It has fallen to Scorpion to put us through our cruciverbal paces today.
I had to chip away at this one, gradually working my way through the clues, rather than solving them in flurries. Halfway through I realised that, rather impressively, all the across entries were place names but each with an alternative definition, the one used here.
I think that I have managed to make sense of all the clues, although I would be interested to hear if other solvers understood “originally” in 25 as referring to the initial letters of the island or to the island as the first element of the wordplay. I was fooled by the “bread” in 9, needing Chambers to explain the wordplay. The runner at 11 was new to me, as was the shape at 19. My favourites today were 4 for its smooth surface and 6 for its clever “the old repeats” device.
*(…) indicates an anagram; definitions are italicised; // separates definitions in multiple-definition clues
| Across | ||
| 07 | CAERPHILLY | Weird race, the foremost of participants rolling cheese
*(RACE) + P<articipants> (“the foremost of” means first letter only) + HILLY (=rolling, of countryside); “weird” is anagram indicator |
| 09 | LEEK | Foreign bread encloses latest of homemade food
<homemad>E (“latest of” means last letter only) in LEK (=foreign “bread”, i.e. the standard monetary unit of Albania) |
| 10 | BARNET | Bob perhaps stitching together black fabric
BAR (=black, ban) + NET (=fabric); barnet (fair) is Cockney rhyming slang for hair(style), hence “bob” |
| 11 | BEDFORD | Stand with daughters outside supporting long-distance runner
BE (=stand) + [FOR (=supporting) in D, D (=daughters)]; the reference is to David Bedford (1949-), a 1970s English long-distance runner |
| 12 | HEREFORD | Adjudicator joins ring among group of cattle, such as this?
[REF (=adjudicator, i.e. referee) + O (=ring)] in HERD (=group of cattle) |
| 14 | PUDSEY | Charity mascot, chubby person, agreed to cut back
PUD (=chubby person, i.e. pudding) + SEY (YES=agreed; “to cut back” indicates reversal); Pudsey Bear is the mascot of BBC Children in Need |
| 15 | CHORLEY | Left to break routine task and finally buy such a cake?
[L (=left) in CHORE (=routine task)] + <bu>Y (“finally” indicates last letter only); Chorley cakes are flattened, fruit-filled pastries, associated with the Lancashire town of Chorley |
| 17 | PAISLEY | Man perhaps wearing inverted rabbit pattern
ISLE (=Man perhaps) in PAY (YAP=rabbit (on); “inverted” indicates reversal) |
| 20 | BATTLE | Cricketer talked intermittently ignoring hostilities
BAT (=cricketer, as in He’s a good bat) + T<a>L<k>E<d> (“intermittently” means alternate letters only are used) |
| 22 | SANDWICH | In Germany, first person joins extremists to swallow triple-decker?
S AND W (=extremists to swallow, i.e. first and last letter) + ICH (=in Germany, first person, i.e. the German word for I) |
| 24 | BARKING | Pub man out to lunch
BAR (=pub) + KING (=man, in chess) |
| 26 | HARLOW | Hollywood actress strict downsizing flat
HAR<d> (=strict; “downsizing” means last letter dropped) + LOW (=flat, as adjective); the reference is to Hollywood actress Jean Harlow (1911-1937) |
| 27 | HYDE | In auditorium, screen fictional villain
Homophone (“in auditorium”) of “hide” (=screen); the reference is to Mr Hyde from R L Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde |
| 28 | WINCHESTER | One’s shot crank damaging trees
WINCH (=crank, hoist) + *(TREES); “damaging” is anagram indicator |
| Down | ||
| 01 | PARADE | Show text with poor exam grades
PARA (=text, i.e. paragraph) + D, E (=poor grades, in exams) |
| 02 | GRANDEUR | Relative regretted looking wrong way as nobility appears
GRAN (=relative) + DEUR (RUED=regretted; “looking wrong way” indicates reversal) |
| 03 | CHAT | Husband impregnates lover of jazz singer
H (=husband) in CAT (=lover of jazz); a chat is a small songbird, hence “singer” |
| 04 | EYED | Organ donor initially scanned
EYE (=organ) + D<onor> (“initially” means first letter only) |
| 05 | ALMOND | First Minister shaves head – nutty thing
<s>ALMOND (=First Minister, of Scotland); “shaves head” means first letter dropped; the reference is to SNP leader and First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond |
| 06 | BEADY-EYE | Extremely bizarre promo showing the old repeats. Big Brother, perhaps?
B<izarr>E (“extremely” means first and last letters only) + AD (=promo, i.e. advert) + YE, YE (=the old repeats, i.e. 2 x old word for the) |
| 08 | LIBIDO | Lecher displays such a pair of binoculars occupying beach
BI<noculars> (“a pair of” means first two letters) in LIDO (=beach) |
| 13 | OBESE | Cheeseboard served up containing almost 50% fat
Hidden (“containing almost 50%”, i.e. 5 letters out of 11) in “cheESEBOard” and vertically reversed (“served up”) |
| 14 | PRAWN | Submarine’s man on board welcomes end of war
<wa>R (“end of” means last letter only) in PAWN (=man on (chess) board); a submarine can be an organism living in the sea, hence “prawn” |
| 16 | HEAD BOYS | Schoolchildren given ASBO (27 troublesome)
*(ASBO + HYDE (=entry at 27)); “troublesome” is anagram indicator |
| 18 | SAWGRASS | Sedge plant, active over start of October, grows wild at rear
*(GR-a for o-WS) + ASS (=rear, bum); “active (=A) over start of October (=O, i.e. first letter) means letter “o” is replaced by “a” in anagram, indicated by “wild” |
| 19 | ISOGON | Square perhaps is a sort of restricted area from the south
IS + OGON (NO-GO=restricted area; “from the south” indicates vertical reversal); an isogon is an equiangular polygon, hence “square” |
| 21 | TURKEY | Aga installed here // cooking this meat?
Double definition: the aga here is a Turkish commander, rather than a large stove! |
| 23 | CLOSET | Empty space found in Charlie’s room
S<pac>E (“empty” means all but first and last letters dropped) in CLOT (=Charlie, fool) |
| 25 | IOWA | British Island originally attached to a part of the USA
IOW (=British Island, i.e. Isle of Wight) + A |
| 26 | HA-HA | Fruit repeatedly separated from wide garden border?
2 x HA<w> (=fruit; “separated from wide (=W)” means letter “w” dropped) |
RatkojaRiku – many thanks for your blog, and 11 out of 10 for your parsing of 18 down – had me stumped!
Agree with uncleada, I couldn’t see why it was sawgrass either. Found 10ac and 11ac bit of a stretch but did like 22ac, 12ac and 26d.
Thx both
A tricky puzzle but the cluing was fair, just about. The fact that all of the acrosses were also place names completely went over my head, which is a shame because it was an excellent achievement by Scorpion. The ALMOND/LEEK crossers were my last ones in, which is hard to explain as I had solved and parsed some of the more difficult clues, such as the one for SAWGRASS, much earlier.
As far as RR’s question about 25dn is concerned I thought that “originally” referred to the initial letters of the island.
Many thanks RR for your excellent blog of an excellent puzzle.
Unfortunately, I missed out on 10ac (BARNET) which I probably would have got if I had seen the ‘place names’.
How could I have missed the theme?
It’s so blatantly obvious when I look at it now.
And here’s another solver who needed a proper explanation for 18d.
ps, I took IOWA as IOW + A[ttached] to get “a part of the USA”.
However, I think your and Andy B’s parsing is cleaner.
An impressive puzzle, and blog. I got, but couldn’t satisfactorily parse CLOSET, BARNET or BEDFORD without the blog and I was defeated by SAWGRASS and PAISLEY, where I stared at the few remaining empty squares and they stared defiantly back.
So a win for setter and blogger, but no shame in losing so narrowly today to a pair on good form!
I actually got 18d, from the S and W, but still don’t understand the parsing. I thought this was too hard for a Tuesday afternoon’s enjoyment- far too many clues seemed to require backwards elements, one of my pet hates. Irrational I know, but there it is.
I liked bits of this but found it hard for a Scorpion. In fact I found it hard, period.
BEADY EYE was very good, but I’m afraid I still don’t understand 18dn. And BEDFORD is pretty obscure: there are lots of long-distance runners and with a proper name I might have appreciated a less obscure way of clueing it. A charade of BED and FORD might have done the trick.
But of course if I’d spotted the theme, I could have written it in once I’d got the crossers. But, comme d’habitude, I didn’t spot it.
Thanks to both.
Here’s another two who didn’t see the place names! We pondered over BARNET but couldn’t see BAR for black. We weren’t totally happy over PARADE either so came here to check them both.
Bert solved BEDFORD but thought it was a little obscure although he did think that two awful characters in an advert for a directory enquiry number were based on him!
Thanks to both S & B.
I got CAERPHILLY, LEEK and HEREFORD pretty quickly and thought there was something going on, then CHORLEY and PAISLEY confirmed my suspicions. Didn’t get WINCHESTER for a while, though, thinking 25dn was IONA (I + ON + A, with ‘Island’ doing double duty as part of the definition as well as part of the wordplay). And was held up on 23dn thinking ‘Charlie’ was a reference to C in the so-called NATO Alphabet.
But I got there in the end. Thanks, Scorpion and RatkojaRiku
18dn: the word is arse. Ass is (as we are told by Chambers) North American. But it’s becoming so widespread over here and used by people who don’t even realise, I suspect, that it’s NA that it probably won’t be long before it becomes standard, if it hasn’t already. I think its North American-ness should have been indicated. But perhaps I’m just saying that because I couldn’t do it — I thought that ‘at rear’ meant at the beginning, so invented something called sowgrass, hoping that ‘start of October’ was somehow SS.
I also got but couldn’t parse SAWGRASS, and got Bedford only because a) it was a place name and b) it was a (long-distance?) lorry.
Another for eggheads only,
ah ! well, back to the 5 word crossword for me, & I suspect a few more of us ,not so enlightened .