A good, slightly tough but not very, workout from Radian today. Some of the clues (especially 18ac) are excellent.
There are one or two which I’ve not yet parsed. Let’s hope the penny drops while I’m doing the blog. [Well, some of them did, but I’m still bewildered by 1ac and 26ac]
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | ACCUSER — not a good start as I can’t work this one out I’m afraid: it seems to be something about a c{ocaine] user, but where Tom comes in I can’t see , or rather where Tom leaves, since ‘striking’ presumably indicates that ‘Tom’ is struck off and it’s originally something like ctomc,— it wouldn’t (or shouldn’t, at any rate) be ‘cat’ that is erased since then it would say something like ‘Tom, perhaps’ [He charges a drug client, striking Tom] |
| 5 | PROFUMO — (up for)* MO — referring to the Profumo Affair, which may not be remembered by those under a certain age |
| 9 | FLOR{ID}A |
| 10 | COVER GIRL — cover [= protect] GI rl [right and left, the sides] — def ‘She tarts up jacket’ |
| 11 | INNKEEPERS — inn(keep)ers — innkeepers are people who run locals, so the def is ‘local runners’ — inners are parts of the dart board ringing the bulls — keep = celebrate as in to observe |
| 12 | JUDO — “due dough”, if you try hard enough for the homophone |
| 14 | GLOBE THEATRE — (to regale Beth)* — I’m not sure just what the anagram indicator is here — it seems very long — pity the answer is so obvious, since it’s a good try for an &lit., Beth being Queen Elizabeth I [To regale Beth, this was rebuilt, then ruined] |
| 18 | EMILY DAVISON — E{pso}m (Lady vision)* — now here is an &lit. that is really good — pithy and clever, absolutely to the point with not a wasted word, and not so obvious as 14 |
| 21 | EXIT — (tie)rev. around X — nothing to do with 10ac |
| 22 | CAMPAIGNER — camp (gear in)* |
| 25 | PLAY-ACTOR — p(lay)act OR |
| 26 | HORSE — (shoe)* round {De}r{by} — probably referring to what happened when 18ac threw herself in front of a horse in the Derby, but I didn’t know that a horse cast a shoe then [He cast shoe about halfway through Derby] |
| 27 | NOTEDLY — Ted [Heath] in (only)* — at least this is what it seems to be, with ‘but’ unnecessary really — perhaps there’s some better explanation that justifies it |
| 28 | REDHEAD — (He’d)* in read — presumably a bit out of date and referring to Fergie as Ferguson, the manager of Man Utd, or the head of the Reds — my suspicion is that Radian submitted this crossword while this was still true |
| Down | |
| 1 | A (F) FAIR |
| 2 | CROW(N)S — a murder of crows |
| 3 | STAG EP LAYS — shows in the Globe Theatre are stage plays |
| 4 | RECAP — (pacer)rev. |
| 5 | PAVAROTTI — pa [per annum] (Il Trovatore – role)* |
| 6 | {c}OARS{e} |
| 7 | UBIQUITY — U b(I quit)y — in (U by) [university times] (I quit) — def ‘appearing everywhere’ |
| 8 | ON LOO K ER — on throne = on loo |
| 13 | DEMOLISHED — demo (is held)* |
| 15 | BLATANTLY — (ta NT) in (by all)*, def ‘obviously’ |
| 16 | PETER PAN — peter = safe, pan = slam, Peter Pan is ageless |
| 17 | MILITANT — tan in (limit)* |
| 19 | UNTRUE — U [bend] (turn)* {rac}e |
| 20 | FRI END |
| 23 | PUR{g}ER |
| 24 | WARD — a rd below w — Dr Stephen Ward was a character in the Profumo Affair |
1ac I took as C(ocaine) in A CUS(tom)ER
I took Fergie as referring to Sarah rather than Alex but I either works. Although that’s possibly even more out of date.
Oops. Not sure where that rogue ‘I’ came from.
If Emily Davison had been behind the rails there would have been no incident. There is something I really don’t like about this clue.
I really enjoyed this one despite a couple of minor quibbles, which are the use of both STAGE PLAYS and PLAY-ACTOR in the same puzzle, and the dodgy homophone at 12ac that John has already pointed out in his blog.
I’m with hounddog@2 in assuming that the Fergie redhead is Sarah. It would only work for the cantankerous one if it was two words. Because the Indy puzzle uses more contemporary references than the others that I do on a regular basis I did wonder when I first read the clue if it related to the singer from the Black Eyed Peas.
As far as 18ac is concerned I didn’t find it distasteful, and if it educates just one solver who was previously unaware of Emily Davison and what she did then it will have been worthwhile.
It is &lit in style, , but teht mesaning is questionable for the definition, as you hvae seen.
sidey @4; if you are riding in the Derby, ‘behind the rails’ is on the course – so speaks an Epsom resident.
Isn’t it odd, John. 18ac was obvious to me, but it took me ages to get 14ac.
Spent ages trying to work out why 8dn was “observer” before getting 10ac.
Lots I couldn’t parse here, not just 1ac, so thanks all for explaining.
Lovely solve – got there in the end – thanks both.
18a Yes- what a clue – lovely wordplay. Cryptically (or really literally) we can get her to be on the side of the rails we need her on so I think I can pull a meaning from the surface to match the historical event.
With a wordplay as good as that I would have been happy with a near miss but I don’t think that’s needed here.
26A The clue is “he”. It is shoe* about [De]r{by]. The “he” is relevant, since all runners in the Derby must be three-year-old colts; in other words they cannot have been gelded and so must be described as “he” rather than “it”.