A very pleasant challenge from Magwitch following the Pareto principle of 80% of the clues taking 20% of the time and vice versa. Thanks Magwitch for a breeze this fine Friday morning. I think my parsing for 17d can be improved upon.
FF: 8 DD: 6
| Across | ||
| 1 | LEAFLET | It advertises arrangement for hiring part of plant? (7) |
| LET (arrangement for hiring) LEAF (part of plant) – the order is implied by the ‘?’, as a cryptic clue. | ||
| 5 | DERIDED | Mocked revolutionary communist died in agony (7) |
| DER (communist = RED, revolutionary = reversed) DIED* (agony – anagrind) | ||
| 9 | MIGHT | Correct to change leader to gain power (5) |
| rIGHT (correct, with leader i.e. first character changed from R to M). | ||
| 10 | AUDACIOUS | Bold article promises to contain completely heartless unabridged account (9) |
| [ A (article) IOUS (promises) ] containing [ UD (UnabridgeD, heartless i.e. without inner letters) AC (account) ] | ||
| 11 | AIMLESSLY | Silly as me wandering without any purpose (9) |
| SILLY AS ME* | ||
| 12 | PAPER | It’s used to wrap around extremely radioactive trash (5) |
| reverse (around) of RE (extremely RadioactivE) PAP (trash) | ||
| 13 | TENSE | Often seems a bit stressed (5) |
| Hidden in “OfTEN SEems..” – I thought this clue was as elegant as it was simple. | ||
| 15 | OBSTINATE | Mulish old beast mistakenly swalllows metal (9) |
| O (old) [ Anagram of BEAST containing TIN (metal) ] | ||
| 18 | DISSENTER | Nonconformist duke is despatched by the Queen (9) |
| D (duke) IS SENT (despatched) ER (queen) | ||
| 19 | NICKS | Hack shows no sign of amusement during overturning of wrong arrests (5) |
| haCK (shows no sign of amusement i.e. without ‘HA’) in NIS (wrong = SIN, overturned) | ||
| 21 | BULGE | Swelling from insect biting lady on top eyelid initially (5) |
| [ BUG (insect) containing L (Lady, on top) ] E (Eyelid, initially) | ||
| 23 | FRANCHISE | Working French is a voting qualification (9) |
| FRENCH IS A* | ||
| 25 | CONSTRICT | Against exact limit (9) |
| CON (against) STRICT (exact) | ||
| 26 | ADEPT | Practised as a substitute briefly (5) |
| A DEPT (substitute = deputy, briefly) | ||
| 27 | ECHELON | Feedback about deal regularly reaches new level (7) |
| [ ECHO (feedback) about EL (dEaL, regularly) ] N (new) | ||
| 28 | CRYPTIC | Keen on exercise I can start in secret (7) |
| CRY (keen) PT (exercise) I C (Can, start) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | LAMBAST | Pound meat with a stone (7) |
| LAMB (meat) A ST (stone) | ||
| 2 | ARGUMENTS | Reasons doctors aren’t smug (9) |
| ARENT SMUG* | ||
| 3 | LITHE | Overseas unit has finally got search engine to be flexible (5) |
| LI (overseas unit, Chinese measure of distance) THE (final characters of “..goT searcH enginE..” | ||
| 4 | TRANSPORT | Convey strong emotion (9) |
| double def | ||
| 5 | DODGY | Difficult to get out of amending the ending (5) |
| Not sure about this one – To get out of is DODGe, the ending for which has been changed from E to Y. | ||
| 6 | RECEPTION | Function of optic nerve not very developed (9) |
| OPTIC NERvE* (not very, i.e. without ‘v’) | ||
| 7 | DROOP | Decline to raise feeble daughter (5) |
| Reverse (raise, in a down clue) of POOR (feeble) D (daughter) | ||
| 8 | DESERVE | Be entitled to first shot after interlude ends (7) |
| SERVE (first shot, in a game of tennis) after DE (ends of interluDE, plural denotes picking more than just the ‘E’) | ||
| 14 | ELEMENTAL | Basic ingredient at meal when setter is away (9) |
| meAL (when setter is away i.e. without ‘me’) stands for Aluminum , an element. | ||
| 16 | SARCASTIC | Sneering horrible racist supporting South Africa gets caught (9) |
| [RACIST* after SA (south africa)] followed by C (caught) | ||
| 17 | ARCHITECT | Designer of cunning computer systems meets shocking treatment (9) |
| cryptic clue; reference to the Matrix (movie) in which the Architect creates the computer environment that becomes the Matrix. Not sure about the shocking treatment part of the clue. Any help? | ||
| 18 | DEBACLE | Backing a plot to disrupt cell not completely a disaster (7) |
| DEB A (reverse of A BED, plot) CLE (anagram of CELl, not completely) | ||
| 20 | SCEPTIC | He has doubts about infected covering (7) |
| C (about) in SEPTIC (infected) | ||
| 22 | LUNCH | What some ladies do makes the French get the ‘ump (5) |
| L’ (the in French, when the following word starts with a vowel) hUNCH (‘ump, to be read as hump) | ||
| 23 | FEIGN | Give the appearance of being heard willingly in the past (5) |
| sounds like FAIN (willingly, back in the day, not very common now though) | ||
| 24 | CHARY | Cautious children attached to a line (5) |
| CH (children) A RY (line) | ||
*anagram
Thanks Turbolegs and Magwitch,
17d is ARCH + IT + ECT (ElectroConvulsive Therapy).
LEAFLET and FEIGN both very nice.
Thanks for the help Muffy. I must have overthought that clue or suffered from transient amnesia; especially since I have parsed ‘ECT’ before! 🙂
Regards,
Mahesh
Thanks, Turbolegs and Magwitch.
I think you’re right about DODGY, Turbolegs, but I’m not keen on the construction, used here and in 9ac. [The definition is ‘difficult’.]
I read 14dn as simply ELEMENT [ingredient] + [me]AL.
I liked the Nonconformist duke, the not so smug doctors and the sneering horrible racist.
Like TL I found this 80:20 — I breezed through most but got completely stuck in the NE for a long time. I thought DODGY was OK, but RECEPTION a bit dodgy. Thanks TL, and Magwitch for a pleasant tease.
I guess I am the only one to completely misread 21A.
I used the word initially on the prededing five words to give BLOTE which I assumed was an alternative spelling of BLOAT.
Me too in the ‘partly a breeze/partly a head-scratching’ experience.
I particularly liked the literalness of 28a – it is a long time ago but I don’t actually remember telling anyone when I started solving cryptic crosswords until I got a lot better at doing them.
Thanks to Magwitch and Turbolegs.
Thanks Magwitch and Turbolegs
There was a lot more going on here than could be expected from what looked like a straightforward puzzle !! Found myself having to continually dig deeper to either find the definition or unravel the word play right throughout the solve.
The SW was where my 20% focused with BULGE (I also initially looked up BLOTE to see if it was some special word for the an insect bite), ECHELON (a well hidden definition in a complex word play) and LUNCH (hadn’t seen the phrase ‘ladies who lunch’ before and although touching on the L’ UNCH idea didn’t equate hump to hunch until coming here). The use of ‘fain’ in 23d was well done and rolled into a clever surface reading.
Originally thought RECEPTION was weak until thinking of the wedding reception and then appreciated that it was quite good. Parsed ELEMENTAL as did Eileen.
Trickier than normal from this setter, and all the better for it I thought.
Thanks Turbolegs and Magwitch.
Not having seen “The Matrix”, I didn’t over-solve 17dn so had it as Muffyword et al.
I’m still not sure whether clues like 9ac and 5dn – where a single letter is replaced by an unspecified one – are great or poor. But I solved in both cases and I suppose it’s not much different to the old “Greek character” device so it must be fine!