Today’s Hamilton is surrounded by drama…
Apologies for late posting. Home yesterday from hospital with a viciously painful new knee. All that follows was achieved only with the aid of otherwise illegal drugs, for which much thanks. Nice puzzle, with one I don’t really get (I’m going for the sympathy vote)
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| Across | ||
| 1 | CHARLEYS AUNT | Play Switzerland, say, neutral by design (8,4) |
| CH (‘Switzerland’) + anagram (‘by design’) of SAY NEUTRAL BY. | ||
| 8 | LARKING | Mad to get a new top when having fun (7) |
| BARKING (‘mad’) with changed first letter. | ||
| 9 | CRUMPET | Cake? Ask for a tiny piece, darling (7) |
| CRUM (‘a tiny piece’) + PET (‘darling’). | ||
| 11 | TRADE-IN | Part-payment for something horse-trader has within (5-2) |
| Rather gave up on this. Either this is un-subtle repetition (a horse-trader has a TRADE plus [i.e. ‘with’] IN?) or I’m missing something very clever. Hope it’s the latter. | ||
| 12 | TRIREME | Initially tactless French laugh at yours truly’s craft (7) |
| T (‘initially, Tactless’) + RIRE (French ‘laugh’) +ME (‘yours truly’). | ||
| 13 | ERNST | Painter of the modern style (5) |
| Inclusion in ‘modER STyle’. | ||
| 14 | ANALGESIA | Take time away from East Anglia to review pain relief (9) |
| Anagram of EAST ANGLIA, lacking T. | ||
| 16 | PROSELYTE | Convert experts to see Terence is gutted (9) |
| PROS (‘experts’) + ELY (a bishopric, or ‘see’) + TerencE without his internal bits. | ||
| 19 | STAGE | Point at which to put on apron (5) |
| Triple definition: 1. A stage might be said to be a ‘point at which’ 2. To ‘put on’ a show in to ‘stage’ it and 3. An ‘apron’ is a stage, or at least the ‘thrust’ or forward part of one. | ||
| 21 | RETOUCH | About to kiss and make it better (7) |
| RE (‘about’) + TOUCH (‘kiss’, as in snooker). Nice surface. | ||
| 23 | DIORAMA | Light show has one taken in by girl to a degree (7) |
| 1 (‘one’) surrounded by DORA + MA. | ||
| 24 | TRIVIAL | Inconsequential number involved in action (7) |
| IV (Roman number 4) in TRIAL (legal ‘action’). | ||
| 25 | TEACAKE | Support accountant getting in with cook’s final offering (7) |
| TEE (‘support’) includes CA (chartered ‘accountant’) + K (‘cooK’s final’), with slightly woolly cryptic definition. | ||
| 26 | THREE SISTERS | Play with Charlotte, Emily and Anne (5,7) |
| Checkov & the Brontes together at last. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | CURTAIN | Screen copper’s preliminary review of Scottish town (7) |
| CU (‘copper’) + R (‘preliminary’ letter of ‘Review’) + TAIN (Scottish town). | ||
| 2 | ALIMENT | Nourishment for insect ingesting fruit (7) |
| LIME in ANT. | ||
| 3 | LEGENDARY | Fabulous but scandalous green lady (9) |
| Anagram (‘scandalous’) of GREEN LADY. | ||
| 4 | YACHT | After jetty ends, look out! German removing faulty gun from boat (5) |
| Y (‘end of ‘jettY’) + ACHTUNG (German ‘look out!) minus its final anag. (‘faulty’) of GUN. | ||
| 5 | AMUSING | One wondering what it’s like to be funny (7) |
| A (‘one’) + MUSING (‘wondering [what it’s like’]). | ||
| 6 | NEPHEWS | Family boys with reports about Joseph? Not half! (7) |
| NEWS around half of josEPH. | ||
| 7 | BLITHE SPIRIT | Play! Bowled by agile character (6,6) |
| B (‘bowled’ in cricket) + LITHE (‘agile’) + SPIRIT (‘character’). | ||
| 10 | THE CARETAKER | Play Guardian? (3,9) |
| Semi-cryptic double definition. | ||
| 15 | ANECDOTES | Not ceased making up stories (9) |
| Anagram (‘making up’) of NOT CEASED. | ||
| 17 | OSTRICH | Bird wins the heart of disciple; that’s preposterous (7) |
| RICH (‘preposterous’) after ‘heart’ of apOSTle (‘disciple’), which, in my present grumpy mood, I thought was itself a bit rich. Apostles and disciples aren’t synonymus. | ||
| 18 | ERUDITE | Learned simple English first, one having time inside (7) |
| E (‘English’) + RUDE (‘simple’, as in ‘rude mechanicals’) to include T (‘Time’). | ||
| 19 | STORAGE | Repository used by shop endlessly over the years (7) |
| STORe (‘shop’) + AGE (‘the years’). | ||
| 20 | AVATARS | Images of Ms Gardner, star in the making (7) |
| AVA (Gardner, recently deceased) + anagram (‘in the making’) of STAR. Another nice surface. | ||
| 22 | HALLS | Painter left in student accommodation (5) |
| Frans HALS to include L (‘left’). | ||
*anagram
Thanks Hamilton and Gavin
Enjoyable puzzle where I was able to dredge up three of the plays and had to work out CHARLEY’S AUNT and check it up.
With 11a, I simply had it that ‘horse-trader’ had TRADE IN it … not particularly satisfactory, but it works kind of. Think that we need ACA to be the accountants in TEACAKE. At 24a the number can be a choice between IV and VI, I suppose. And weren’t the Apostles, 12 DISCIPLES that Jesus had chosen to preach his gospel (certainly not a strong point – just quoting a dictionary …. )
RIRE, PROSELYTE and TAIN were all new terms for me.
All of the best with the recovery of your new knee … can only start to imagine how uncomfortable it must be … 🙁
To Bruce:
You’re right about ACA and, again, it cd be VI or IV in 24a. Hadn’t seen that.
HORSE-TRADER has TRADE ‘in’ it, sure, but then ‘within’ is redundant & tautologous and the whole thing looks clumsy anyway
if that’s the correct construct.
The apostles came later than the disciples in Christian history. Jesus and the Biblical apostles never met, by – at least – 30 years.
But take no notice, I’m just in a bad mood; it was a good puzzle.
Well done and thanks to Grant for completing this through an opiate and pain induced haze. I can’t speak from personal experience but I’ve heard from plenty of people how painful a knee replacement can be.
Anyway, I parsed TRADE-IN as did brucew@aus, but agree it only ‘kind of ‘ works and it wasn’t the most elegant of clues. Lots of others I liked though, including CRUMPET, YACHT and TEACAKE. Spent ages at the end trying to get THE CARETAKER which ultimately defeated me.
Thanks again to Grant and to Hamilton.
Thanks to Hamilton for a pleasant solve, although the triple definition of STAGE eluded me, and to Grant for the blog.
As for TRADE-IN, although it was not very subtle, I believe it parses quite well – “something horse-trader has” gives us the letters TRADE, that is, “horse-trader” contains (“has”) the letter-string TRADE, and “within” gives us IN, not as a contained letter-string but simply as an equivalent meaning; no need to break it up into “with” and “in”.
On 25a, is the definition not simply “offering” rather than “cook’s final offering”? The latter implies unnecessary double duty for “cook’s final”.
Thanks again, and all the best with your recovery.