I enjoyed this, and – with one maddening exception – was able to make sense of it without too much trouble.
An excellent array of innovative devices and unusual wordplay. Only one clue (3dn.) left me stumped… help! An excellent puzzle all in all, so thank-you, Wanderer.
| Across | ||
| 1, 4 | ANGINA PECTORIS | Heart complaint troubling inspector again (6,8) |
| Anagram of inspector again | ||
| 9 | RARING | Eager beaver finally joins a band (6) |
| (Beave)r a ring [band] | ||
| 10 | TITANIUM | Element of hesitation after Queen docked (8) |
| Titani(a) [queen of the fairies] um [hesitation] | ||
| 12 | IN ACTION | Back from Lugano? It can involve working (2,6) |
| Hidden in reversal of lugaNO IT CAN Involve | ||
| 13 | APNOEA | Lack of breath an ape suffers when without oxygen (6) |
| O [oxygen] within anagram of an ape | ||
| 15 | EARL | Almost too soon for the equivalent to count (4) |
| Earl(y) [too soon] | ||
| 16 | SPELEOLOGY | Disturbed sleep? Try and look back at end of day’s potholing (10) |
| Anagram of sleep reversal of go [try] lo [look] (da)y | ||
| 19 | MICROSCOPE | Instrument not left over after more piccolos ordered (10) |
| Anaram of more piccolos minus l [left] o [over] | ||
| 20 | AFRO | Cut tail off an amphibian (4) |
| A fro(g) [amphibian] | ||
| 23 | RIPPLE | Flipper frolics after heading off for a wave (6) |
| Anagram of (f)lipper | ||
| 25 | LONE WOLF | Sub writer, reportedly a solitary type (4,4) |
| Lone [sounds like ‘loan’, sub] wolf [sounds like ‘Wolfe’, writer Tom] | ||
| 27 | HOLSTEIN | Composer with one German cow (8) |
| Holst [composer Gustave] ein [German for ‘one’] | ||
| 28 | HEROIN | Horse leading lady got clipped (6) |
| Heroin(e) [leading lady] | ||
| 29, 30 | LAURENCE STERNE | Shandy Man gets novelist back on the phone (8,6) |
| Laurence [sounds like ‘Lawrence’, novelist DH] Sterne [sounds like ‘stern’, back] | ||
| Down | ||
| 1, 19 | AIR VICE-MARSHAL | Flying Officer Clive, with a hair out of place, orbiting planet (3,4-7) |
| Mars [planet] within anagram of Clive a hair | ||
| 2 | GERIATRIC | Spice Girl has a vocally deceptive device that’s aged a lot (9) |
| Geri [Halliwell, Spice Girl] a tric [sounds like ‘trick’, deceptive device] | ||
| 3 | NINETY | Number given in exchange (6) |
| I can’t parse this at all… givNE IN?… TY [thankyou]?… | ||
| 5, 14 | ERIC CLAPTON | Applaud after openings of riffs in concert held by school musician (4,7) |
| Opening letters of Riffs In Concert clap [applaud] within Eton [school] | ||
| 6 | TEASPOON | Part of canteen providing meal at old club (8) |
| Tea [meal] spoon [old type of golf club] | ||
| 7 | RHINO | Animal sporting one horn? (5) |
| Anagram of I [one] horn | ||
| 8, 21 | SUMMARY OFFENCE | Sin coming before a fall, we hear – one tried in a magistrate’s court (7,7) |
| Sounds like ‘summery offence’, a sin that comes before fall or autumn | ||
| 11, 26 | COMPACT DISC | Extended offer from McDonald’s one tracked on Amazon? (7,4) |
| ‘Extended’ form of (m)cD(onald) | ||
| 14 | See 5 | |
| 17 | OFF-COLOUR | Away from Hugh, sounded blue (3- 6) |
| Off [away] colour [hue, sounds like ‘Hugh’] | ||
| 18 | ROULETTE | Risky game, changing our landlord right away (8) |
| Anagram of our letter [landlord] minus r [right] | ||
| 19 | See 1 down | |
| 21 | See 8 | |
| 22 | DEFECT | Failing to cross over to the other side (6) |
| Double definition | ||
| 24 | PILAU | Paul and I cooked an Asian dish (5) |
| Anagram of paul i | ||
| 26 | See 11 | |
Thanks Wanderer and Ringo. The one I could not explain was 8/21dn, so thanks especially for that.
3dn: Ninety is XC in Roman numerals, and XC is found in eXChange.
Thanks Ringo for the blog and to Wanderer for a good workout.
Pelham @1 – That was clever!
For 25ac, I got to the same answer but was thinking of Virgina Woolf as the reference.
For 11,26d, I feel a bit uncomfortable about the way the clue is structured. Was the offer / Amazon part of the clue necessary for the cluing?
Pelham – ahh, of course, thank-you!
Turbolegs – I can see what you mean re. 11,26dn, but I think it all works, even if it’s not the most elegant clue. As for Wolfe/Woolf, both work, I think; there are also two celebrated writerly Tom Wolfes to choose from!
Took me a while to see a few. Xc cd both hidden indrects. Indirect anagram is a no no but indirect hidden is ok?
Sorry, team, please could someone spell out to a thickie how we reached 11,26? Apart from that, great fun and a very good puzzle. Thanks to both Ringo and Wanderer.
Hornbeam @ 5, far be it from me to speak for the experts, but I think it is that the word ‘McDonald’ ‘offers’ us the letters ‘CD’ which is an object that has tracks (‘tracked’) and is available on ‘Amazon’. The ‘extended’ form is ‘COMPACT DISC’. If I’m wrong, would someone please correct me.
I didn’t get it either until I read the blog, but I tend to agree with Turbolegs @ 2 that the Amazon part of the clue was unnecessary except that it added to the misdirection. The ‘offer’ part however seems to suggest that the letters were hidden in ‘McDonald’s’ and was therefore necessary.
I felt it would have made good word play for “Extended” to do double duty i.e. As definition and short for Extended Play (which a compact disc is, although I don’t know if Extended by itself is good enough) as well as to suggest the solution be extended (verb form) from McDonalds [ This would mean that the clue would look something like “Extended from McDonalds…”]
Thanks Wanderer and Ringo
Another backlog one … and found it pretty solid going. Last in was DEFECT after playing with ‘defeat’ for too long.
Noticed a lot of single letter adds / removes throughout and five homophones which was unusually high.
Especially liked the definition for LAURENCE STERNE and the clue for SPELEOLOGY