It seems like quite a while since I did battle with Anax, but it’s always a welcome challenge.
Admittedly, drawing an Anax can often be a little daunting for a solver, but this one didn’t prove to be unduly difficult, and everything was fairly straightforward to explain. That said, I wasn’t fully sure of the wordplay at 1ac, though the answer was clear. The last one in was 22dn, which thankfully I remembered from geography class at school.
I didn’t spot an obvious theme, though several of the longer answers have the string THE in them. That’s so tenuous a connection that I questioned whether to even mention it, but there are a few of them, so who knows…
| Across | ||
| 1 | ACTIVE DUTY | US military occupation (6,4) |
| I think this must just be a cryptic defintion, but could be missing something | ||
| 6 | PLUM | Brilliant sound, but no bass (4) |
| PLUM[b] | ||
| 10 | MIX | Get on M9 (3) |
| M + IX | ||
| 11 | ENTERPRISES | Businesses join forces (11) |
| ENTER + PRISES | ||
| 12 | RADIOING | Sending short ‘goodbye’ during call (8) |
| ADIO[s] in RING | ||
| 13 | ENMITY | Hate soldiers to be taken from horror (6) |
| EN[or]MITY | ||
| 15 | BACK TO THE FUTURE | Take fourth cut for editing in live film (4,2,3,6) |
| (TAKE FOURTH CUT)* in BE | ||
| 18 | YOU’VE GOT ME THERE | I don’t know what the passenger eventually said (5,3,2,5) |
| double definition | ||
| 19 | MUTATE | Convert cheers into silence (6) |
| TA in MUTE | ||
| 20 | ASPERGER | Work unit will open according to paediatrician (8) |
| ERG in AS PER. The paediatrician is Hans Asperger | ||
| 23 | SPECULATIVE | Forged Elvis tape – copper’s brought in for questioning (11) |
| Cu in (ELVIS TAPE)* | ||
| 24 | NIB | ‘Tip’ is reversal of ‘dump’ (3) |
| BIN< | ||
| 25 | NOSH | Food – you don’t say when it’s left! (4) |
| Look away if you’re easily offended. NO SH[it] | ||
| 26 | DINNERWARE | Private’s fight to break extremely durable table things (10) |
| (INNER WAR) in D[urabl]E | ||
| Down | ||
| 10 | ADMIRABLY | Notice millions travelling by rail very well (9) |
| AD + M + (BY RAIL)* | ||
| 22 | TAXED | Weighed down by earth – there’s a bit to carry (5) |
| (X + E) in TAD | ||
| 3 | VIEW ON THE STOUR | Rival used man’s expedition painting (4,2,3,5) |
| VIE + WONT + HE‘S + TOUR. This seems to be any of a number of paintings by John Constable | ||
| 4 | DETONATION | Blast the bankrupt people, you might say (10) |
| homophone of “debtor nation” | ||
| 5 | TURF | Ducks out of tour of manor (4) |
| T[o]UR [o]F | ||
| 71 | LASSITUDE | Weakness of female sex exposed when topless (9) |
| LASS + IT + [n]UDE | ||
| 8 | MISTY | Unclear? Perhaps it’s covered in crumbs (5) |
| ITS* in MY | ||
| 9 | BRING UP THE REAR | Mention the woman entering race to come last (5,2,3,4) |
| BRING UP + (HER in TEAR) | ||
| 14 | PERMISSION | Leave a job (10) |
| PER + MISSION | ||
| 16 | COUNTLESS | Lady holding line for legion (9) |
| L in COUNTESS | ||
| 17 | EXECRABLE | Awful suit right for top of table (9) |
| EXEC + R + [t]ABLE | ||
| 19 | MASON | Jewish comedian putting up anti-missile banner (5) |
| (NO + SAM)<. The comedian being Jackie Mason, of course | ||
| 21 | GENOA | Hoisted a single good sail (5) |
| (A + ONE + G)< | ||
| 22 | WADI | Lump one found in bed? (4) |
| WAD + I. “Bed” as in river bed | ||
* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; italics = definition
I can’t help you with 1ac but I guessed the correct answer from the checkers once I finally unravelled the wordplay for TAXED. WADI was also my last in, and I used aids to get it because I couldn’t think of a lump spelled ?A? and there were far too many permutations. I went through the alphabet in my mind but nothing dropped. However, that might have been because I was looking for something where the “a” rhymed with “sad”, not something where the “a” rhymed with “sod”. The “found in bed” meaning “bed” wasn’t helpful either. Having said that, I enjoyed the rest of the puzzle.
Agree Simon, not the most daunting Anax, and some very nice clues. But I’m still at sea with a few: 1ac if it’s a CD seems very strange and I’m sure there’s more, but I can’t see what; how does speculative = (for) questioning in 23ac?; why is X = weighed down in 2dn?; how is wont = used in 3dn? (actually I had ‘of’ not ‘on’ and was completely lost here).
Wil@2. I couldn’t parse 2dn, but I see it now from Simon’s explanation. The definition is “weighed down”, and “by” is x for a multiplication sign, E for Earth, and “tad” is a bit that is carrying these two letters.
I had “of” in 3dn, and I’d even googled to see there was such a painting. But “View on the Stour” seems to exist, too, and Chambers defines “wont” as archaic for “used”.
I’m wont to adding comments on Fifteensquared when the puzzle appears years later in the i.
I’m used to adding comments on Fifteensquared when the puzzle appears years later in the i.