I am beginning to find Wanderer a familiar face on Fridays , more so than the Don. A quirky witty challenge from Wanderer, thanks to whom for making sure that Friday the 13th, wasnt a gloomy day at all!
FF:9 DD:8
| Across | ||
| 1, 5 | GLASGOW RANGERS | City’s game won, wrapped up by 20’s side (7,7) |
| [LA’S (city’s) GO (game) W (won)] in GRANGER’S (20’s, answer to 8,20d) | ||
| 9 | LIGHT | Easy and fair clue, this? (5) |
| double def | ||
| 10 | SCRIMMAGE | Second offence, involving periodical disorderly struggle (9) |
| [S (second) CRIME (offence)] containing MAG (periodical) | ||
| 11 | EYESTRAIN | Problem with Observer writer’s stated tax (9) |
| EYE (sounds like I, writer) STRAIN (tax) | ||
| 12 | RIOJA | Spanish area with Portuguese- speaking city prior to Munich Agreement (5) |
| RIO (portuguese speaking city) JA (yes in german ~ munich agreement) | ||
| 13 | TROUT | Solicitor eating a little raw fish (5) |
| TOUT (solicitor) containing R (a little Raw) | ||
| 15 | RED MULLET | Swimmer embarrassed by haircut (3,6) |
| RED (embarrassed) MULLET (haircut) | ||
| 18 | IMMUNISES | Messi having run rings round Man Utd at beginning of each half, popular back provides protection (9) |
| MESSI* around [ MU (beginning of each half of Man Utd) NI (popular = IN, reversed) ] | ||
| 19 | ORANG | Primate called round earlier (5) |
|
RANG (called) preceded by O (round) |
||
| 21 | LATHI | Left injured, hit with a stick (5) |
| L (left) [HIT A]* | ||
| 23 | POLYNESIA | Group of 18 down army finally captured during conflict in Spain? Olé! (9) |
| Y (armY, finally) in SPAIN OLE* (18d is ISLANDS) | ||
| 25 | NEWSPRINT | Novel run in poor quality paper? (9) |
| NEW (novel) SPRINT (run) | ||
| 26 | SLANG | Mixed signals, if not initially savvy with current jargon (5) |
| isGNALS* (without ‘s’ for Savvy, initially and ‘i’ for current) | ||
| 27, 28 | SERIOUS DRINKER | Alcoholic possibly sober before supper (7,7) |
| SERIOUS (sober) DRINKER (sup{p}=DRINK, ER) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1, 18 | GILBERT ISLANDS | Bad singer still touring Kiribati, as before (7,7) |
| BAD SINGER STILL* | ||
| 2 | ANGLEWORM | Odd bits of gold we found reflected in a standard piece of bait (9) |
| [ GL (odd bits of GoLd) EW (reverse of WE) ] in A NORM (standard) | ||
| 3 | GET IT | Bird, say, turning over twig (3,2) |
| TIT (bird) EG (say) all reversed | ||
| 4 | WISEACRES | Clever dicks, eg Ernie & Eric as one’s left in hysterics (9) |
| WISE (ernie wise, comedian) with ERiC AS* (without ‘i’ for one) | ||
| 5 | RERUN | Monarch appearing in series broadcast again (5) |
| ER (monarch) in RUN (series) | ||
| 6 | NUMERO UNO | A wee Italian, possibly oneself (6,3) |
| cryptic def, numero uno literally translates to ‘Number One’ in italian. | ||
| 7 | ERATO | Mythically one of nine per cat? No, not originally (5) |
| pER cAT nO (without inital letters) – one of the nine muses. Loved this clue. | ||
| 8, 20 | STEWART GRANGER | Actor portraying conflict in film, good in Alien (7,7) |
| [WAR (conflict) in ET (film) G (good)] in STRANGER (alien) | ||
| 14 | TENNIS PRO | Sportsman playing sport in poor 9? On the contrary (6,3) |
| NINE* (9, poor) in SPORT* (anagrind – playing) | ||
| 16 | DESOLATED | Saw about leaders in Europe seeking love, left forlorn (9) |
| DATED (saw, as in seeing someone) around [ES (leaders in Europe Seeking) O (love) L (left)] | ||
| 17 | LEAFSTALK | Bit of a bloomer, perhaps, in what page is saying? (9) |
| LEAF’S (page is) TALK (saying) | ||
| 18 | See 1 | |
| 20 | See 8 | |
| 22 | TOWER | Wrote about upstanding Blackpool resident? (5) |
| WROTE* | ||
| 23 | PAINS | Aches from cycling round EU country (5) |
| SPAIN (EU country, with the first letter moved to the last ~ cycling) | ||
| 24 | NISEI | Second generation immigrant in Boston is 8 (5) |
| hidden in “..bostoN IS EIght” | ||
*anagram
I enjoyed this one, and had to think hard on some, eg. 17d.
I believe 6d has a reference to toilet matters where ‘A wee’ may jokingly be called ‘a Number One’ in English, thus ‘Numero Uno’ in Italian.
Cheers Wanderer and TL.
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
I very much like Wanderer’s style of running adjacent clues together, which seems to have been a bit of a trademark.
I saw 9 as a triple definition, EASY, FAIR, and CLUE THIS. Works for me!
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
I agree with Simon S@2 re 9ac and Steven@1 re 6dn. For 28ac, I am not sure if you are suggesting that the clue word “supper” has been split, but I read them as agent nouns: supper = one who sups = one who drinks = drinker.
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
Late to this one but worth the wait. A lot of interesting twists with the word play of various clues, such as the digit to letter changes required in 14d and 24d and the complex charades with 1a and 8d.
Also agree on the comments re 6d and 9a.
Finished with the tricky LEAFSTALK, NEWSPRINT and the Blackpool TOWER (which I hadn’t heard of)