A gentle offering this from Bradman – my best friend on a Friday. Relatively straightforward with very little left to chance. I needed help parsing 16ac and 18 ac but other that everything else went in pretty quickly. Thanks Bradman, for an apt conclusion to this week of relatively easy FT grids.
I was also not aware of Moshe Dayan but Dr.Google came to the rescue with that.
| Across | ||
| 1 | BACCARAT | Sailor Bill taking taxi back for game (8) |
| TAR (sailor) AC (Bill) CAB (Taxi) – All reversed (back) | ||
| 6 | BRUNCH | Group gathered round front of restaurant for meal (6) |
| BUNCH (group) round R (front of Restaurant) | ||
| 9 | SIMOOM | I am surrounded by beastly noises from the rear – it’s wind! (6) |
| IM (I am) surrounded by SOOM (Moos – beastly noises, reversed) | ||
| 10 | ANTINOMY | My nation is involved in a sort of contradiction (8) |
| Anagram of MY NATION | ||
| 11 | PECK | Kiss Gregory? (4) |
| DD, Guns of Navarone star. | ||
| 12 | MOSHE DAYAN | Old general – he’s a dynamo in action (5,5) |
| Anagram of HE’S A DYNAMO – Wiki here | ||
| 14 | HUMBLEST | Purr, happy to be lower than the rest (8) |
| HUM (purr) BLEST (happy, archaic word for blessed; with a small stretch of imagination, this could be parsed as ‘happy to be’) | ||
| 16 | TWIT | Taunt the Yorkshire guy trying to be funny (4) |
| T’ (The Yorkshire) WIT (guy trying to be funny) | ||
| 18 | MAYO | County batsman who captained England gets duck (4) |
| MAY (bastman who captained England, Peter May) O (duck). Thanks Geoff. | ||
| 19 | OLEASTER | Shrub has nothing left by the daffodil season? (8) |
| O (nothing) L (left) EASTER (daffodil season, Easter is when daffodils are given out traditionally in Europe) | ||
| 21 | BACKGAMMON | Game sponsor comes along with meat (10) |
| BACK (sponsor) GAMMON (meat, hind leg of pork) | ||
| 22 | ROBE | Garment of honour supplied by king or queen (4) |
| OBE (Honour, Order of the British Empire) by R (King, ‘R’, Queen – just trying to be creative!) | ||
| 24 | WHITE ANT | Insect ruins that wine (5,3) |
| Anagram of THAT WINE | ||
| 26 | DETEST | Daughter facing English exam shows hate (6) |
| D (Daughter) E (English) TEST (exam) | ||
| 27 | ADROIT | Skilful mediator managed to get me off (6) |
| Anagram of meDIATOR (with ‘me’ off) | ||
| 28 | LONESOME | Lacking a chum to advance money, you’d say? (8) |
| Sounds like LOAN (advance) SUM (money) | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | ANISE | Plant some trees in Africa to shoot up (5) |
| Hidden in ‘treES IN Africa’, reversed. | ||
| 3 | CHOCK A BLOCK | What sounds like sweet treat, a slab making you quite full (5-1-5) |
| CHOCK (sounds like choc, sweet treat) A BLOCK (slab) | ||
| 4 | REMEMBER | Think back about someone in the club? (8) |
| RE (about) MEMBER (someone in the club) | ||
| 5 | TRANSITION METAL | One militant star wielded iron maybe (10,5) |
| Anagram of ONE MILITANT STAR | ||
| 6 | BUTTER | Prime requirement for bread, say? (6) |
| As in the phrase “bread and butter”. / B (Bread – prime requirement referring to 1st character) UTTER (say) – &lit. (See comments below @2, @3. Thanks Hedgehoggy and Shikasta). | ||
| 7 | URN | Superior navy vessel (3) |
| U (superior) RN (navy, Royal) | ||
| 8 | COMBATIVE | Pugnacious player at crease getting four – word of disapproval about that? (9) |
| COME (word of disapproval, as an interjection in ‘Come on!’) around [BAT (player at crease) IV (four)] | ||
| 13 | ALTOSTRATUS | At last tour’s on the move – there’s a cloud high above (11) |
| Anagram of AT LAST TOURS – Wiki says that this isnt that high up, its a mid-altitude cloud. | ||
| 15 | UNABASHED | Girl having got hit is not embarrassed (9) |
| UNA (girl) BASHED (hit) | ||
| 17 | REINED IN | Queen of France wants noise controlled (6,2) |
| Charade of REINE (French for Queen) DIN (noise) | ||
| 20 | HAVANT | Town hospital before in France (6) |
| H (hospital) AVANT (before in France) | ||
| 23 | BESOM | Slattern observed in Tube sometimes (5) |
| Hidden in ‘tuBE SOMetimes’ | ||
| 25 | TWO | This cardinal will bring up anything (3) |
| Reverse (bring up) of OWT – Northern English for ‘Anything’. I had to guess this. | ||
*anagram
Thanks, Turbolegs, I agree about the gentle offering. He’s often deceptive — one or two difficult clues among the rest. For instance, I’m still not sure why butter (6dn) is a prime requirement; and I’d never heard of the answer to 5dn. But thanks, Bradman for another gentle day-breaker.
Thanks for the blog.
I think 6d is a bit cleverer than that – Prime requirement for bread =B + say = UTTER gives BUTTER – &lit.
It is &lit – at least in the sense that there is no definition part!
Hi all – Thanks for the comments.
Shikasta@2, Hedgehoggy@3 – The clue didn’t strike me that way. I took the straightforward parsing to mean that one’s livelihood, as in ‘bread and butter’ would be a prime requirement for most of us – and it seemed to right to me then, as it was simple enough as the rest of the clues I solved prior to it. Thanks for this interpretation which escaped me completely.
Cheers
Mahesh
Thought 12a was a weak clue. Don’t like names in crosswords and those of relatively obscure dead foreigners even less!
With respect, nothing weak about 12A or obscure about one of Israel’s leaders in the late 1970s who deserves a better description from you! Dayan helped broker peace between Israel and Egypt. At the time he was well known in the public view on TV for his eye patch. Do look him up. Thanks for all the feedback!
Re 6 down, to “butter” someone up is to prepare (prime) them for something. At least, that’s how I read it.
It was b + utter & lit. as in bread and butter
Thanks Bradman and Turbolegs
Think that this was one of the most straightforward puzzles of the Don’s that I have completed. Some nice clues though, including OLEASTER, COMBATIVE and REINED IN. The T in TWIT, I guessed had to do with the way a Yorkshireman would pronounce ‘the’, but couldn’t find it. Finished with BUTTER as the last one, although I didn’t manage to parse it properly.