Another Wednesday and another excellent Dac puzzle. As always, smooth surfaces and straightforward clues. Not too difficult, but a great pleasure to solve and blog.
We’re away from home this week with a new laptop which does not have ‘Word’, so we have had to adopt a different format for the blog – we hope it all still makes some sense!!
Across
1 Xylophone and minute bass used in ‘Sound of Music’ song (7)
MARIMBA — M (minute) B (bass) in MARIA (‘Sound of Music’ song)
5 Section of road unexpectedly usable around noon (3,4)
BUS LANE — An anagram of USABLE around N (noon) – anagrind is ‘unexpectedly’
9 Old American at home in green luxury vehicle (9)
LIMOUSINE — O (old) US (American) IN (at home) in LIME (green)
10 Half of Reds in time for match
AGREE — REds (half of ‘reds’) in AGE (time)
11 Relative joins floor show ostentatiously (6)
FLAUNT — AUNT (relative) ‘joining’ FL (floor)
12 Jack charges only one cent for outdated calculators (8)
ABACUSES — AB (jack – sailor) ACcUSES (charges) with only one ‘c’ (cent)
14 A number taped by Culture Club maybe repulsed the Mafia (4,6)
COSA NOSTRA — A NO (number) in or ‘taped’ by ARTS (culture) SOC (society – club ‘perhaps’)
16 Female encounters local inhabitant of Helsinki? (4)
FINN — F (female) INN (local – pub)
18 Husband having love affair over in vicinity of the Bronx? (4)
HOOD — H (husband) O (love) + DO (affair) reversed or ‘over’
19 Don’t say I’ve reviewed unpleasant film (5,5)
VIDEO NASTY — An anagram of DON’T SAY I’VE – anagrind is ‘reviewed’
22 Novel delivered by a northern writer once (8)
SHERIDAN — SHE (novel) RID (delivered) A N (northern)
23 Wartime commander from Melbourne held prisoner (6)
ROMMEL — Hidden or ‘held prisoner’ in fROM MELboune
26 Sci-fi film once considered more suitable for adults? Right (5)
ALIEN — A (considered more suitable for adults) LIEN (right)
27 Anger as I speed towards headland (9)
IRATENESS — I RATE (speed) NESS (headland)
28 Female tennis champ formerly on team (7)
EVERTON — EVERT (Chris Evert – former tennis champ) ON
29 Marsh bird – part sea bird (7)
BITTERN — BIT (part) TERN (sea bird)
Down
1 Harmful fellow having officer stripped? (7)
MALEFIC — MALE (fellow) + ofFICer (middle letters only, or ‘stripped’)
2 Master in business initially game for a dance (5)
RUMBA — MBA (‘master in business’) with RU (rugby union – ‘game’) in front or ‘initially’
3 Greeting early in the day is heard (8)
MOURNING — Sounds like (‘heard’) MORNING (early part of the day)
4 A child regularly rejected tart (4)
ACID — A + ChIlD (alternate or ‘regular’ letters)
5 Complaint about nosh served up, fast food (10)
BEEF BURGER — BEEF (complaint) + RE (about) GRUB (nosh) reversed or ‘served up’
6 Position of lectern lacking base at front of church (6)
STANCE — STANd (lectern) with the last letter or ‘base’ ‘lacking’ in front of CE (church)
7 Little time, say, to enter roughly half the clues in word puzzles (9)
ACROSTICS — TIC – sounds like (‘say’) ‘tick’ (little time) in or ‘entering’ ACROSS (roughly half the clues)
8 Musician stimulated Norsemen no end (7)
EMERSON — An anagram of NORSEMEn without the last letter, or ‘no end’ – anagrind is ‘stimulated’
13 Guess I’m stuck in English railway terminal (10)
ESTIMATION — I’M ‘stuck’ in E (English) STATION (railway terminal)
15 Woman crosses Loire zigzagging towards northern coast (9)
SHORELINE — SHE (woman) round or ‘crossing’ an anagram of LOIRE (anagrind is ‘zigzagging’) N (northern)
17 Cheeky swimmer from Portsmouth found here? (8)
INSOLENT — A swimmer from Portsmouth might be found IN (the) SOLENT
18 Prisoner that almost goes off the rails (7)
HOSTAGE — An anagram of THAt (without the last letter or ‘almost’) and GOES – anagrind is ‘off the rails’
20 Old Russian leader‘s desire to suppress Leninist extremists is backfiring (7)
YELTSIN — YEN (desire) round or ‘suppressing’ LT (first and last letters or ‘extremists’ of LeninisT) and IS reversed or ‘backfiring’
21 Bird left in nest first to soar away (6)
LINNET — L (left) IN NEsT with the ‘s’ (first letter of ‘soar’) omitted or ‘away’
24 A thousand and two old articles rot! (2,3)
MY EYE — M (a thousand) + YE YE (two ‘old articles’ – old versions of ‘the’)
25 Ms Streisand’s no artist? An unkind thing to say! (4)
BARB — BARBra (‘Ms Streisand’) with the ‘RA’ (artist) omitted
I wonder which EMERSON was being referred to in 8D. Easy enough to guess there would be a musician of that name, but Wikipedia brings up several, none of whom look particularly famous.
In 3D should “greeting” not be “grieving”?
Peter @ 2. To greet is to cry, so IMO it is OK.
It’s the surfaces with Dac which are so good isn’t it?
Thanks B&J and Dac.
Re Jason @1
Keith Emerson of Emerson Lake & Palmer is famous in my house!
Sorry, DAc, But “Maria” is not a “Sound of Music” song. She is a character in “The Sound of Music”, but the song is from “West Side Story”! Otherwise another smooth and interesting puzzle.
Not quite all plain sailing; the SW corner held me up in the end and I had to cheat to get HOSTAGE; even then I couldn’t parse it but at least it led me to 28ac which I’d been thinking was somehow a charade of SHE with LT (for lawn tennis) and ON (couldn’t see how that equated to ‘champ’) to give, presumably, the name of someone on a team well enough known not to need identifying. All a bit far-fetched and now shown to be wrong.
I concur with Daniel @4 and Poddy @5.
But thanks to Dac and B&J
Concur with Daniel @4 but not Poddy @5 🙂 There’s definitely a song called Maria in SoM according to the soundtrack album.
Enjoyable solve. Thanks to Dac and B&J
Nice to see ‘greeting’ used in the Scots/Irish way, meaning weeping and sobbing! Thanks to both.
As we speak, I’m recording a version of ‘Maria’ in which how one solves her problems and what ‘My Favourite Things’ may be have scatological answers beyond the gentle whimsy of this site…
(Dash it all, me, me, me, forgot to thank Dac, Bert & Joyce for a neat puzzle & blog. My CoD was HOOD: not hard but a smooth surface with that all-important ‘Aha!’ moment.)
While bloody British Telecom (actually Phillipines Telecom when you try to report a fault) allow me access to the internet in rural Derbyshire, I will just drop in to say that, as usual, I enjoyed this Dac puzzle.
Plenty of stuff to like here.
How do you solve a problem like Maria? Maria, I just met a girl named Maria. I don’t think that they were related. But I divvent think Ahm ganna greet aboot it.
Thanks, all three.
Re 8d, as a latecomer doing the i2896, if Dac was a Beethoven fan he might have been thinking of the Emerson String QuarteT, arguably the best in ghe world since the Amadwus Quartet disbanded. Ironically, however, none of the four musicians is or ever was called Emerson; the quartet is named after the US poet!