Rather a hard Dac today, I thought. The clues are as always clever and pleasing, but in one or two cases they require an unusually long stretch before you see what is happening. At times here I’m not totally confident I’ve seen it all.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | A L{i}F{t} RED — Bordeaux being a red wine |
| 4 | EDUCATOR — Cato in (rude)rev. |
| 9 | CANAPE — (a pecan)* |
| 10 | OVERTURN — (voter)* urn — one of the meanings of ‘urn’ is ‘ballot box’ |
| 12 | T(R 1 COL)OUR |
| 13 | LITHO — (h toil)* |
| 14 | GO THE DISTANCE — (tonight ceased)* |
| 17 | COMPREHENSION — co m (her)rev in pension — I think it’s that com is not apparently an abbreviation for company and M0, M1, M2 etc are in Chambers as categories of money supply in the UK, and pension is simply provision rather than financial provision — how otherwise can one explain the ‘m’? |
| 21 | FIN(D{iver})S |
| 23 | WARRANTER — I think a ‘war ranter’ is someone who shouts out in battle |
| 24 | OU(THOU)SE |
| 25 | GIBBON — (nob big)rev. — this took me a while since it seemed that the ‘on’ in the clue was the ‘on’ of ‘gibbon’ and that a gibb was a back view of a head, but evidently no |
| 26 | DREAMERS — (rearmed)* |
| 27 | AMI(E)N’S — long after Idi Amin is forgotten as a despotic ruler who caused much suffering, he will be remembered in crossword-land because his name is so useful to setters |
| Down | |
| 1 | A{wfu}L C OTT |
| 2 | FUNKING — a top comedian might be regarded as a fun king |
| 3 | EX P LOITER — here a milkman is someone who milks or exploits |
| 5 | DI(VERSION)ARY |
| 6 | CORAL — carol with its second and fourth letters transposed — def ‘It seems like rock’ |
| 7 | T(AUNT)ON |
| 8 | RANSOME D{raft} — referring to the writer Arthur Ransome |
| 11 | NONE THE WISER — (nine others we)* — def ‘in the dark still’ |
| 15 | TRI(BALI’S)M — order as in put in order |
| 16 | SCAFFOLD — 2 defs |
| 18 | MAN(ATE)E |
| 19 | NO. TABLE |
| 20 | PRUN{e} U/S |
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