Lorraine: Good morning happy solvers.
It is good to be back. Fairly straight forward this week, in fact I enjoyed the solve very much. My favourite this week was 18ac, very good clue in my mind.
Big thank you to Everyman.
| Across | |||
| 1. | Cloudless section distinct (5-3) | ||
| CLEAR-CUT | CLEAR+CUT[as cut open/section a body] | ||
| 5. | A copper confronting servants demonstrates intuition (6) | ||
| ACUMEN i | A+CU+MEN | ||
| 9. | Preserved meat – sailor’s to complain (4,4) | ||
| SALT BEEF | SALT+BEEF | ||
| 10. | Iran, an amazing magical land (6) | ||
| NARNIA i | (IRAN, AN)* | ||
| 12. | Story swallowed by an immigrant (5) | ||
| ALIEN | LIE in AN | ||
| 13. | Force someone to move from vault, gallons having been imbibed (9) | ||
| FROGMARCH i | G in ((FROM*)+ARCH[vault]) | ||
| 14. | Singer Billie’s producer, one on a tour? (7-5) | ||
| HOLIDAY-MAKER | [billie]HOLIDAY+MAKER | ||
| 18. | Fight ring in nursery rhyme (4,4,4) | ||
| DING DONG BELL | DING-DONG+BELL | ||
| 21. | Work of little merit in vessel, British tanker (9) | ||
| POTBOILER i | POT+B+OILER | ||
| 23. | United at home against last in league (2,3) | ||
| IN ONE | IN+ON[against]+E | ||
| 24. | Diamonds put by carton in fridge compartment (6) | ||
| ICEBOX | ICE+BOX | ||
| 25. | Learned to repeat after foremost of lecturers (8) | ||
| LITERATE i | ITERATE after L(ectures) one of these words – ‘learned’ here is pronounced “learn ‘ed” meaning educated |
||
| 26. | Approached miserly editor (6) | ||
| NEARED | NEAR[mean]+ED | ||
| 27. | Sweatier in resort, so to speak (2,2,4) | ||
| AS IT WERE | (SWEATIER*) read ‘in re-sort’ |
||
Down |
|||
| 1. | One about to leave republic to top the bill with another (2-4) | ||
| CO-STAR | COSTA R(i ca) | ||
| 2. | Cake Alice baked right (6) | ||
| ECLAIR | (ALICE*)+R | ||
| 3. | Much associated with this outlaw (5,4) | ||
| ROBIN HOOD | pun: reference ‘Much the Millar’s son’ one of RH’s gang | ||
| 4. | Surely incorrect to include companion, but easy to understand (4-8) | ||
| USER-FRIENDLY | (SURELY*) around FRIEND | ||
| 6. | Church member’s appeal (5) | ||
| CHARM | CH+ARM | ||
| 7. | Male duck exposes poisonous plant (8) | ||
| MANDRAKE i | MAN+DRAKE | ||
| 8. | You’ll find my charges low! (8) | ||
| NEATHERD i | pun, cd: an NEATHERD is a cow herder, so he herds animals that MOOoOoo[low] |
||
| 11. | Fruit began to go off in trucks (12) | ||
| LOGANBERRIES | (BEGAN*) in LORRIES | ||
| 15. | Girl in factory, one on little money (9) | ||
| MILLICENT | MILL[factory]+I+CENT | ||
| 16. | A party overcomes tricky point in formal selection of candidate? (8) | ||
| ADOPTION | ADO+(POINT*) | ||
| 17. | Song about a lamia, ultimately an object of loathing (8) | ||
| ANATHEMA i | ANTHEM around (lami)A | ||
| 19. | Shortly extra beer will bring confidence (6) | ||
| MORALE | MOR(e)+ALE | ||
| 20. | Very bad cut on base of spine (6) | ||
| SEVERE | SEVER[cut]+(spin)E | ||
| 22. | Clean bracing air round region (5) | ||
| OZONE | O+ZONE | ||
|
|
|||
Many thanks, Lorraine.
Yet again I forgot that “neat” can mean cattle – some people never learn! I had been trying to find a synonym for “nanny” beause a nanny’s charges are small!
Apart from that, as you say, pretty straightforward.
Many thanks Lorraine & Everyman
This was very enjoyable and, on behalf of everybody:
Welcome Back!
By the way, Lorraine, did you really get up early enough to post your blog at 4:15 a.m.?
Or was that Nick’s job?
I found this a lot tougher than most weeks. Though entering ‘clear sky’ at 1a didn’t help. Neatherd and frogmarch had me stumped in particular.
I must have been on Everyman’s wavelength even more than usual this morning because I sailed through it, although it helped that I knew NEATHERD, saw FROGMARCH fairly quickly, and got the reference to Much the Miller straight away. IN ONE was my LOI.
Hello Bryan,
Nick scheduled the blog to appear at that time, trust me he was sound asleep at that time in the morning. lol.