A rare outing from an excellent setter. I found this a pretty swift though still very enjoyable solve.
Perhaps the only stumbling block was 9 down, which was an unfamiliar term. The wordplay seemed to yield at least a couple of feasible entries but it looks like I plumped for the right one.
| Across | ||
| 1 | DIVA | Flipping keen singer (4) |
| AVID<. | ||
| 3 | BUNGALOW | Stop by a blue house (8) |
| BUNG + A + LOW. | ||
| 10 | SUPPLY AND DEMAND | Market forces stallholder initially to change plan and dump dye (6,3,6) |
| S[tallholder] + (PLAN AND DUMP DYE)*. | ||
| 11 | RED MULLET | One’s in the main embarrassed by ’80s haircut (3,6) |
| RED + MULLET. | ||
| 12 | NEED | Want nag to throw off the Parisian (4) |
| NEED[le]. | ||
| 13 | ENTITLE | Call hospital department – it has cut leg (7) |
| ENT + IT + LE[g]. | ||
| 15 | DERAIL | Read about beginnings of internet lawlessness? Go off line (6) |
| READ* + I[nternet] + L[awlessness]. | ||
| 17 | RECOUP | Recover from op – cure’s radical (6) |
| (OP CURE)*. | ||
| 19 | INSIGHT | Ken succeeds in understanding (7) |
| IN + SIGHT. I wasn’t confident here, but dictionaries do have “ken” meaning “sight”. | ||
| 20 | RASH | King remains hasty (4) |
| R + ASH. | ||
| 21 | ASSOCIATE | Partner in fracas – so CIA testifies (9) |
| Hidden in [frac]AS SO CIA TE[stifies]. | ||
| 24 | WARM-BLOODEDNESS | Passion slowed Doberman’s barking (4-11) |
| (SLOWED DOBERMANS)*. | ||
| 25 | PASSABLE | OK to go with expert (8) |
| PASS + ABLE. | ||
| 26 | HAND | Give worker a round of applause (4) |
| Three definitions, no less. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | DISCREET | Disrespect North American tribe? Time to be prudent (8) |
| DIS + CREE + T. | ||
| 2 | VAPID | Five help to get piano in flat (5) |
| V + (P in AID). | ||
| 4 | UPDATED | Excited by romantic meeting, daughter’s getting changed (7) |
| UP + DATE + D. | ||
| 5 | GREEN CROSS CODE | Growing frustrated with cipher? This should prevent people in the way getting hit (5,5,4) |
| GREEN + CROSS + CODE. | ||
| 6 | LEADENING | Ending with ale drunk, becoming dull (9) |
| (ENDING + ALE)*. | ||
| 7 | WIDE | Broad‘s poor delivery? (4) |
| Two definitions, and &lit at the same time. A reference to English international cricketer Stuart Broad. | ||
| 8 | CLAUSTROPHOBIA | Fear of being shut in front of cockpit with a BA pilot – hours wasted (14) |
| C[ockpit] + (A BA PILOT HOURS)*. | ||
| 9 | FAILLE | Silk slip wrapped around one? Ecstasy! (6) |
| (I in FALL) + E. | ||
| 14 | THESAURUS | Cryptic end in sight? Rush and use a reference book (9) |
| [sigh]T + (RUSH + USE A)*. | ||
| 16 | STRESSED | Small bit of hair on head regularly shed – very worried (8) |
| S + TRESS + [h]E[a]D. | ||
| 18 | PEAFOWL | Bird urine disgusting by the sound of it (7) |
| Homophone of “pee” and “foul”. Hands up who else spent slightly too long trying to explain PEACOCK. | ||
| 19 | INSIDE | Secret that is about new heads of state in Denmark (6) |
| (N + S[tate] + I[n] + D[enmark]) in IE. | ||
| 22 | ARENA | Place in which you’ll see termination of Roman? (5) |
| [roma]N in AREA &lit. | ||
| 23 | SWAP | Hands up for trade (4) |
| PAWS<. | ||
* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; underlined = definition; Hover to expand abbreviations
You are right, Simon, we haven’t seen Nitsy for ages and ages. Good puzzle, though, and just right for a Sindy crossword. Favourite was WIDE, referencing England’s Ashes hero Stuart Broad. The women’s team have just lost their Ashes series, though.
You weren’t confident for ‘ken’ and ‘sight’ as synonyms? You must come from down south.
Don’t leave it too long till the next one, Nitsy, and thank you to Simon for blogging.
I agree that this was a straightforward but enjoyable puzzle. FAILLE was my LOI when I decided to trust the wordplay. I’d spent a minute or two trying to think of an alternative but couldn’t, so I’d be interested to see what your alternative reading of the wordplay was Simon. You mention there being one in your preamble but don’t specify what it was in the body of the blog.
Thank you Nitsy and Simon Harris.
Lots of fun clues. I, of course, entered PEACOCK first, then failed to parse it. HAND was good and ASSOCIATE well hidden.
Technically guilty as charged, Kathryn’s Dad, though from the age of 6 up to 24 I never lived south of Sheffield, with 5 years in Scotland, and I never heard “ken” for “sight”, only “knowledge”. Perhaps I wasn’t paying attention!
Honestly can’t remember, Andy B. Suspect I just lacked confidence, given the term was unfamiliar and it seemed like one of those ones where a few words could fit, the checkers not being particularly helpful.
In fact checking gave an A, which could have come from the “one” in wordplay, leaving just about any four letter word with an L in it a viable option.
Simon, thanks for your response. I agree that the checked A could have been the “one” in the wordplay, and I factored it into my thinking during the solve. Out of interest I just typed ??L?:trip into OneLook and it came back with four possibles; FALL, RTLT (honestly), CALL (I don’t see how it is synonymous) and WALK (a walk/trip to the shops seems synonymous so I’ll buy that one). However, I wouldn’t have considered WAILKE as a possible answer even if I’d thought of WALK during the solve.
Ken for sight is a bit of a stretch, Simon, so we won’t send you to the naughty corner for not paying attention …
Bit thin on the ground for comments here today. Perhaps everyone is bank holidaying.
A bit late but it’s not worth bank holidaying here in the Midlands with the weather as it is at present, K’s D, so here’s another comment.
Slightly thrown by 1dn as I usually think of ‘diss’ rather than ‘dis’ as the slang term for ‘disrespect’, but that’s maybe because it needs the double letter for ‘dissed’ and ‘dissing’.
Thanks to Nitsy and Simon