- *=anagram
- [] = removed e.g. char[m]=char
- ()=abbreviation e.g. A(mpere)=a
- Hom. = homophone
I thought this was an excellent and well-balanced puzzle with a nice mixture of clues. There were plenty of easier clues to help the solver get going and just enough that required a bit more thought. 9 across was a neat enough idea to be deserved to used twice and the results were slightly different in each case. My favourite was 25, which did have me scratching my head for a while on how an expression starting with comes could be a word for underwear*.
| Across | |||
| 1. | Slept outside and brought back book (9) | ||
| Kidnapped | Kipped around and<. | ||
| 6. | Intelligence taps reveal wicked woman (5) | ||
| Witch | Wit + CH (cold/hot taps). | ||
| 9. | Avi, a weighty three-quarter, perhaps would be best off with a low one (6,2,7) | ||
| Centre of Gravity | Not sure how you’d describe this – a sort of CD/DD relying on avi being the middle letters of grAVIty. | ||
| 10. | Pitt going round a museum with nothing on, showing great self-confidence (7) | ||
| Bravado | Brad (Pitt) around VA (Victoria and Albert museum) + o. | ||
| 11. | Excited by the fireplace (7) | ||
| Atingle | At ingle = by the fireplace. | ||
| 12. | Swindle with empty eggs the subject of a former hotline (5) | ||
| Cones | Con + e[gg]s. The definition is a reference to John Major’s much pilloried “cones hotline”. | ||
| 14. | Business centre hesitates about sheep numbers(8) | ||
| Integers | [Bus]IN[ess] + ers around teg, a term for a juvenile sheep. | ||
| 17. | New cabinet minister replaces one in shock morning after (8) | ||
| Hangover | N + Gove replacing the I in hair. | ||
| 19. | Show certain lines in reverse order at first (5) | ||
| Rodeo | Ode in first letters of reverse order. | ||
| 21. | Sick at heart, mother lives for artist (7) | ||
| Millais | Ill in Ma + is. | ||
| 23. | Choice small dog is swell (5,2) | ||
| Plump up | Plum + pup. | ||
| 25. | Arrive before perverted fascist bloke drops first of silk undies? (5,4,2,4) | ||
| Comes back to life. | Come + (fa[s]cist bloke)*. You need to interpret undies as un-dies. | ||
| 26. | Heard indications at functions (5) | ||
| Sines. | Hom of signs. | ||
| 27. | Not easily convinced by working train sets (9) | ||
| Resistant | (Train sets)*. | ||
| … Down |
|||
| 1. | Underhand payment to attack defender (8) | ||
| Kickback. | Kick + back. | ||
| 3. | Cleaned-out arbitrageur grows debts (7) | ||
| Arrears | A[rbitrageu]r + rears. | ||
| 4. | Chewing pie OK for 9 composer (9) | ||
| Prokofiev | (Pie OK for v)* – the V obtained by the same device as 9, but with fewer letters. | ||
| 5. | Follow the master’s fixed opinion (5) | ||
| Dogma | Dog + MA (Master of Arts). | ||
| 6/18. | Bespectacled girls chase popular horse south of river (7,7) | ||
| Wearing glasses | Lasses after in + GG after Wear (river in County Durham). | ||
| 7. | Time fixer and journalist were let off (9) | ||
| Triggered | T + rigger + ed. | ||
| 8. | Tomboy cyclist’s hideaway (6) | ||
| Hoyden | Hoy (Sir Chris, multiple Olympic medal winning cyclist) + den. | ||
| 13. | Name homo erectus as one who didn’t quite make it (6,3) | ||
| Nearly man | N(ame) + early man. | ||
| 15. | Purist Ken revolted by toll roads (9) | ||
| Turnpikes | (Purist Ken)*. | ||
| 16. | Curiously, top spies are the most sentimental (8) | ||
| Soppiest | (Top Spies)*. | ||
| 19. | Noisy announcement of fresh business has American support (7) | ||
| Raucous | Hom of raw + Co (=business) + US. | ||
| 20. | Punishes fishing boats (6) | ||
| Smacks | DD. | ||
| 22. | One in prison has something of a case (5) | ||
| Stair | A in star. Def refers to staircases. | ||
| 24/2. | Strait-laced Bill forwards new article presenting opera star(5,5) | ||
| Prima Donna | Prim + ad + on + n(ew) + a. | ||
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*No jokes please – this a family-friendly site!
Yes Neal, I agree that this was a very good puzzle. Both of the long clues were excellent and COMES BACK TO LIFE was my LOI after I finally saw the definition. From the checkers I had been toying with “comes back to bite” without proper analysis of the anagram fodder, although another obvious problem with that was the lack of definition ………
Un-dies! Sneaky and much appreciated, thanks both.
Thanks Alchemi for a very enjoyable puzzle and Neal for the blog.
9ac: I really like the idea, but I do not understand why the word “perhaps” appears where it does in the clue. I would like to see it immediately after “Avi”, as an indication of the inverse clue type, and then the rest of the clue makes a good cryptic definition.
4dn: I found the answer to this before 9ac, but could not account for the V, and was expecting a Prokofiev composition at 9ac. A nice penny dropping moment when the answer to 9ac became clear, and only then could I truly claim to have solved the clue at 4dn. I read it as (pie OK for)* + V, but it makes no difference.
Nice one Alchemi, enjoyed it. Thanks both.
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Thanks for the blog, Neal – very kind.
@3 Pelham Barton: I considered terminating the clue as “Avi, a weighty three-quarter?” because a heavy inside centre in rugby union might be a CENTRE OF GRAVITY, but took the view that that would be a bit much for what was intended as a Sunday/Monday puzzle. Since I wanted to point out that those three words were a cryptic definition, I added the “perhaps” before giving a less Bunthorne-ish definition hint.
@2 flashling: Well, that’s one New Year’s resolution broken. You promised me you wouldn’t be kind about my puzzles ever again! So double thanks.
@Alchemi, ok I take it back, it’s rubbish 🙂
Very ingenious. Having got PROKOFIEV from crossers I, like Pelham @3, was trying to find a work of his to fit 9ac. And another penny-dropping moment when I saw ‘undies’ as ‘un-dies’.
But how nice it would be to see the clue to 17ac rephrased as a headline: ‘New cabinet minister replaced by one in morning after shock’ on the front page one morning!
Thanks, Alchemi and NealH
Lovely, teasing puzzle – enjoyed it a lot, especially the CENTRE OF GRAVITY and PROKOFIEV trick. And ‘undies’ was witty as well. Well done Alchemi and thanks to Neal for the blog.
[Pedants’ corner: in the Linnaean system of classification, the genus is always capitalised, but the species is lower case. So it should really be Homo erectus, since it wouldn’t have made a difference to the clue construction or parsing.]
We enjoyed this one although it took us a Ittle longer to get started than normal. Once we were on Alchemi’s wave length, things speeded up!
Like others, we enjoyed 9ac and 4d.
Thanks NealH for the blog and thanks Alchemi for a good puzzle to start the week.