With Aardvark I find getting the solutions easy but the explanations why more difficult.
Today I am completely stuck on 9dn, can anyone help? Possibly I have a mistake in 10 across?
| Across | ||
| 1 | APPLES AND PEARS | Ned, joining pals assembling inside, looks for stairs in east London (6,3,5) |
| (NED PALS)* assembling=anagram in APPEARS (looks) – Cockney rhyming slang | ||
| 10 | OWNED | Had particular boundaries in England (5) |
| OWN (particular) EnglanD (bounding letters of) – definition is ‘had’ | ||
| 11 | UNDERLINE | Second-in-command, no good against Spain, shows stress (9) |
| UNDERLINg (second-in-command) missing g=good and E (Espagne, Spain) | ||
| 12 | ATHLETE | American allowed to wear the jumper? (7) |
| A (American) and LET (allowed) inside (wearing) THE – a high jumper possibly | ||
| 13 | ROOT OUT | Completely remove bounder seen by all in shot (4,3) |
| ROO (kangeroo, bounder) and U (seen by all, cinema rating) in TOT (shot, of drink) | ||
| 14 | STOIC | “Poorly” mainly coming across to patient (5) |
| TO inside SICk (poorly) mainly=most of | ||
| 16 | NECTARINE | Single figure picks up crate to distribute fruit (9) |
| NINE (single figure) holds (picks up) CRATE* (anagram=to distribute) | ||
| 19 | POLYNESIA | Antipodeans around here heard parrot flapping in sea (9) |
| POLY (sounds like “polly”, parrot) and (IN SEA)* flapping=anagram – a region of the Antipodes | ||
| 20 | EMPTY | Free invite excludes frst year (5) |
| tEMPT (invite) missing first letter then Y (year) | ||
| 22 | LEAFIER | Meadow and wood keep end of village more rural (7) |
| LEA (meadow) and E (last letter of village) in FIR (wood) | ||
| 25 | LATERAL | Some claret almost knocked over sideways (7) |
| some of cLARET ALmost reversed (knocked over) | ||
| 27 | MAP READER | Mother, prepared when travelling, cut out page for navigator (3-6) |
| MA (mother) then pREPARED* (anagram=travelling) missing p=page | ||
| 28 | RHINO | Greek character carries home animal (5) |
| IN (home) in RHO (Greek character) | ||
| 29 | CONSTANTINOPLE | Fixed work, in building line, means capital no longer used (14) |
| CONSTANT (fixed) then OP (work) in LINE* (building=anagram) – former caprital of Turkey | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | PUNCH BOWL | Judy’s partner at front of ship, left vessel (5,4) |
| PUNCH (Judy’s partner) at (next to) BOW (front of ship) L (left) | ||
| 3 | LODGE | Say party line, upsetting group of masons (5) |
| EG (say) DO (party) L (line) reversed (upsetting) | ||
| 4 | SAUTERNES | One leaves sandwiches to grab auntie regularly distributing wine (9) |
| aUnTiE (regulaly, every other letter) in (grabbed by) SARNiES (sandwiches) missing I (one, Roman numeral) – definition is wine. Apart from helping the surface reading I can’t see how ‘distributing’ fits in the clue at all. | ||
| 5 | NADIR | Bottom drain repaired (5) |
| DRAIN* repaired=anagram | ||
| 6 | PERCOLATE | Strain spread around royal column (9) |
| PATE (spread) around ER (royal) COL (column) – definition is ‘strain’. Thanks to AID. | ||
| 7 | AMIGO | China’s major highway blocked earlier (5) |
| MI (M1, major highway) in AGO (earlier) – defintion is ‘china’ (china plate) rhyming slang for ‘mate’, friend. I don’t like M1 = MI. I know it is very common in crosswords but it does not work for me. I=1 as a Roman numeral is fine, and in the context of abbreviations where Roman numerals are commonly used (eg IV for ‘fourth’) then this is OK too, but I have never seen UK road numbers written in Roman numerals. | ||
| 8 | SCEPTRE | Staff threat, as numbers two and four are exchanged (7) |
| SPECTRE (threat) with second and fourth letters exchanged | ||
| 9 | ROMANS | Horses attract the eye of bookmaker, making new book (6) |
| bookMaker (eye of = middle of) in ROANS (horses) – Romans is a book of the New Testament. Thanks to flashling. | ||
| 15 | CONDIMENT | Ketchup perhaps appearing thick inside American bread (9) |
| ON (appearing) DIM (thick) in CENT (US money, bread) | ||
| 17 | CHARLEROI | Domestic garland coated gold, boosting Belgian place (9) |
| CHAR (domestic) and LEI (garland) going round (coating) OR (gold) reversed (boosting, being sent up) – a place in Belgium | ||
| 18 | IMPARTIAL | One quietly gatecrashes military fair (9) |
| I (one) and then P (quietly) in MARTIAL (military) – definition is ‘fair’ | ||
| 19 | POLEMIC | Controversial photo captures expression of victory by metres (7) |
| PIC (photo) contains (captures) OLE (expression of victory) with (by) M (metres) | ||
| 21 | YELLOW | Snooker ball forming line, see, in wooden frame (6) |
| L (line) LO (see) in (framed by) YEW (made of yew, wooden) | ||
| 23 | ASPEN | Tree ring follows annual succession, primarily (5) |
| PEN (ring) following Annual Ssucession (first letters of) | ||
| 24 | RODIN | Bar popular French artist manually (5) |
| ROD (bar) IN (popular) – Auguste Rodin was a French sculptor (an artist who works with his hands, manually) | ||
| 26 | TORSO | Body fat’s latest reading – approximately (5) |
| faT (latest reading=last letter of) OR SO (approximately) | ||
*anagram
Heart of bookmaker is M in ROANS give ROMANS perhaps?
Hi flashling, are you using a paper copy, is the clue different? My online version shows “eye of bookmaker”
Why is ROMANS ‘new book’?
I get it. Eye=the middle of (as in hurricane) and new book because Romans is in teh New Testament
Thanks PeeDee and Aardvaark. Enjoyable puzzle. ROMANS held me up for a while, as well.
Whilst I got the same answer for 6D, I got there differently.
I had PATE as the spread, and ER for royal and COL for column to give PERCOLATE
The solution proposed would give two Ls.
AID @5 – so it does, I had not noticed that. Fixed the blog now.