Bit of a Tuesday toughie from PHSSTHPOK today…
Hard but fair, and my slowness in finishing wasn’t helped by my obstinate refusal to delete BRIDLE for BRIDAL. Both were possible, I now realise, and while that isn’t quite fair, I should have worked it out a lot quicker. Thanks again to PHSSTHPOK.
| Across | ||
| 1 | HANDSOME | Liberal delivers contents of Homer (8) |
| HANDS (‘delivers’) + OME (=interior, ‘contents of’) hOMEr. | ||
| 5 | LOW-FAT | Endlessly squander fortune to get healthier (3-3) |
| If I’m right, we remove the left and right ends ends of bLOW (‘squander’) + FATe (‘fortune’). Not a construct I’ve seen before or wish to see again any time soon. Dashed hard work. | ||
| 9 | LIGAMENT | Match is wrapped in fabric tissue (8) |
| GAME (‘match’) inside LINT (‘fabric’). | ||
| 10 | STARVE | Hunger for celebrity videotape, but contents are deleted (6) |
| STAR (‘celebrity’) + outer letters (‘contents are deleted’) of V(ideotape)E. | ||
| 12 | DIRAC | Physicist brought back free air- conditioning (5) |
| RID (= ‘free’, reversed or ‘brought back’) + AC (‘air conditioning’) to give us Paul Dirac, pioneering quantum physicist. | ||
| 13 | GROCERIES | Shopping for cooked rice or eggs (one gramme lighter) (9) |
| Anagram (‘cooked’) of RICE OR EGgS, the latter missing 1xg (‘one gramme’). | ||
| 14 | POPPER | Drug philosopher (6) |
| Double defintion. Karl Popper is the philosopher of science in question | ||
| 16 | SPANNER | Tool used to make bridge? (7) |
| Another semi-cryptic double def. | ||
| 18 | CHARRED | Toasted vegetable is picked up (7) |
| Homophone (‘is picked up’) of CHARD. | ||
| 20 | GALAXY | Many stars are not straight about Hollywood’s nearest airport (6) |
| GAY (‘not straight’) around LAX, abbreviation of closest airport to La La Land. | ||
| 22 | LEAPFROGS | Hurdles broken flagpoles from left to right (9) |
| Anagram of FLAGPOLES, but substituting ‘R’ for either ‘L’. I think. | ||
| 23 | ABHOR | Despise rehab: horrid to take part (5) |
| Inclusion (‘to take part’) in rehAB HORrid. | ||
| 24 | ORACLE | Prophecy Cassandra originally uttered outside Egyptian capital (6) |
| ‘Prophecy’ as noun. ‘C’ (‘Cassandra, initially’) with ORAL (‘uttered’) and ‘E’ (‘capital’ letter fo Egypt) outside. | ||
| 25 | HAPPENED | Appeared to write copy about quality of TV on both sides (8) |
| Another slightly hairy construct. You’ve got ‘to write’ (PEN) with APE (‘to copy’) around or about it. On both sides of all that, you place H…D (= high definition), one possible ‘quality of TV’. | ||
| 26 | SCHOOL | Fashion coach (6) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 27 | ETHEREAL | Celestial dead in revolution kept in this place (8) |
| LATE (‘dead’) reversed (‘in revolution’), ‘kept’ (surrounded by) HERE (‘in this place’) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | HALIDE | I would be healthy without salt, perhaps (6) |
| I’D (= ‘I would’) with HALE (‘healthy’) outside it. | ||
| 2 | NAGORNO-KARABAKH | In remote region of Ghana, a rank brook runs (7-8) |
| Anagram (‘runs’) of GHANA A RANK BROOK. Undeservedly, no doubt, the region seems to have become a shorthand for ‘oddly-named distant land of which we know nothing’, much as ‘Timbuktu’ used to be for my generation. | ||
| 3 | SUMAC | Spice up French writer (5) |
| CAMUS upwards. | ||
| 4 | MANAGER | Cradle needs a supervisor (7) |
| MANGER (biblical ‘cradle’) with ‘A’ in it. Is ‘manger’ still in daily use to mean an ‘animal-feeder’ anywhere? | ||
| 6 | ON THE BALL | Alert to position of soccer sponsor’s logo (2,3,4) |
| Double def. | ||
| 7 | FOREIGN EXCHANGE | Dollars turn into euros in forge? (7,8) |
| A reverse clue. ‘Exchange’ is the would-be anagram indicator to transform ‘IN FORGE’ into FOREIGN. ‘Dollars turn into Euros’ is a sort-of definition of what happens in foreign exchanges, or so Merkel et al would like to think. Don’t ask me. Please. | ||
| 8 | TREASURY | Arsenal are rusty in unorthodox formation (8) |
| ‘Arsenal’ and ‘treasury’ both can mean, roughly, ‘war-chest’, I take it. TREASURY is an anagram (‘in unorthodox formation’) of ARE RUSTY. | ||
| 11 | BOWS | Succumbs to crooks (4) |
| Double def. | ||
| 15 | PORTFOLIO | Case of viral infection quarantined ruined fort (9) |
| POLIO (‘viral infection’) surrounds (‘quarantines’, roughly) an anagram (‘ruined’) of fort. | ||
| 17 | SCALLOPS | Request to stop gifts of seafood (8) |
| CALL (‘request’) inserted in (‘stops’) SOPS, = (rather weak) ‘gifts’. | ||
| 19 | DOOM | Desire goes up a lot (4) |
| MOOD (a ‘desire’) reversed in this down clue to give one DOOM, the ‘fate’ or ‘lot’ of someone. | ||
| 20 | GESTALT | The whole thing gets undone with key (7) |
| More philosophy: GESTALT is ‘an organised whole or unit’. Anagram (‘undone’) of GETS + ALT (‘key’ on computer keyboard). | ||
| 21 | BRIDAL | Control report of wedding (6) |
| Homophone (‘report’) of ‘bridle’. | ||
| 23 | AMPLE | Liberal politician split beer (5) |
| ALE split by MP. | ||
*anagram
Yes, this was a toughie! That said, I found it quite enjoyable and accessible apart from 2d – I’m still of the Timbuktu mindset!
Thank you Phssthpok & Grant.
Not what I was expecting for a Tuesday but a good challenge none the less.
2dn was completely unknown to me and even with nearly all the checkers I wasn’t going to get it from the anagram fodder alone.
Thanks to Ph for the Tuesday surprise and Grant for more clarity.
I cheated and Anagram-Solver.net immediately came up with the (one and only) answer to 2dn!
Thanks Phssthpok and Grant
Well you’ve certainly upset the crossword gods for throwing the hard ones into the Tuesday slot, haven’t you ? Took a number of sessions for me to get this one out.
A good variety of clue types used here together with a couple of doozie new words in HALIDE and NAGORNO KARABAKH (would anybody really have known that off the top of their heads – I needed all of the crossers and googled what I thought could be the only first word with the leftover anagram fodder to learn of this god-forsaken little spot in a part of the world that very few people would ever dream of going to !). POPPER was also newish from the drug perspective and absolutely from the philosopher perspective.
Had some trouble coming to terms with ‘fashion’ for SCHOOL and ‘desire’ for MOOD initially but was ultimately able to validate them in my mind.
Nice puzzle overall.
I couldn’t get 15d (PORTFOLIIO), as I had DOCTOR for 14a (drug philosopher) and couldn’t find a fit for T-R-F-L-O. Otherwise, a good challenging puzzle.