As far as I can tell, we haven’t seen Alchemi on a Sunday since July 2014. In any case, welcome back Alchemi!
This started off quite slowly for me. It didn’t help that I was convinced that 12 down must be DISAPPEARS and even penned some of the letters in, despite not fully parsing the clue. That bit of impatience corrected, things soon picked up.
Another slightly terse post from me as I’ve been ill all week, but do ask if anything needs to be clarified.
*=anagram, []=dropped, <=reversed. Hover to expand abbreviations.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | CLEFT – C + LEFT. |
| 4 | LOGARITHM – (A MOTH[er] + GIRL)*. |
| 9 | TOPSIDE – two definitions: a cut of beef/on the upper deck. |
| 10 | BISHOPS – BI[n] + SHOPS. |
| 11 | CLIMATE CHANGE – (ALCHEMI CAN GET)*. |
| 14/25 | IRON OUT – two definitions, an iron being a golf club. |
| 15 | LIKE MAGIC – LIKE + (GI in MAC). |
| 18 | SHALLOWLY – HALLOW in SLY. |
| 21 | PIERCE BROSNAN – PIER + ((SOBER* + N) in CAN). |
| 24 | TROWELS – [prefe]R in TOWELS. |
| 26 | RHONDDA – R[oyalist] + (ADD + NOH)<. |
| 27 | SATIRISES – (A in ST) + IRISES. |
| 28 | MAYBE – [chil]E BY A M[ountain]<. |
| Down | |
| 1 | CATS – C[ameron] A[pparently] T[hinks] S[yrian]. |
| 2 | EXPECTORATE – EXPECT + O + RATE. |
| 3 | TWILIT – IT in TWIT. |
| 4 | LIE FALLOW – LIEF (LIFE with a twist at the end) + ALLOW. |
| 5 | GABLE – B in GALE. Clark of that ilk, of course. |
| 6 | REST HOME – MOTHERS* + E[ffervesce]. |
| 7/19 | TWO STEP – (WET SPOT)*. |
| 8 | MASTER COPY – (POETRY SCAM)*. |
| 12 | NIGHT AND DAY – NIGH + ((AND + D) in TAY). |
| 13 | DISSIPATES – DISS + (PATE in IS). |
| 16 | KEYBOARDS – KEY + BOARDS. |
| 17 | ALL CLEAR – A + L + L + CLEAR. |
| 20 | INFORM – INFO + RM. |
| 22 | BASIS – [clu]B AS I S[pecified]. |
| 23 | JADE – ([extravaganz]A + [coul]D) in JE. |
Not keen on 4a as ALGORITHM fits the fodder. Careless to have two possible answers IMO.
I’m probably the only person here who’s never come across ‘skinny’ for ‘information’, but another one to file away for the future. Enjoyable with some quite hard ones, eg 27, though overall about the right degree of difficulty for a nice Sunday evening post-dinner solve with half an eye on the goggle box. I have some sympathy with defcon63 @1 as I was held up for my LOI (4d) by making exactly the same ‘mistake’.
Thank you to Alchemi and to Simon – hope you’re on the road to recovery.
Thanks Alchemi and Simon. I’m another who entered ALGORITHM at 4a. Since I was convinced it was right (I’ve never really known what an algorithm was!), I couldn’t get 4d – even though I was pretty sure the second word was FALLOW.
Well, as a computer programmer for thirty years, I entered ALGORITHM thinking maybe the setter didn’t know what an algorithm actually was. Then I realised my mistake.
For the record, an algorithm is a set of instructions to perform some action, whereas a function is a correspondence between an input value and an output value. There is an algorithm for calculating a logarithm, but a logarithm is a function
Thanks all.
For reference, the clue was “A mother and girl collaborate without hesitation for function”. I don’t see an inherent problem in there coincidentally being other possible anagrams when only one fits the definition, as here. That said, four out of five checked squares being the same for both words didn’t help.
Thanks Simon.
I am certainly interested in defcon63’s theory that it is evidence of the setter being careless if a solver decides to enter a word which doesn’t fit the definition given in the clue, but am at a loss to understand what a setter is supposed to do about it. If I put “bunch of musicians” and defcon63 decides to enter CARTHORSE because it’s an anagram, I can’t see that it’s my carelessness on view.
similarly 11a could be CHEMICAL AGENT………….whihc could certainly be an environmental issue