  W(women) ADDLE(to mix up,muddle,confuse)

12 The French heroes are moved by a site of possible shipwreck (3,5)

LEE SHORE :  LE(the article the in French) + anagram(are moved) of HEROES

Defn:  The lee shore is the shore with the wind blowing towards it.  The danger is that a ship, because of the wind, might be pushed to the shore, and possibly end up as a shipwreck.

13 Blokes curse their clobber (8)

MENSWEAR :  MEN(guys,chaps,blokes) SWEAR(to curse)

Defn:  “Clobber” in British/Australian slang is a plural noun for “clothes”.

15 Bombshell stripping off outerwear in public display (4)

EXPO :  sEXPOt,bombshell,someone with lots of “it” without(stripping off) the first and last letters,outerwear

Defn:  The short form for “exposition”, which has come to mean a big exhibition, or fair, eg. the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai.

    

17 I’ll leave Luigi stewing fruit (4)

UGLI :  Anagram(stewing) of LUGI(Luigi without “i”,I’ll leave)

Defn:  The trade mark for a citrus fruit, the Jamaican tangelo, a cross between a pomelo (or grapefruit) and an orange and a tangerine.

19 Prawn cocktail? Comparatively sharp within two seconds (8)

STARTERS :  TARTER(whimsical comparative,comparatively of “tart”,sharp in taste,acidic) in(within) SS(s = one second, ss = two seconds)

Defn:  An example,? of starters, the first course of the meal.

22 Record in new demon cut (8)

DOCUMENT :  Anagram(new) of DEMON CUT

23 This riddle’s a cipher (6)

ENIGMA :  Double defn:  2nd:  The cipher,code used by the Germans in WWII, broken by British intelligence and used against the Germans

   

25 Finished like an audience after umpteenth curtain call? (7,3)

CLAPPED OUT :  Whimsical description of what an audience would be after having to clap at curtain call after curtain call.

Defn:  Slang for being exhausted,finished,spent.

26 Eye up part of 18 (4)

OGLE :  Hidden in(part of) 18,goOGLEd

27 Month starts with atrocious days and rain (4)

ADAR :  Starts with,initial letters of Atrocious Days And Rain

Defn:  The 12th month of the year in the Jewish calendar.

28 When all else fails try this campsite at Land’s End? (4,6)

LAST RESORT :  Another whimsical description, of the campsite,resort at lands’ end,the last bit of land, on which the last resort stands.

Down

2 Pasture’s thyme time? (7)

HERBAGE :  HERB(of which thyme is an example,?) AGE(time period)

Defn:  Pasture’s vegetation grazed by animals,pasturage.

3 Unhappy about a lovage’s tip in cold meal (5)

SALAD :  SAD(unhappy) around(about) A L(initial letter,tip of “lovage”.  The word itself means a plant of the parsley family)

Defn:  A cold meal, mostly of raw vegetables.  If one hated parsley and the like, one would be unhappy,sad (or mad) to find a tip of lovage in one’s salad, making this a nice &lit.

4 I p-perked up, having been made dry and cured (8)

KIPPERED :  Anagram(having been, I think) of I P-PERKED

5 Acts of cleaning up the “sharp end” with unusual dilatoriness (15)

BOWDLERISATION :  BOW(the “sharp end”, is the business end of things, where activity takes place; for seacraft, it’s the bow, which also happens to be sharp,pointed, vs. the stern, though bows of bigger ships are nowadays rounded as well, to reduce drag) + anagram(unusual) of DILATORINESS

Defn:  Acts of cleaning up, aka censorship, of literature.  Named after Thomas Bowdler, English editor of the late 18C/early 19C who published a special family edition Shakespeare’s work which had been cleaned up,expurgated of “indecent” passages.  Not to be confused with its opposite, “bawdlerisation”, from “bawdy”….Nah, I just made that up!

6 Who makes porter’s brown jug? (6)

BREWER :  BR(brown) EWER(jug)

Defn:  He/she makes beers and ales, including porter,a heavy dark-brown ale.

7 Dry people start to tan skin (9)

PARCHMENT :  PARCH(to dry, eg. your throat) MEN(people, or strictly speaking, only about half of them) T(initial letter of,start to “tan”)

Defn:  The skin of sheep, goats, etc. that’s been prepared for writing on.

8 This boosts, for example, ordinary journey (3,4)

EGO TRIP :  EG(exempli gratia,for example) O(ordinary) TRIP(journey)

Defn:  Something that boosts one’s ego, maybe like completing a Nimrod, Anax, Loroso, Bannsider, et al, or any decent crossword for that matter.

14 A particularly thick woollie for winter Olympian, perhaps (3,6)

SKI JUMPER :  SKI(an adjective to signify usage in skiing, as in “ski mask”, and presumably made of particularly thick material) JUMPER(woollen pullover sweater,woolly,woollie)

Defn:  An example,perhaps of a competitor in the winter Olympics

  

Remember him?

16 Voracious huntress with long hair at hospital dept (3-5)

MAN-EATER :  MANE(long hair, such as lions and horses have) AT ER(emergency room,hospital dept)

Defn:  Literally, an animal who would hunt and devour humans (both men and women).  Figuratively (there’s a reason Jason has used the female gender “huntress”), a female who hunts and devours men…and maybe that’s in the literal sense too (a la Private Eye)

18 Searched for broken leg in use (7)

GOOGLED :  Anagram(broken) of LEG in GOOD(I’m not 100% sure of this:  either as in “It’s no use to dream” = “it’s no good to dream”, or if “in” doubles up, “in use” = “good” for a purpose)

20 She goes on and on about trek? (7)

RAMBLER :  Could be regarded as a double defn:  1st:  She who goes talking/writing on and on,rambles on; and 2nd:  She who strolls,rambles on and on about(on) the trek,expedition.

21 Something for brekkie is right after church (6)

CEREAL :  REAL(right,proper,utter, usually in a negative context, as in “he’s a right/proper/utter git” = “he really is a git”)

Defn:  Your carbohydrate,carbo for breakfast,brekkie

24 Solid vagrant objects to worship (5)

IDOLS :  Anagram(vagrant) of SOLID