Lorraine: Good morning to you all,
Good all round puzzle this week, I enjoyed it immensly. Lots of anagrams which is one of my favourite type of clue. I thought 26ac was a good clue.
First in this week was 17ac, last in was 6ac.
Big thank you to Everyman for a fine crossword.
| Across | |||
| 1. | Crayons may have been put in this place, since moving (6,4) | ||
| PENCIL CASE | (PLACE, SINCE)* | ||
| 6. | Fish from shop, a haddock (4) | ||
| OPAH | hidden: shOP, A Haddock | ||
| 9. | Write in detail about king in exile (10) | ||
| EXPATRIATE | EXPATIATE around R | ||
| 10. | Sensitive over a London landmark (4) | ||
| EROS | SORE< (with no grid entries) is this clue ambiguous? It could easily be EROS< |
||
| 12. | Bird dog heading off (5) | ||
| EAGLE | (b)EAGLE | ||
| 14. | Outcome of bitter suffering around pole? (9) | ||
| FROSTBITE | (OF BITTER*) around S &lit | ||
| 15. | What conscripts had to do, subject to check (8,7) | ||
| NATIONAL SERVICE | NATIONAL+SERVICE &lit, I guess | ||
| 17. | Unspecified number in bundle – bargains, possibly, from a charity event (5-3-3,4) | ||
| BRING-AND-BUY SALE | Y[unknown number] in (BUNDLE – BARGAINS*) | ||
| 18. | There’s little weight on girl, daughter declared (9) | ||
| ANNOUNCED | (OUNCE on[after] ANN)+D | ||
| 20. | Come into section of garden terrace (5) | ||
| ENTER | hidden: gardEN TERrace | ||
| 22. | Wheel hub and what sounds like jack (4) | ||
| NAVE | homophone: KNAVE | ||
| 23. | Unwisely retreated, I said again (10) | ||
| REITERATED | (RETREATED, I)* | ||
| 25. | First to recommend Cambridgeshire city bank (4) | ||
| RELY | R(ecommend)+ELY | ||
| 26. | One ought to know a lot about houses (10) | ||
| ASTROLOGER | cd – ‘house’ is one of the 12 parts of the heavens astrologers use to predict stuff | ||
| Down | |||
| 1. | See 19 | ||
| – | – | ||
| 2. | Snatch forty winks in break, after saying goodbye to son (3) | ||
| NAP | (s)NAP | ||
| 3. | Eventually qualified for a marathon? (2,3,4,3) | ||
| IN THE LONG RUN | cdd | ||
| 4. | Tribe’s leader one English newspaper featured in series (9) | ||
| CHIEFTAIN | (I+E+FT) in CHAIN | ||
| 5. | Argument from group against (3-2) | ||
| SET-TO | SET+TO[against] | ||
| 7. | Actor’s role, one I strongly criticise in court (11) | ||
| PARTICIPANT | (PART[role]+I)+(I PAN in CT) | ||
| 8. | Males relaxing inside now in a Surrey town (9) | ||
| HASLEMERE | (MALES*) in HERE | ||
| 11. | Morsel, pretty poor for a seabird (6,6) | ||
| STORMY PETREL | (MORSEL, PRETTY*) | ||
| 13. | Clotho given spread – a horror story (6,5) | ||
| GOTHIC NOVEL | (CLOTHO GIVEN)* | ||
| 15. | Airborne, flying around noon – it requires little thought (2-7) | ||
| NO-BRAINER | (AIRBORNE*) around N | ||
| 16. | Bottom pinched by admirer, Observer employee? (9) | ||
| SUBEDITOR | BED in SUITOR | ||
| 19,1. | Conservative speeches I prepared for bishop, say (10) | ||
| CHESSPIECE | (C+SPEECHES I)* | ||
| 21. | One may be saddled with a supplementary clause (5) | ||
| RIDER | dd | ||
| 24. | Some bust a gut to get a ticket (3) | ||
| TAG | hidden: busT A Gut | ||
| ……………………………. | |||
Many thanks, Lorraine (and for all your blogs during 2012).
Persuaded myself that the Surrey town was HASELMERE, which didn’t help matters, but after that was corrected, all clearly clued as usual. Just had to check out our fishy friend at 6ac.
I agree with you about EROS/SORE being ambiguous – it’s one of my pet niggles. Other folk will say that that’s what crossing letters are for, but for me, the stand alone clue could be read two ways. Small point in, as always, a pleasing Sunday puzzle.
Thanks Lorraine,
Another good puzzle from Everyman which I didn’t start till Wednesday due to its absence from the Guardian website
on the Sunday. I particularly liked EXPATRIATE, RELY, CHIEFTAIN and CHESSPIECE. Thanks Everyman for all the puzzles
throughout the year and thanks Lorraine etal for the blogging. All the best. Merry Crimbo.
Smooth as ever.
Thanks Lorraine and for all the efforts in 2012. Happy Festive Season!
I guess 10 could be read either way, but I interpreted the surface to give EROS, so no problem there.
I didn’t know NAVE=wheel hub and had to look up OPAH (Winfrey?. 😉 )
Got stuck in Tyneside. If you’d given me an even money bet as to whether opah was a fish or not, I’d have said no.
Also failed on 7d where “pan” = crticise was a step too far for me and 14a where I thought i was looking for something meaning outcome such as result.
Thanks for blog.
I struggled to parse SUBEDITOR, having convinced myself that SUB was the word part from BOTTOM.
I did not think 10 across was ambiguous, and indeed put it in before having any of the cross letters. To me it was clear: Sensitive (= sore)
over — reversed, and the surface was a London landmark (statue of
Eric in Pickaninny Surplus 🙂 ).