This was a well-written puzzle with some excellent surface readings (e.g. 14,4). It was mostly quite accessible, although a few (such as 1 and 7) required a little research to understand the parsing.
| Across | |||
| 1. | Speak out against a game getting commercial (10) | ||
| Animadvert | A + Nim (a game based on removing objects from heaps) + advert | ||
| 6. | It’s not quite right ditching a girl (4) | ||
| Miss | [A]miss | ||
| 9. | Compact container? (7) | ||
| Handbag | CD referring I imagine to the compact make-up item. | ||
| 10. | Old-fashioned politician, I’ll bear being beaten (7) | ||
| Liberal | (I’ll bear)* | ||
| 12. | Comment on Queen carrying old rubbish (8) | ||
| Annotate | Anne around o(ld) tat | ||
| 13. | Get rid of daughter, cause of irritation (5) | ||
| Ditch | D(aughter) + itch | ||
| 15. | Reduced to a bare minimum, like BBC? (11) | ||
| Abbreviated | CD | ||
| 18. | Heedful opposing team gains speed (11) | ||
| Considerate | Con + side + rate | ||
| 21. | Fine material — group of workers turned over length of it? (5) | ||
| Tulle | TU (trade union) over ell<, a measure of length which was mainly used in the tailoring industry. |
||
| 22. | Foreign capital with fashionable people having one exotic dish (8) | ||
| Rigatoni | Riga + ton + i | ||
| 24. | One possibly cutting and possibly ironic about society (7) | ||
| Incisor | Ironic* around s | ||
| 25. | Base one established north of French city about to be demolished (7) | ||
| Ignoble | I + G[re]noble | ||
| 26. | Energy no good? One makes a noise (4) | ||
| Gong | Go + ng | ||
| 27. | Provider of publicity to plagiarise someone else’s work? (10) | ||
| Copywriter | DD/CD | ||
Down |
|||
| 1. | Retreat as sheep hiding under tree (6) | ||
| Ashram | Ash + ram | ||
| 2. | Somewhere to drink at home before start of great American sports session? (6) | ||
| Inning | Inn + in + g[reat]. Inning (as opposed to cricket’s innings) is used in sports like baseball. |
||
| 3. | Unpredictability of starer — brain is addled (13) | ||
| Arbitrariness | (Starer brain is)* | ||
| 4. | Best veal, minced say for eating — served with such? (10) | ||
| Vegetables | (Best veal)* around eg | ||
| 5. | This part makes audible rumble (4) | ||
| Role | Hom of roll | ||
| 7. | Bother with slowing down — get cross about that (8) | ||
| Irritate | Rit (short for ritardando) in irate | ||
| 8. | Chemical is held up after being shaken (8) | ||
| Sulphide | (Is held up)* | ||
| 11. | Dr’s been mean, I’d fancy — one needing to develop this sympathetic approach? (7,6) | ||
| Bedside manner | (Dr’s been mean I’d)* | ||
| 14. | One in reality TV sadly demonstrates an absence of fixed standards (10) | ||
| Relativity | I in (reality TV)* | ||
| 16. | Withering grass outside animal hospital (8) | ||
| Scathing | Sing around cat h(ospital) | ||
| 17. | Church member‘s point of view, briefly an assertion of personal ability (8) | ||
| Anglican | Angl[e] + I can | ||
| 19. | Little house with B&B — thing to suit fictional adventurer? (6) | ||
| Hobbit | Ho(use) + BB + it | ||
| 20. | Lake I approach going straight from A to B? (6) | ||
| Linear | L(ake) + I near | ||
| 23. | Limited number of musicians in choir turning up (4) | ||
| Trio | Hidden, rev in chOIR Turning, up being the reversal indicator | ||
You are right, Neal – a well-constructed puzzle, just right for a Monday. Plenty of clue variety too. I especially liked HOBBIT.
Thanks to S&B.
[Neal, I think to make sense of 1ac, we have to have ‘speak out against’ as the definition.]
Yes, thanks, I put the definition tag in a bit too hastily there. Now corrected.
Another very enjoyable Monday puzzle from the Don. I knew “nim” and “rit” so I was able to parse 1ac and 7dn, although the latter was my second-to-last one in. RELATIVITY was my LOI. I liked the clue for TULLE.
Thanks Q and Neal, didn’t know 1a but guessed correctly from the wordplay.
Thanks NealH for parsing IRRITATE, easy to enter, less so to parse.
12A I think “on” should be included in the definition, annotating being to make notes on.
25A – in an A clue why isn’t it “west of”, rather than “north of”?
Thanks to Quixote and NealH.
Not too difficult, although I couldn’t parse 21ac, thanks. 1dn, I knew the word ended -RAM but I just couldn’t think of the tree! Curiously this is the second time I recall seeing INNING as an answer in an Indie crossword, and both times I was watching a baseball game on television whilst solving the puzzle.
That’s a good question, gwep, about IGNOBLE. Must admit I hadn’t spotted that one.
I agree with gwep@5: surely it should be west not north. At the time I thought well my geography isn’t all that great and perhaps Grenoble is the northern part of some larger French town. But somehow I think no.