[If you’re attending York S&B please see comments 32&33] - here
Falcon is always a welcome setter on Fridays, with his genial offering of puzzles proving to be a not too taxing solve. If I had to pick a quibble, it is that 29 ac wasnt really cryptic in my opinion.
Personally, I doubt there will be one more blog like this, seeing how I am writing this from a labour ward.
EDIT: Shortly after I posted the blog from the side of my wife’s bed, our baby girl was born. Both mother and baby are doing fine. Apologies for the unrelated post here, but just felt like sharing the good news.
FF: 8 DD : 6
| Across | ||
| 1 | GOSSIP | Second drink after work causes rumour (6) |
| [ S (sec) SIP (drink) ] after GO (work) | ||
| 5 | ESCALOPE | Please CO, cooking boneless slice of meat, cut thin (8) |
| Anagram of PLEASE CO | ||
| 9 | DIALOGUE | Agile duo involved in conversation (8) |
| Anagram of AGILE DUO | ||
| 10 | NORMAL | Regular in Swindon or Malmesbury (6) |
| Hidden in “..swindoN OR MALmesbury” | ||
| 11 | SIT OUT | Strong beer around lunchtime? Don’t join in (3,3) |
| STOUT (strong beer) around I (~1 PM, lunchtime) | ||
| 12 | AT LENGTH | A jet’s ultimate distance, in detail (2,6) |
| A T (jeT’s ultimate) LENGTH (distance) | ||
| 14 | BIRTHDAY SUIT | Nakedness, for all to see in dirty bit, has shocked (8,4) |
| U (for all to see, movie rating) in anagram of DIRTY BIT HAS | ||
| 18 | CHARTERHOUSE | Public school grant family needed (12) |
| CHARTER (grant) HOUSE (family) | ||
| 22 | ATALANTA | Olympic Games host accommodating a fast runner (8) |
| ATLANTA (olympic games host) accommodating A – Greek mythology | ||
| 25 | DIRECT | Outspoken guide (6) |
| double def | ||
| 26 | SHAPED | Showed promising signs, a plant initially kept in outhouse (6) |
| [ A P (Plant initially) ] in SHED (outhouse) | ||
| 27 | SENTINEL | Submitted by the Spanish one on watch (8) |
| SENT IN (submitted) EL (the, spanish) | ||
| 28 | STINGRAY | Mean to consume endless raw fish (8) |
| STINGY (mean) containing RAw (endless) | ||
| 29 | ESTATE | Land in eastern country (6) |
| E (eastern) STATE (country) | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | ORIGIN | Beginning, in Oman’s capital, to equip home (6) |
| O (Oman’s capital) RIG (equip) IN (home) | ||
| 3 | SALOON BAR | Drink in here? Shop stocks nothing but (6,3) |
| [ SALON (shop) containing O (nothing) ] BAR (but) | ||
| 4 | PAGE THREE | Hotel employee there, excited about topless girls? (4-5) |
| PAGE (hotel employee) anagram of THERE | ||
| 5 | EYEWASH | Rot in elm, primarily, plus two other types of tree (7) |
| E (Elm, primarily) YEW ASH (two types of tree) | ||
| 6 | CANAL | Passage about North American lake (5) |
| CA (about) N (north) A (american) L (lake) | ||
| 7 | LOREN | Learning, new actress (5) |
| LORE (learning) N (new) – Sophia | ||
| 8 | PLANTAIN | Tropical fruit worker found in flat (8) |
| ANT (worker) in PLAIN (flat) | ||
| 13 | ELY | See inside vessel, yacht (3) |
| Hidden in “..vessEL Yacht” | ||
| 15 | ABUNDANCE | A good deal is needed for this call at whist (9) |
| double def | ||
| 16 | SPEARMINT | Flavour of small fruit, perfect (9) |
| S (small) PEAR (fruit) MINT (perfect) | ||
| 17 | CHITCHAT | Idle talk from jazz fan about minor problem (8) |
| CAT (jazz fan) about HITCH (minor problem) | ||
| 19 | TEA | Drink in club unfinished (3) |
| TEAm (club, unfinished) | ||
| 20 | HEARSAY | Find out by, for example, word of mouth HEAR (find out) SAY (for example) |
| 21 | ACCENT | Chartered accountant turning up with little money shows stress (6) |
| AC (chartered accountant = CA, reversed) CENT (little money) | ||
| 23 | LUPIN | Bloomer at university contributing to endless row (5) |
| UP (university) in LINe (row, endless) | ||
| 24 | NADIR | Floor of drain in need of repair (5) |
| Anagram of DRAIN | ||
*anagram
haven’t looked at the puzzle yet but saw your preamble…….congratulations!
I haven’t looked at the puzzle yet either but wanted to add my congratulations too.
Many congratulations turbolegs, my best wishes to you and your new family.
Once again, I echo crypticsue!
And not for the first time I am behind Eileen. 🙂
Congratulations to you and yours from me and mine Turbolegs. You should come back and tell us the name(s) and offer a progress report from time to time.
I thought I’d better do the crossword and it seems the ideal more or less read and write difficulty required for someone trying to write a blog at the same time as being a “help” in the labour ward.
As someone who has given birth twice, I’d be interested to learn what the person doing all the hard work thought of her partner doing a crossword/blogging while she was producing the lovely baby girl!
Thanks to Falcon and Turbolegs, and well done Mrs T.
Congratulations, turbolegs, and of course Mrs Turbolegs too.
Thanks everybody for the wishes. Crypticsue@6 – An explanation will come forth soon. 🙂 To be fair, I did ask her if she wanted to do the crossword, but she gave some lame excuse of having some work / labour to take care of. 🙂
Falcon – If you are reading this, it was not my intent to hijack your puzzle. I am sure future comments on this thread will also refer to the Xword.
Cheers
TL
P.S – We named her Nandini. 3.025 kgs and 48 cms.
Congratulations, TL. Great blog too. I thought only women could multi-task.
An enjoyable & gentle puzzle. Thank you Falcon.
Great news, Tubolegs – welcome to the world Nandini & best wishes to all the family.
Congratulations to all three of you.
Thanks Falcon and Turbolegs
Found this one solved quickly, but have noticed a bit of a sting in the tail of this setter’s puzzles of late. In here we had CHARTERHOUSE (assume that it is well known in England, was the first time that I’d seen it and took a little tracking down in references, most referred to the monastery) and ATALANTA (remembered the story when looking it up, but had totally forgotten her name).
I tend to do Guardian & FT puzzles from a range of time zones, this was the third time in the past fortnight where I have come across EYEWASH almost identically clued.
Now … back to the baby ! 🙂 My heartiest congratulations to both TL and family on the arrival of your little girl.
Thanks Falcon and congratulations Turbolegs.
Like Brucew, I’m sure we saw an almost identical clue to EYEWASH recently.