Daedalus must be getting fed up with me blogging his puzzles. This is his seventh since making his debut in the Indy/IoS a year ago, and four have now fallen to me to blog. It took me three goes to finish this one, but that could just be a wavelength thing.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) missing
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Only just score after a false start
AT A STRETCH
A charade of A (START)* and ETCH.
6 Theatre employing entertaining elder?
TREE
Hidden in theaTRE Employing.
9 Where to stick vertical gun cover?
UPHOLSTER
A whimsical cd cum dd.
10 A question for children
ISSUE
A dd.
11 Bog down Europe in cant
TIE UP
An insertion of EU in TIP. TIP is a synonym for ‘cant’ in its verbal sense.
12 Be prudent on ice: some is slippery
ECONOMISE
(ON ICE SOME)*
13 Working for cash at home, played ball outside
COIN-OPERATED
An insertion of IN in CO-OPERATED.
17 Clergyman: ‘Dead? Romeo? Always death!’
VERY REVEREND
A charade of VERY, R, EVER and END. ‘Dead’: it was dead/very good. R for the phonetic alphabet. Always = EVER. END for ‘death’.
20 ENT doctor seen thus?
CONTORTED
(ENT DOCTOR)* and kind of &littish.
22 Host seems clever at intervals
EMCEE
The even letters of sEeMs ClEvEr.
23 Follow zig-zag path over eastern tip of moor
TRACK
An insertion of R for the last letter of ‘moor’ in TACK.
24 So time now for second part in series
THEREFORE
A charade of T, HERE, FOR and E for the second letter of ‘series’.
25 Still a newspaper that you might find in mountains
YETI
A charade of YET and I for the Indy’s sister paper.
26 Laughing riotously in street is irritating
IN STITCHES
A charade of IN, ST and ITCHES.
Down
1 As for a bit of topless Greek’s swimming etc …
AQUATICS
I am having a punt on this being QUA, the Latin for ‘as for’ in A[T]TICS, but in truth I am not sure; and what this clue is doing in a so-called ‘accessible’ IoS puzzle I am not sure. No doubt it’s just me being dim.
2 … fragments of Homer’s lost epic in Greek fit
ATHLETIC
The first letters of ‘Homer’s lost epic’ in ATTIC for ‘Greek’.
3 Majority of big animals in nature reserve – check numbers here
TELEPHONE BOOK
An insertion of ELEPH for the ‘majority’ of the letters in ELEPHANTS or ‘big animals’ in TONE for ‘nature’ (‘I didn’t like the tone/nature of his comments’) and BOOK.
4 Utterly flummox Yankee with ‘1000 + 50 + 8’
EXTREMELY
(EXETER Y M L)* with ‘flummox’ as the anagrind. EXETER is the solution to 8dn.
5 Load vehicle and be off
CARGO
A charade of CAR and GO.
7 Rough, pear-shaped citrus
RUSTIC
(CITRUS)*
8 English king returns, having captured French and English city
EXETER
A charade of E for ‘English’ and ET for the French word for ‘and’ in REX for ‘king’ reversed.
10 At home is Daedalus not a bit slow at first with iron?
IN ONE’S ELEMENT
I for ‘Daedalus’; NONE for ‘not a bit’; S for the first letter of ‘slow’; and ‘iron’ is an ELEMENT. A charade.
14 Fix moving tandem with guys on board
AMENDMENT
An insertion of MEN in (TANDEM)*
15 Het up about a silly kitchen towel
TEACLOTH
An insertion of A CLOT in HET reversed.
16 One’s led astray over monster-infested loch? Chilling!
IDLENESS
A charade of I, (LED)* and NESS.
18 Absent-minded lion perhaps in pigs’ enclosure
SCATTY
An insertion of CAT in STY.
19 Assuming role somewhat
IN PART
A dd.
21 Tense-sounding giant
TITAN
A homophome of ‘tighten’.
Many thanks to Daedalus for this IoS puzzle.
Yes, I had trouble with 1d which I parsed as you did. I thought having ATTIC then pop up again in 2d was a bit iffy, but I suppose that’s what the ellipsis was for. My favourites were UPHOLSTER, TELEPHONE BOOK and YETI, the latter presumably clue as statement.
Thanks to Pierre and Daedalus.
Still not convinced of the parsing of 1D, though I haven’t anything better to offer. How can “a bit of topless” indicate the removal of the second letter of a word?
Overall, interesting and cleverly clued.
Thanks to Daedalus and Pierre.
Thanks, Pierre.
On AQUATICS, i’s not a device I like but setters do sometimes mean, by a “a bit of”, the first letter. So a bit of topless is T. QUA is just defined by “as”, rather than “as for” – so it’s a substitution of QUA for T in ATTICS. Perhaps not one of the best clues in this puzzle but, for me at least, the hardest! (My favourite was THEREFORE.)
Thanks @3NeilW, agree on meaning of qua, well solved indeed.