Solid cluing from Hamilton with some pleasing images in the surfaces.
Nothing to frighten the horses today, although one or two moments of uncertainty when I thought 1ac might be applying to me (see BULLIED an SHIFTY)
| Across | ||
| 1 | PETER PRINCIPLE | Chap that adheres to the standard theory of over-promotion (5,9) |
| ‘Peter’ (a chap) next to ‘principle’ (a standard), giving Canadian Laurence J. Peter’s theory that personnel are all too often promoted to just above their level of competence, as in the case of an average crossword-solver finding himself blogging the FT cryptic. | ||
| 10 | OPRAH | Pointless work hard for celebrity (5) |
| ‘OpEra’ without its (Eastern) point, & ‘H’ for ‘Hard’, giving us Oprah (Winfrey). | ||
| 11 | REINFORCE | Stay in favour of church supplement (9) |
|
‘REIN’ (to stop, check or ‘stay’), ‘FOR’ and C(of)E. |
||
| 12 | EPIGRAM | Satirical piece on English farm animals (7) |
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‘E’, PIG & RAM. Nice, dense little clue with Orwellian undertones. |
||
| 13 | GET INTO | Become absorbed with negotiators working without Rosa (3,4) |
| Anagram of NEGOTIATORS without ROSA. | ||
| 14 | RIGHT | Proper Conservative (5) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 16 | UNNERVING | Intimidating artilleryman, good finally, drinking wine (9) |
| Take a GUNNER, put his ‘G’ (‘good’) to the end, and have him imbibe ‘du VIN’. | ||
| 19 | BADMINTON | Game given wicked new leg (9) |
| BAD, MINT & ON (leg side in cricket). | ||
| 20 | ADAMS | President has since invited mother in . . . . (5) |
| ‘AS’ (‘since’) welcomes in DAM (mother) to give us John ADAMS, 6th US President (1825-29). | ||
| 22 | LINEMAN | . . . . with material she’s collected for railway worker (7) |
| ‘Mother’, from the previous clue (I’m never quite sure of the legitimacy of that) = MA, gathered in by LINEN. | ||
| 25 | MARCONI | Italian visits Ulster scientist (7) |
| Marco joins Northern Ireland. | ||
| 27 | IN CONCERT | Working together, still burying shell (almost) (2,7) |
| INERT (‘still’) surrounds CONC(H). | ||
| 28 | DRAFT | Early form of conscription (5) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 29 | DRESS REHEARSAL | Practice doctor Les unlikely to block A Shearer’s treatment (5,9) |
| DR, then anag. of LES & A SHEARERS, although LES doesn’t appear to be ‘blocking’ anything here. | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | EARWIGGED | Listened in to experimental reggae with Di (9) |
| Anag of REGGAE, W(ith) and DI. | ||
| 3 | ETHER | The number of this clue, somehow (5) |
| Clue THREE is an anag of ETHER, which ‘numbs’ pain. | ||
| 4 | PARAMOUNT | First soldier put in position (9) |
| PARAtrooper & MOUNT. | ||
| 5 | ICING | Sugarcoating the description of my musical interest (5) |
| Homophone of ‘I Sing’. Do you, Hamilton? | ||
| 6 | CAFETERIA | Final exercise involved with following lawmen around eatery (9) |
| Tricksy, this. We take ‘E’ (last letter of exercisE), insert it in AFTER (following) and surround all that with the CIA. | ||
| 7 | PERON | Llandudno repertory company welcomes back former president (5) |
| Juan PERON (included, reversed in first two words) was three times President of Argentina. Nice to think of him treading the boards by the Welsh seaside in his retirement. | ||
| 8 | ERE LONG | Soon to refurbish general store (rates unknown) (3,4) |
| Anag. of GENERAL STORE without RATES. | ||
| 9 | POSEUR | Exhibitionist will oppose urbane intervention (6) |
| Inclusion in opPOSE URbane. | ||
| 15 | TRIMMINGS | Well-turned-out pottery with special embellishments (9) |
| TRIM, MING & S(pecial). | ||
| 17 | NANOMETRE | Insignificant measure manufactured not near me (9) |
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Anag. of NOT NEAR ME, to give either one thousandth or one milionth of a millimetre. Pretty small, but hardly insignificant at the atomic level. |
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| 18 | INAMORATA | Lover, but to Marian a stranger (9) |
| Anag. of TO MARIAN A. | ||
| 19 | BULLIED | Spouted rubbish, told stories and was browbeaten (7) |
| Not quite sure about this. BULL(ED) & LIED are obviously both there but with an overlap I can’t parse from the clue. Is there something missing, or am I being a bit dim (perfectly possible)? | ||
| 21 | SHIFTY | Fishy? Time will tell! (6) |
| Anagram of FISHY and T(ime). There’s a whole-clue charade going on here as well: Hamilton seems pleased with it anyway. | ||
| 23 | NICHE | Specialised, like opening hours in French resort . . . . (5) |
| ‘H’ (opening of ‘Hours’) in NICE. | ||
| 24 | NIECE | . . . . where early start is welcomed by relative (5) |
| And NICE this time includes the opening of ‘E(arly). | ||
| 26 | RADAR | It shows something up one way or another (5) |
| Palindrome (‘one way or another’). ‘Up’ here means ‘airborne’. | ||
*anagram
Thanks Grant
I parsed 19dn as a homophone (spouted) of BULL (rubbish) LIED (told stories) and 29ac as DR (doctor) plus an anagram (unlikely) of LES around (to block) an anagram (treatment) of A SHEARER’S.
Yup, both of those work (if you spell BULL as BUL). See what I mean about 1ac? Thanks, Gaufrid.
20a: John Adams was actually the second POTUS (which I know thanks to the musical “Hamilton”, which is perhaps germane to 5d). His son John Quincy Adams was the sixth POTUS (not reflected in the musical).
Thanks Grant and Hamilton.
Grant
Thanks for the blog; I’ve been away so have only just seen it.
I can put your mind at rest on two counts; the puzzle was set some while ago, during your predecessor’s tenure, and the idea to include ‘Peter Principle’ came from a lunchtime session with some former HMRC chums, when we were discussing a guy we’d known and worked with who was the living embodiment of it!
Thanks Grant and Peter.
I think that most people I’ve ever worked with – and myself at one stage before I went self-employed – embody the Peter Principle sadly.
I had 19dn as Gaufrid with “spouted” being the homophone indicator.
I did think “lawmen” for CIA in 6dn was a bit questionable. Given their recent form the legality of some of their actions is surely questionable.
Thought DRAFT and SHIFTY were really neat.
Thanks Hamilton and Grant
Actually did this one across Thursday / Friday and checked it off today.
Was pleased to see the two subtraction anagrams early on (2nd & 3rd ones in). Liked the variety of clue devices used throughout the puzzle. The only one that I had trouble with was the BUL part of 19d – had cut off the second L, although I didn’t know why – the homophone approach makes a lot more sense !
Liked the ‘Fishy’ – SHIFTY thing at 21d.
Finished in the NW corner with PARAMOUNT, OPRAH and POSEUR the last few in.