The usual excellent experience from Dac. So many of these clues are really good that it would be pointless to give a huge list of them. All I can say is that there wasn’t so far as I could see either a weak or a controversial clue.
The grid is a pangram — something I thought might be the case when the Q and the Z became apparent. This seems to be something Dac doesn’t often do, but it is becoming increasingly common nowadays and I suspect that what happens is that the setter uses some unusual letters and sees that a pangram is being approached, so tries to fit in the remaining awkward letters. I wonder if a pangram ever appears by chance.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | CONS PIRACY |
| 6 | CRUD{e} |
| 10 | MANET — (ten a.m.)rev. |
| 11 | F RIGHTFUL |
| 12 | SUPERINJUNCTION — super[intendent] in Junction (Clapham Junction is a junction well-known to almost anyone who travels by rail south of London, since it seems that just about every train stops there) |
| 14 | T{eaching} AI(LORE)D |
| 16 | DIVERS — 2 defs, split after ‘various’ |
| 19 | SET TEE — place = set, where driver’s found is on a tee on a golf course |
| 20 | WASH SALE — (has)* in (Wales)* — as Chambers says: ‘the dishonest practice of buying and immediately re-selling large quantities of stock at an inflated price, so as to create a false impression of strong market interest in it’ |
| 22 | BULLETPROOF VEST — (bet soft pullover)* with anagram indicator ‘is inadequate’, so no judgement is being made about the effectiveness of the bulletproof vest |
| 24 | EX I(STEN)CE |
| 25 | US HER |
| 27 | MET Z |
| 28 | TELEPHONED — t (helped one)* |
| Down | |
| 1 | CAMP SITES — c{hild} (pastimes)* |
| 2 | MaN UNwittingly |
| 3 | PAT{t}ER |
| 4 | REF UNDER |
| 5 | CL 1 QUE — in French ‘that’ = ‘que’ |
| 7 | RE FRI GE{t} RATE |
| 8 | bawDY LANguage |
| 13 | POINTILLIST — (in till is) in (top)rev. — Pointillism |
| 15 | 0 MELE(T{ha}T)E — my last one in, and the fact that the grid is a pangram didn’t help. since at this point all 26 letters had been used |
| 17 | SHELTERED — (l (tree)*) in shed |
| 18 | GAB ONE SE{e} |
| 21 | S PONGE{d} |
| 22 | B(R)EAM |
| 23 | FLUSH — 2 defs |
| 26 | HE N |
As you say, John, the usual excellent experience from Dac. A pretty straightforward solve in about 30 minutes. WASH SALE was a new expression to me but once I had a couple of crossing letters it fell into place. 1d caused a momentary delay as I usually think of ‘campsite’ as one word. Better not mention the existence of 12a. I think my CoD has to be MANET from its sheer ingenuity and simplicity. Great stuff, Dac, and thanks, john, for the blog.
Great style from Dac. I liked SUPERINJUNCTION best, and didn’t know WASH SALE! Really good though I think, very entertaining.
Cheers
Rowly.
Yes, excellent as always – thanks Dac and John. Have to admit I did not notice the pangram.
Solved fairly quickly but still enjoyable.
We missed the pangram totally but we we completed it in two sessions so perhaps we were distracted!
Thanks Dac and John.
Smooth as silk as usual
Agreed, fine stuff as per usual from a great setter who slips pangrams in very occasionally, I didn’t spot it either for a change.
Playing devil’s advocate perhaps DAC should set under a different moniker something to rile the purists. It must be dull seeing the same comments all the time.