Good morning, and a very happy new year to you all. Armonie eased us into 2014 with a gentle but satisfying solve; nothing to really test the little grey cells here, but the clueing was impeccable and there were one or two gems, I thought, tucked away in the SE corner. Thank-you, Armonie – and a happy new year to you, too.
| Across | ||
| 1 | DOCTOR | Pervert caught during exit (6) |
| Ct [caught] within door [exit] | ||
| 4 | UPSHOT | Mounted marksman gets result (6) |
| Up [mounted] shot [marksman] | ||
| 8 | LAMBADA | Priest occupied by immoral dance (7) |
| Bad [immoral] within lama [priest] | ||
| 9 | BURNISH | Polish water supply is hot (7) |
| Burn [water supply, stream] is h [hot] | ||
| 11 | STARK NAKED | Uncovered bet about old vessel reaching pole (5,5) |
| Ark [old vessel] N [north] within staked [bet] | ||
| 12 | VIAL | Medicine bottle essential when losing heart (4) |
| Vi(t)al [essential] | ||
| 13 | SATIN | Attended a meeting of the cloth (5) |
| Sat in [attended a meeting] | ||
| 14 | NOTARIES | Senorita troubled officials (8) |
| Anagram of senorita | ||
| 16 | HARD SELL | Shred all dreadfully manipulative advertising (4,4) |
| Anagram of shred all | ||
| 18 | EVENT | Woman books occasion (5) |
| Eve [woman] NT [New Testament, books] | ||
| 20 | STIR | Teacher has time in jail (4) |
| T [time] within sir [teacher] | ||
| 21 | BENT DOUBLE | Corrupt impersonator is hunched over (4,6) |
| Bent [corrupt] double [impersonator] | ||
| 23 | LEANDER | List the German rowing club (7) |
| Lean [list] der [German for ‘the’] | ||
| 24 | PENANCE | Zionist leader leaves Cornish town in act of atonement (7) |
| Penzance [Cornish town] minus Z(ionist) | ||
| 25 | STEAMS | Cooks for the crew aboard ship (6) |
| Team [crew] within SS [(steam)ship] | ||
| 26 | STREAM | Dancing master selected pupils (6) |
| Anagram of master | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | DRAFT | Rector appears in silly sketch (5) |
| R [rector] within daft [silly] | ||
| 2 | CABARET | Show jazz fan embracing nude (7) |
| Bare [nude] within cat [jazz fan, hepcat] | ||
| 3 | ORDINANCE | Bill or Bob keeps batting (9) |
| In [batting] within or dance [bob] | ||
| 5 | POUND | Batter poet (5) |
| Double definition, alluding to the imagist poet Ezra | ||
| 6 | HANOVER | British dynasty and Chinese dynasty finished (7) |
| Han [Chinese dynasty] over [finished] (a topical allusion here) | ||
| 7 | TESTAMENT | Examine the last word on tenor’s last wishes (9) |
| Test [examine] amen [last word] T [tenor] | ||
| 10 | SKINFLINT | Hide stone tool from miser (9) |
| Skin [hide] flint [stone tool] | ||
| 13 | SMARTNESS | Bright cape shows style (9) |
| Smart [bright] ness [cape, headland] | ||
| 15 | TRENDIEST | Yearns to be in the river? Most cool! (9) |
| Dies [yearns] within Trent [river] | ||
| 17 | DERANGE | Exploding grenade creates disorder (7) |
| Anagram of grenade | ||
| 19 | EMULATE | Bird slow to reproduce (7) |
| Emu [bird] late [slow] | ||
| 21 | BREAM | Swimmer provided some macabre amusement (5) |
| Hidden in macaBRE AMusement | ||
| 22 | LOCUM | See copper married stand-in (5) |
| Lo [see] Cu [chemical symbol for copper] m [married] | ||
Thanks, Ringo & Armonie.
I hadn’t heard of the LEANDER Club, but Google confirmed that quickly enough. And I had to think about the parsing of 17d; after getting stuck on “disorder” as a noun, I finally realized the definition must be “disorder” as a verb. Also, I hit a bump after initially entering SHARPNESS for 13d. Otherwise, pretty straightforward stuff.
I got about half out befroe coming to a grinding halt where no matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t get a another answer.
The NW was totally barren-
8a It doesn’t help when you don’t know that lama =priest. I have heard of the Dalai Lama but until today had no idea that lama was just another word for a priest.
11a I never thought of ark as old vessel -I ran through Greek sailing ships etc.
3d I didn’t know that ordinance was a bill and moreover my first take was that it meant bill as in credit card bill. Only when I looked further did I find it meant bill as in legal. I had also laboured under the illusion that maps were ordinance survey maps and not ordnance survey maps. Discovering that ordnance is to with things military, why is the ordnance survey map of (say) the Scottish Highlands so described given that there is little military about them?
19d Totally misled here -thought of reproduce as in procreate and not copy.
Thanks for enlightenment.
Thanks Armonie for an enjoyably straightforward puzzle and Ringo for the blog. I think my favourite clue was 24ac, simply because you do not often see removal of a Z as the wordplay.
Bamberger@2 re 3dn: As I understand it, Ordnance Survey is the name of the organisation that produces the maps, the name reflecting the purpose for which they were originally established.
Bamberger@2 re 8dn: LAMA appears frequently in American crosswords (especially the New York Times), usually in reference to this poem by Ogden Nash:
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~richie/poetry/html/poem94.html