There’s a consistency to Poins’ puzzles that makes this setter seem very much at home in the IoS, but which does make it very difficult to find a great deal new to say every four weeks.
The usual quality puzzle then, although I did find some of the wordplay a little trickier to tease apart than some weeks. There were subtleties in several synonyms (very/right, tag/dog etc.) that had me poking around in the dictionary and learning a thing or two, but I think everything fell into place in the end.
| Across | ||
| 1 | FIRST PERSON | Rebecca’s written in it for Adam (5,6) |
| Two definitions. The novel Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, and the chap from the bible. | ||
| 7 | BAR | Poet mostly found in pub (3) |
| BAR[d]. | ||
| 9 | ASCOT | Tie company located in street near the centre of Doncaster (5) |
| [donc]A[ster] + (CO in ST). | ||
| 10 | POLISH OFF | No longer available with gloss finish (6,3) |
| POLISH + OFF. | ||
| 11 | LIVERWORT | Start of long argument with vicar over filling it with a plant (9) |
| L[ong] + ((ROW + REV)< in IT). | ||
| 12 | PIECE | A musical composition from Queen? (5) |
| Two definitions, the latter referring to chess. | ||
| 13 | SORT OUT | Arrange for clear up (4,3) |
| Two definitions. | ||
| 15 | PEEK | Take a brief look at reserve’s back (4) |
| KEEP<. | ||
| 18 | MESS | State of confusion caused by footballer missing international (4) |
| Lionel MESS[i]. | ||
| 20 | GRENADE | Agreed to differ over nuclear bomb (7) |
| N in AGREED*. | ||
| 23 | AMOUR | Love affair with old American actress not likely at first (5) |
| [l]AMOUR. Dorothy Lamour. | ||
| 24 | UNDER FIRE | Durer fine about being exposed to criticism (5,4) |
| (DURER FINE)*. | ||
| 26 | TRACTABLE | Easily managed to find motorists to take part in races around island (9) |
| (RAC in TT + ELBA<. | ||
| 27 | COUNT | Consider in advance protecting Unionist in court (5) |
| (U in ON) in CT. | ||
| 28 | ALE | There’s no head on weak beer (3) |
| [p]ALE. | ||
| 29 | SPEND A PENNY | Dean’s wrong to maintain pressure on girl to go (5,1,5) |
| (P in DEANS*) + PENNY. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | FEARLESS | Brave flees as bear eventually becomes distressed (8) |
| (FLEES AS [bea]R)*. | ||
| 2 | RECOVERY | Novelist right to support Republican rally (8) |
| R + Umberto ECO + VERY. | ||
| 3 | TUTOR | Rout engineered by Tottenham’s head coach (5) |
| T[ottenham] + ROUT*. | ||
| 4 | EXPLOIT | Milk‘s put to good use (7) |
| Two definitions. | ||
| 5 | SPLIT UP | Separate pieces of advice about containing Liberal in revolt (5,2) |
| (L in TIPS<) + UP. | ||
| 6 | NOSEPIECE | Spooner’s to get relative to sit in a certain way for a bit of protection (9) |
| Spoonerism of “pose niece”. | ||
| 7 | BLOWER | Phone left in boudoir (6) |
| L in BOWER. The “Boudoir” sense of “bower” was new to me, but it’s right there in dictionaries, and can hardly have been anything else. | ||
| 8 | RAFTER | King in pursuit of support (6) |
| R + AFTER. | ||
| 14 | OVERRATES | Makes too high an estimate of more than one bowling team’s efficiency (9) |
| I guess OVER RATES are something from cricket, though I can’t say I’ve heard the term. Fairly clear, anyway. | ||
| 16 | TACITURN | Disinclined to speak about capsizing it in wind (8) |
| (CA< + IT) in TURN. | ||
| 17 | RECENTLY | Centre ground ally oddly neglected of late (8) |
| CENTRE* + [a]L[l]Y. | ||
| 19 | STUMBLE | Almost fall for extremely sweet unassuming Cockney (7) |
| S[wee]T + ‘UMBLE. | ||
| 20 | GODSEND | Forward to follow up earlier stroke of luck (7) |
| DOG< + SEND. | ||
| 21 | MANTRA | Frequently repeated slogan evident in German translation (6) |
| Hidden in [ger]MAN TRA[nslation]. | ||
| 22 | POTAGE | Dog tucked into writer’s soup (6) |
| TAG in Edgar Allen POE. It appears “tag” can mean to closely follow, so it’s “dog” in that sense. | ||
| 25 | RECAP | Go over letters from Deirdre Capone (5) |
| Hidden in [deird]RE CAP[one]. | ||
* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; underlined = definition; Hover to expand abbreviations
Thank you to Poins – great to meet you in Cambridge the other week, I do like to put a face to a name when I’m solving a puzzle.
The only thing that appeared to have caught my eye when solving was the intersecting ‘piece’s
Thanks to Simon too.
A nicely balanced mix of a few easy clues, some that need a minute’s thought, and others that take a bit of teasing out. Thanks, Poins and Simon.