After some tough puzzles last week, things were back to normal with a straightforward Quixote.
| Across | |||
| 1. | Beauty treatment? Female having a cold one gets a line reduced (6) | ||
| Facial | F(emale) = a c I + a l[ine] | ||
| 4. | Produce chaps not primarily wanting sex (8) | ||
| Engender | [M]en + gender | ||
| 9. | Delights of small children and their embracers? (6) | ||
| Charms | Ch[ildren] + arms | ||
| 10. | Principle right for small boy and father to hold (8) | ||
| Standard | Stan + dad around r(ight) | ||
| 12. | A learner just getting excited about the old man who was a philosopher? (4-4,6) | ||
| Jean-Paul Sartre | (A learner just)* around pa | ||
| 13. | Course officials at Aintree, say (8) | ||
| Starters | DD | ||
| 15. | What’s observed in the auditorium? (5) | ||
| Scene | Hom of seen | ||
| 17. | Improve as journalist, enthralling about half the adult population? (5) | ||
| Emend | Ed around men | ||
| 19. | Heavy rain has river flooding county and old city (8) | ||
| Downpour | Po in (County) Down + Ur | ||
| 21. | Reporters offering similarity for the listeners (14) | ||
| Correspondents | Not entirely sure of this – seems to be a hom, but not sure of what. The only thing I can think of is correspondence, but that seems too similar. | ||
| 24. | This person having chat with sailor is an A-list celeb (8) | ||
| Megastar | Me + gas + tar | ||
| 25. | In big town there’s a very small space (6) | ||
| Cavity | City around a v[ery]. | ||
| 26. | What’s played esp. in inn? (8) | ||
| Ninepins | (Esp in inn)* | ||
| 27. | Disloyalty with leader doing a bunk — motive? (6) | ||
| Reason | [T]reason. | ||
| Down | |||
| 1. | Fine performance conveys reality (4) | ||
| Fact. | F(ine) + act | ||
| 2. | Smoked heroin — what George did? (6,3,6) | ||
| Chased the dragon | DD | ||
| 3. | An isolated person engaging male hospital official (7) | ||
| Almoner | A loner around m(ale) | ||
| 5. | Only some given a talent at birth (5) | ||
| Natal | Hidden in “giveN A TALent” | ||
| 6. | Groups with members one over the eight — and seen to be drunk (7) | ||
| Enneads | (And seen)* | ||
| 7. | Prepare for evening in to sketch out part of new decor? (4,3,8) | ||
| Draw the curtains | DD | ||
| 8. | After Bible lessons maybe thought to be saved (8) | ||
| Redeemed | RE (religious education) + deemed (=thought) | ||
| 11. | Useless bit of drudgery complete (3,3) | ||
| Fag end | Fag (=bit of drudgery) + end(=complete as a verb) | ||
| 14. | Broadcasting jazz music when leader of orchestra has come in (6) | ||
| Sowing | Swing around o[rchestra] | ||
| 16. | Female companion joining male, an abettor in crime? (8) | ||
| Henchman | Hen + CH (Companion of Honour) + man | ||
| 18. | Get into a really good habit? (5,2) | ||
| Dress up | CD | ||
| 20. | Fit out with material, trim all around (7) | ||
| Prepare | Rep in pare | ||
| 22. | Map includes one stretch of level land (5) | ||
| Plain | Plan around I. | ||
| 23. | Special song that man heard (4) | ||
| Hymn | Hom of him(=that man) | ||
Yes very easy I felt, did this and the Rufus in under 25 mins on the train in today.
Took 21ac the same way.
CORRESPONDENCE is what you are looking for, Neal H, but this was very easy too. Bored!
It certainly wasn’t a fiendish puzzle, but then Quixote rarely if ever bowls googlies, doosras or ones that spit viciously off a good length. I enjoyed it – just right for a Monday morning for me. Never heard of CHASE THE DRAGON. Favourite today was DOWNPOUR.
You could try Steely Dan’s ‘Time Out Of Mind’. Silver turning to gold, water to cherry wine, it’s all there.
Just about the right level of difficulty the day after staying up to four a.m. to watch the Superbowl. Certainly took me a lot longer than 25 minutes!
Given that we only started this about 15 minutes ago plus we need an early night, we were glad that this was an easy solve!
No complaints…….
We hadn’t heard of CHASE THE DRAGON either!
Thanks NealH and the Don.
Being very dim: what is happening at 13ac? It seems like a quite remarkably weak CD, which I’m sure it isn’t, but you say, Neal, that it’s a DD. OK starters are ‘course officials at Aintree, say’, but where is this cryptic?
In 11dn I think the definition is ‘Useless bit’, and ‘of’ is a link-word. Drudgery = fag and complete = end. Otherwise ‘fag-end’ would have to be an adjective like ‘useless’, and in its normal sense it’s a noun.
Wil, STARTERS are ‘officials at Aintree, say’. They can also be seen as a ‘course’ – think food. That said, one may perhaps not like the solution being a plural.
Apart from this, indeed an easy crossword, but well-clued.
I enjoyed it.
Thanks for the feedback. Ever since I returned to the Indy from the IOS I have made it a policy to use the same conventions for grids as are used for The Obsever Everyman. This means that checking will always make for a relatively easy puzzle, which is my intention — so that Indy readers get a balance. It is inevitable that some will like this and others be bored — you can’t please all the people all the time! In other papers my puzzles often lie at a harder part of the spectrum. This means that overall I can achieve some diversity in my own output and (hopefully) protract my setting career without undue repetition.
[13ac: Course officials at Aintree, say]
You can have starters in the food sense anywhere, at Aintree as much as anywhere else. Is this it? Surely not. Is it a homophone, where ‘Aintree’ is to be read as some twisted form of ‘entree’, and the homophone is indicated by ‘say’? If so, then it’s a pretty dodgy homophone, isn’t it? Sorry Sil, but I’m not convinced.
Thanks Quixote for an enjoyable puzzle and NealH for the blog.
My reading of 13ac is a double definition.
1st definition “Course” in the food sense – it is a bit of a stretch from singular to plural, but not much of one. The first course of a communal meal can easily be called starters.
2nd definition “officials at Aintree, say” in the racing sense – a clearly marked definition by example.
I think this is what others have been trying to say. Maybe the above will help.
Yes Pelham of course you’re quite right — silly to miss this. For some reason, and it often happens, I linked ‘Course’ and ‘officials’ and couldn’t get ‘Course officials’ out of my mind as the definition.
Surely in 21A the homonym correspondence is “similarity for the listeners”, since if two things have correspondence they are similar.