Neo is new to me.
I am standing in for scchua who is away at the moment, so it is nice to get some new setters to blog. Very enjoyable and mostly steady going except for the SW corner which took me longer than the rest of the crossword put together. Looking back I can’t see why as the solutions are all there waiting to be found, I just couldn’t seem to get started. Thank you Neo.
Hold the mouse pointer over any clue number to read the clue.
| Across | ||
| 1 | ACCURATELY | CURATE (clergyman) in (suits=clothing) CLAY* (creation=anagram) |
| 7 | AJAX | J (judge) In AA (sober group) given X (kiss) – football club |
| 9 | MIND | contained (housed) by sexisM IN Design |
| 10 | BEER GARDEN | DRAG (yank) RE (regarding, on) reversed in BEEN |
| 11 | TERROR | T (time) ERROR (fault) |
| 12 | YARMOUTH | (HOUR AT MY)* anagram=happy, drunk |
| 13 | CALLISTO | IS T (first fo travel) in CALL and O (rings) – moon of Jupiter |
| 15 | TO-DO | TOD (fox) O (a hole) |
| 17 | CAIN | CAIrN (breed of terrier) with R=runs missing – killer in the bible |
| 19 | ANALYSIS | double definition |
| 22 | PARANOID | PARA with NO ID = soldier with no papers |
| 23 | LIVING | double definition |
| 25 | GET THE CHOP | double defintion |
| 26 | RIOT | patRIOT (chauvinist) missing PAT (Irishman) |
| 27 | TSAR | S (son) in TAR (sailor) |
| 28 | NO NONESENSE | double definition (cryptic definition?) |
| Down | ||
| 2 | CHIMERA | CHIME (to agree with) RA (Royal Academian, artist) – mythical Greek creature |
| 3 | UNDER | hUN (vandal, missing head) DER (the, German) – I can’t quite fathom the definition. I can’t think of an example where ‘under’ could replace ‘down’. The definition could also be ‘brings down’, but I don’t get anywhere with that either. |
| 4 | ARBORIST | BORIS (Johnson) with ART (works) outside |
| 5 | EVERY NOW AND THEN | (THE RENOWNED NAVY)* anagram=screws up |
| 6 | YOGURT | TRUe (loyal) GOY (gentile) reversed (served up) missing (wanting) E=enegry |
| 7 | AIRWORTHY | anagram of ARROW HIT Y (head of yeoman) anagram=new |
| 8 | ALERTED | T (tons) in DEALER* anagram=crooked |
| 14 | LANCASTER | CAST (thrown) into LANE (road) by R (rex, king) – Edmund Crouchback, 1st Earl of Leicester and Lancaster |
| 16 | TAILSPIN | TAIL (sounds like tale, story) with SPIN (political bias) |
| 18 | AMADEUS | MADE in AUS (made in Australia) – to ‘be made’ is to have achieved a position of success |
| 20 | IGNEOUS | US (FT compilers) going after I (one) G (good) including NEO (the writer of this crossword) |
| 21 | GOVERN | G (gravitational constant) OVER (divided by) N (any number) – rule, as of law |
| 24 | VERNE | V (against) ERNE (sea eagle) – Jules Verne |
*anagram
First one of the day for me, as you say it’s all there, but the indication is very subtle! I mean I was totally foxed by the desighn house one, just couldn’t see it. 21 fave among many good uns.
UNDER = adverb? Down by £5, under by £5 maybe.
Cheers PeeDee
Rowly.
Did this puzzle tonight after tackling the Guardian’s Bonxie with my inseparable PinC.
And while (in a way) still gushing about that crossword, I liked this one very much.
In fact, I always like the puzzles by Neo (aka Tees, aka Paul B).
He might be critical about others, he is really true to his own principles! [So no L for ‘Labour leader’ today 🙂 ]
Of course, AJAX was my first entry (though I am not really a fan of this club).
But the real gems were, IMO, 15ac (‘fox hole’!), 22ac (which I didn’t get without external help), 12ac (containing two anagram indicators!) and 21d (very nice idea).
And why didn’t I spot AMADEUS (18d) rightaway? A sign that it was probably a very good clue.
Thanks PeeDee for the blog of an excellent (lightweight) puzzle.
I don’t think this was at all lightweight. It was a most stimulating puzzle. Sometimes Neo makes the clue construction reasonably obvious but here I felt there was a rounding off of the edges, a higher degree of ambiguity, and for this this I applaud him. Thanks Neo and PeeDee for the blog.
jmac, my qualification ‘lightweight’ had to do with how I experienced this puzzle. It doesn’t equal ‘too easy’ or the like.
But, I admit, I found this crossword easier than the average Neo. I found it ‘lightweight’ on the Mr B scale.
That said, in general I appreciate his style very much, so I have no complaints whatsoever. Remember that in the last line of my comment the word ‘excellent’ was not placed inside brackets!
Many thanks folks, and cheers to PeeDee for a great blog.