Notably smooth surfaces in a straightforward puzzle from Crux this morning.
Only one slight obscurity – WHITLOW – which, happily was a favourite word of my mother’s, although she would insist on pronouncing it ‘Wicklow’ as in the Irish county.
| Across | ||
| 1 | SECLUSION | Counsel is brought out of retirement (9) |
| Anagram (‘brought out of’) COUNSEL IS. Nice surface but rather strained anagrind, I thought. | ||
| 6 | CUBIT | The young bear it in some measure (5) |
| CUB (young bear) + IT. You may need reminding that a cubit is the length of the arm from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger, from 18-22 inches. | ||
| 9 | COVES | Coastal inlets made by birds, a fifth as many initially (5) |
| The birds are DOVES, whose initial D is the Roman numeral for 500. Replace that with ‘C’, which is but 100. Neat. | ||
| 10 | ESTONIANS | Curious sensation being Russia’s neighbours (9) |
| Nice anagram (‘curious’) of SENSATION. | ||
| 11, 12 | SCRATCHING POST | What Tom may score by deleting letters (10,4) |
| Cryptic definition, and SCRATCHING (‘deleting’ as in ‘scratching out’) + POST (mail, ‘letters’). | ||
| 14 | WHITLOW | Mostly pale blue gathering (7) |
| WHITE (‘pale’) without its final ‘E’, + LOW (‘blue’). A whitlow – nice word for a nasty thing – is, very specifically, a ‘gathering’ of pus in the quick of a fingernail. Not an easy definition but perfectly fair, I’d say. | ||
| 15 | EWE LAMB | Woolly jumper modelled by British man we sent back (3,4) |
| Cryptic def, and reversal (‘sent back’) of B(ritish), MALE+WE. | ||
| 17 | SILENCE | It may be demanded in court still (7) |
| Double definition. ‘Still’ as noun, as in ‘the still of the night’, plus the clerk’s cry of ‘silence in court’. | ||
| 19 | SUITORS | They woo their girls with diamonds, say, or start singing (7) |
| Diamonds are a SUIT, then OR+S(inging). | ||
| 20, 22 | EVEN-HANDEDNESS | Fair play not shown by Captain Hook? (4-10) |
| Whole clue cyptic. Hook had an ‘odd’ number of hands. | ||
| 25 | ALTRUISTS | Gore expects to get one for these good people (9) |
| AL (Al Gore, U.S. politician) TRUSTS (expects’) to include ‘1’. | ||
| 26 | AGILE | Quick-witted leaders of academia, gifted in language especially (5) |
| First letters (‘leaders’) of last 5 words. | ||
| 27 | DRAWL | Stretch one’s vowels, so to speak (5) |
| Whole clue cryptic. | ||
| 28 | DISASTERS | Tragedies Queen included in remake of 19 down (9) |
| Anagram (‘remake’) of 19d, SADISTS to include ER for ‘er Majesty, who should get royalties (ho,ho) for the number of times she shows up round here. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | SECTS | Factions have a way of multiplying, we hear (5) |
| ‘We hear’ indicates a homophone – or very nearly, to be picky – of SEX, a fun way of multiplying. | ||
| 2 | COVER GIRL | Page one beauty (5,4) |
| Whole clue not-very-cryptic definition. | ||
| 3 | UNSETTLING | It tunnels with central auger – which could be disruptive (10) |
| Anagram (‘which could be’) of IT TUNNELS + centre of auGer. | ||
| 4 | ICE SHOW | How the Church is involved in popular entertainment (3.4) |
| an anagram (‘involved’) of HOW, IS + CE for ‘the church’ (of England). As written, the clue seems to me illegitimate but, hey, simple enough to unravel. | ||
| 5 | NOT ONCE | Neocon and Democrat finally negotiated? Never! (3,4) |
| an anagram of NEOCON + last letter of democraT. | ||
| 6 | CANT | There’s no such word, some say – it’s slang (4) |
| There’s no such word as ‘can’t’. Only ever said by the smug. | ||
| 7 | BEANO | Party’s instruction to vote against? (5) |
| “BE A NO!” | ||
| 8 | TEST TUBES | Conceivable locations since the 1970s? (4,5) |
| Whole clue cryptic referencing ‘test tube babies’, a tendentious phrase if ever there was one. | ||
| 13 | BEHIND BARS | Where alcohol is kept locked up (6,4) |
| Double def. | ||
| 14 | WASTELAND | Strange tales collected by Rod in the desert (9) |
| WAND (‘rod’) includes anagram of TALES. | ||
| 16 | AT ONE TIME | Pay for putting up shed years ago (2,3,4) |
| ATONE (‘pay for’) + reversal (‘put up’ in this Down clue) of EMIT (‘shed’, of, say, radiated particles). | ||
| 18 | ELAPSED | Passed in English then went downhill (7) |
| ‘E’ + LAPSED (‘went downhill’). | ||
| 19 | SADISTS | Island sin sites regularly chosen by deviants (7) |
| Alternate letters (‘regularly’) of first 3 words. | ||
| 21 | EXTRA | More like one of the crowd (5) |
| Double def, referencing film ‘crowd extras’. | ||
| 23 | SPECS | Technical details for making visual aids (5) |
| Another double def. | ||
| 24 | BULL | Central part of a papal edict (4) |
| And another, ‘bull’ being both the bull’s eye or centre of the target and the sometimes appropriate name for a piece of papal infallibility. | ||
*anagram
A nice straightforward puzzle – thanks to Crux and Grant too
For some reason (inattention?) I had “CAVES” instead of “COVES” but otherwise straightforward. Thanks!
Thanks Crux and Grant
Found this a typically straightforward puzzle from this setter with no real holdups anywhere.
Finished in the SW corner with BULL (clever double definition), ALTRUISTS (which took longer than it should have) and EXTRA as the last one in.