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Lorraine: Good morning to you all and thanks for visiting todays blog.
I loved this weeks crossword with lots of lovely well rounded and clever clues. My favourite was 8dn – very clever in my view.
Big thank you to Everyman for a wonderful Sunday morning solve.
| Across | |||
| 1. | Sailor provided following list of charges (6) | ||
| TARIFF | TAR+IF+F[ollowing] | ||
| 4. | Unprepared, out of form defender (3,5) | ||
| OFF GUARD | OFF+GUARD | ||
| 9. | Think logically about a disciple (6) | ||
| REASON | RE+A+SON | ||
| 10. | Shoot a destructive animal in a place on the Danube (8) | ||
| BUDAPEST | BUD+A+PEST | ||
| 12. | Soldier to leave Royal Artillery by end of August (6,3) | ||
| DESERT RAT | DESERT+RA+[augus]T | ||
| 13. | Two conclude second of diamonds must be discarded (5) | ||
| DEUCE | DE[d]UCE at first glance this clue appears incorrect as ‘second of diamonds’=i, but in this instance it means to remove the second ‘d’ from ‘deduce’ |
||
| 14. | They may be rung after a match (7,5) | ||
| WEDDING BELLS | cd | ||
| 18. | Piece of music from Monteverdi – it’s orchestrated (12) | ||
| DIVERTIMENTO | (MONTEVERDI IT)* | ||
| 21. | One visiting clubs wearing good topper? (5) | ||
| ICING | I+C+IN[wearing]+G | ||
| 22. | Couple hold up director (9) | ||
| HITCHCOCK | HITCH+COCK(hold up, as in ‘cock one’s hat’) | ||
| 24. | Companion has forty winks, audibly, after second drink (8) | ||
| SCHNAPPS | (CH[companion of honour]+[homophone of]NAPPS) after S | ||
| 25. | Key article about king in dock (6) | ||
| MARINA | R in (MAIN A) | ||
| 26. | Mental view of yes men I’d sacked (5,3) | ||
| MINDS EYE | (YES MEN I’D)* | ||
| 27. | Pelted in street by only daughter (6) | ||
| STONED | ST+ONE+D | ||
| Down | |||
| 1. | Refuse to become depressed (4,4) | ||
| TURN DOWN | TURN+DOWN | ||
| 2. | Piece of music playing in spa/hydro (8) | ||
| RHAPSODY | (SPA/HYDRO)* | ||
| 3. | Stump in ground (5) | ||
| FLOOR | cdd | ||
| 5. | The press article supporting quartet, say (6,6) | ||
| FOURTH ESTATE | (THE after FOUR)+STATE[say] | ||
| 6. | Chief to harshly criticise bridge contract (5,4) | ||
| GRAND SLAM | GRAND+SLAM | ||
| 7. | A place where event is held, broad tree-lined street (6) | ||
| AVENUE | A+VENUE | ||
| 8. | How could I appear in the other case? (6) | ||
| DOTTED | i ! what a clever clue! |
||
| 11. | Set off mildly drunk, and aggressively belligerent in attitude (7-5) | ||
| TRIGGER-HAPPY | TRIGGER+HAPPY | ||
| 15. | Muscovite lives in Georgia’s capital with girl (9) | ||
| ISINGLASS | IS+IN+G+LASS | ||
| 16. | Going home ahead of former Poet Laureate (2,6) | ||
| IN MOTION | IN+[andrew]MOTION | ||
| 17. | Weed garden in US naval establishment (8) | ||
| DOCKYARD | DOCK[weed]+YARD(US garden) | ||
| 19. | Lower price of Chinese dish (3,3) | ||
| DIM SUM | DIM+SUM | ||
| 20. | Almost tipped drink over husband’s leg (4,2) | ||
| NIGH ON | (GIN<)+H+ON(leg=on(side) in cricket) | ||
| 23. | Enthusiasm shown in the article (5) | ||
| HEART | hidden: tHE ARTicle | ||
| … | |||
Many thanks, Lorraine. I needed your help parsing 13a, and I didn’t even manage to solve 8d which is a lovely clue!
Thanks, Lorraine. You can put me down as another one who couldn’t solve 8dn. It is a very good clue, though, and I seem to remember Everyman using ‘I’ similarly a while ago with I for ‘Iodine’ being the clever bit then.
Enjoyable puzzle.
Thanks for the blog Lorraine.
Yes, this was a lovely crossword from Everyman with the usual smooth surfaces. Nothing too taxing though it took a while for the penny to drop with 8d, and I needed the dictionary to check that ‘Muscovite’ could be a synonym for ‘isinglass’.
Thanks Lorraine,
I found this far more difficult than the usual Everyman and it took me a good few hours to complete. Interestingly, I looked on the AnswerBank to see how many questions had been raised about this puzzle and it was sixteen. This compares to five for the previous week. A big difference !.
The last two in, which took me ages to get, were DOTTED and NIGH ON.
As usual, there were loads of good, misleading clues of which I liked TARIFF, SCHNAPPS, MARINA, FOURTH ESTATE, TRIGGER HAPPY, ISINGLASS (very clever) and IN MOTION.
Thanks Everyman for a great puzzle.
Good puzzle, I echo the applause for DOTTED, which caused a smile when I got it.
Thanks, Lorraine for a good blog. I didn’t know the ISINGLASS=muscovite without help from the dictionary. I particularly liked the ‘almost tipped drink over husband’s leg’ surface.
24a forty winks is a ‘nap’ not a ‘naps’.
15d muscovite is NOT the same isinglass – one is organic, the other a mineral.
While there were some nice clues I thought others were sloppily constructed
Forty winks can, and as used here, be inferred as pural.
Nick