Some not so obvious word definitions made some of the clues made this a little tricky to explain. Thank you Aardvark.
| Across | ||
| 1 | GOBBLEDEGOOK | Rubbish stuffed, say, by recess when heading off (12) |
| GOBBLED (stuffed) EG (say) and nOOK (recess) missing first letter (heading off) | ||
| 10 | LAID OUT | Planned helper to intercept thug (4,3) |
| AID (helper) inside (to intercept) LOUT (thug) | ||
| 11 | ON A ROLL | How food may be available to consumers experiencing continued fortune (2,1,4) |
| double definition | ||
| 12 | ON AIR | In Algeria now, revolutionary’s being broadcast (2,3) |
| found reversed (revolutionary) inside algeRIA NOw | ||
| 13 | SCOTCHES | Puts an end to European board game that’s not finished (8) |
| SCOT (European, and hoping to remain so!) with CHESs (board game, unfinished) | ||
| 15 | PRIEST-HOLE | Commoner brought about heist, building old hideaway (6-4) |
| PROLE (commoner) contains (brought about) anagram (building) of HEIST | ||
| 16 | KWAI | Amount of power by main road Asian runner’s showing (4) |
| KW (amount of power) by AI (A1, main road) – the River Kwai, something that runs in Asia | ||
| 18 | EAST | Son goes inside to devour course (4) |
| S (son) in EAT (to devour) | ||
| 20 | FLEA MARKET | Place to buy a group of boats, including American vessel (4,6) |
| AM (american) ARK (vesseL) in FLEET (a group of boats) | ||
| 22 | STARDUST | Celestial matter beginning to appear around South of France, westwards (8) |
| START (beginning) containing (to appear around) SUD (south, in French) reversed (westards, to the left on a map) | ||
| 24 | TILDE | Clay slab covers edge of road sign in Spanish (5) |
| TILE (clay slab) contains (covers) roaD (egde of) – an accent (sign) in the Spanish language | ||
| 26 | RAVIOLI | Five biros laid regularly on artist’s Italian table (7) |
| V (five) and bIrOs LaId (regular selection from) follows (on) RA (Royal Academician, artist) – Italian food | ||
| 27 | GRENADA | Island emigre’s half-eaten duck (7) |
| emiGRE (half missing, eaten) then NADA (nothing, zero, a duck) | ||
| 28 | DOPPELGANGER | Double act by two priests good in general, touring (12) |
| DO (act) by PP (priest, two of) then G (good) in anagram (touring) of GENERAL | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | ORIGAMI | Doctor in the morning enters old institute folding paper (7) |
| RIG (doctor) and AM (in the morning) inside (enters) O (old) I (institute) | ||
| 3 | BOOKREST | This might help when reading bank balance (nothing in it, repeatedly) (8) |
| BK (bank, abbrev) and REST (balance) contains O O (nothing, repeated) | ||
| 4 | EATS | 18 munching food (4) |
| anagram (munching) of EAST (18 across) | ||
| 5 | ETON COLLAR | Functioning senior officer during alert damaged part of shirt (4,6) |
| ON (functioning) COL (colonel, senior officer) in anagram (damaged) of ALERT | ||
| 6 | OP ART | Abstract school character, ordinary initially (2,3) |
| PART (character, in a play) following (with…initially) O (ordinarily) | ||
| 7 | KNOW-HOW | Ken’s one thousand pounds present goes on house and wife (4-3) |
| K (one thousand pounds) NOW (present) on HO (house) and W (wife). I don’t get whyK is one thousand pounds. One tousand yes, but why pounds? | ||
| 8 | BLOOD PRESSURE | Family tension that a doctor might observe (5,8) |
| BLOOD (family) and PRESSURE (tension) | ||
| 9 | FLASH IN THE PAN | Ray and I then repaired toilet – a brief success (5,2,3,3) |
| FLASH (ray, of inspiration) with anagram (repaired) of I THEN followed by PAN (toilet) | ||
| 14 | PHILISTINE | Unrefined report of horses current in north-east (10) |
| PHILIS TINE sounds like (reported) “fillies” (horses) and “Tyne” (current, river in north-east England) | ||
| 17 | PANTHEON | Long to see cardinal running religious building (8) |
| PANT (long to see) HE (His |
||
| 19 | STARVED | Revd. jittery at station without fare? (7) |
| anagram (jittery) of REVD following (at) STA (station) | ||
| 21 | KILDARE | Artist returning inside liked interpreting Irish territory (7) |
| RA (artist, that Royal Academician again) reversed (returning) inside anagram (interpreting) of LIKED | ||
| 23 | DROOP | Soldiers in school raised flag (5) |
| OR (other ranks, soldiers) in POD (school, of dolphins perhaps) reversed (raised) | ||
| 25 | AGOG | An element travel up in excited eagerness (4) |
| AG (silver, an element) then GO (to travel) reversed (up) | ||
*anagram
definitions underlined
Alternatively at 25, GA (gallium) GO both reversed
I had to motor through this before work but really enjoyed it. Nothing too devious, but thought was definitely needed to parse everything correctly, eg the long and not v. commonly appearing words at 1 & 28. I particularly liked BLOOD PRESSURE and the misdirection for DROOP. For K for ‘one thousand pounds’, sometimes job adverts will say eg ‘Starting salary 40K’, without specifying the currency so (in the UK anyway), K is just shorthand for ‘thousand pounds’. Therefore ‘one thousand pounds’ = 1K = K. Probably wrong (not to mention over-analysed and long-winded!), but that’s how I saw it anyway.
Thanks to Aardvark and PeeDee
I can see that words such as “Grand”, “Pony”, and “Monkey” mean numbers of pounds but not “K”. “I earn 4K” means “I earn four thousand”, as you say the unit of currency is implicit in the context, not in the expression itself. If “K” means “thousand pounds” then “thousand” would also mean “thousand pounds.”
18 ac. Could you help me understand how “east” is a synonym for “course”?
Kevin – as in a ship’s course, due east maybe.
Thank you!
Hello PeeDee,
You’re probably right – just my usual muddy logic. Anyway, sorry to you and everyone else for making such a thing of this. What about “Further correspondence on this matter is now closed (Ed)”??
In 17d, HE means His Eminence, not His Excellency.
Coby – oops! I have accidentally demoted him to ambassador, I hope he wasn’t offended.
WordPlodder – your comment on puzzles is always welcome!
Thanks Aardvark and PeeDee
A most enjoyable puzzle that I was able to do over a cafe breakfast earlier this morning with only a couple of minor hold-ups:
– the parsing of the second part of PHILISTINE (fell for his trap with current= I, the NE and wondered where the T came from !!
– the NADA part of GRANADA – took ages to remember this word after seeing it meaning nil a few weeks ago in another puzzle.
Enjoyed working through the logic of the top and bottom long clues.
Finished in the SE corner with KILDARE, TILDE and PANTHEON as the last few in.