A mixed bag from the DON this morning, thanks to whom for an interesting challenge. The few clues that held me up accounted for 90% of the solve time! 🙂
FF: 9 DD: 8
| Across | ||
| 1 | PREAMBLE | Quiet walk across England’s capital as an introduction (8) |
| P (quiet) [ RAMBLE (walk) containing E (England’s capital) ] | ||
| 5 | UGANDA | Dung starts to annoy adventurers out in the country (6) |
| DUNG AA* (starts to Annoy Adventurers) | ||
| 10 | CEDAR | What’s not entirely nice – dark wood (5) |
| hidden in “..niCE DARk…” | ||
| 11 | CAESAREAN | Section of second district in French city (9) |
| [S (second) AREA (district)] in CAEN (french city) | ||
| 12 | LOATHSOME | Horrible homes, a lot needing demolition (9) |
| HOMES A LOT* | ||
| 13 | PASTY | Food item of days gone by needing a sort of fork (5) |
| PAST (days gone by) Y (sort of fork) – for the longest time ever, I had PASTA in there and just couldnt move past it until I decided that I had to have a fresh look at 8d. | ||
| 14 | GOBLET | Vessel to travel back initially having met obstruction (6) |
| GO (travel) B (Back, initially) LET (obstruction) | ||
| 15 | BATSMAN | Fellow who is in society needing personal servant around (7) |
| S (society) in BATMAN (personal servant) | ||
| 18 | ARRAIGN | Complain about a historical period in speech (7) |
| sounds like A REIGN (historical period) | ||
| 20 | BLENNY | Little fellow crossing lake for fish (6) |
| BENNY (little fellow) containing L (lake) | ||
| 22 | GULAG | Good prisoner that’s visible to all inside labour camp (5) |
| [G (good) LAG (prisoner)] containing U (visible to all, movie classification) | ||
| 24 | TIGRESSES | Gent, half put off, resists nasty females wild in nature (9) |
| GEnt (half put off) RESISTS* | ||
| 25 | TENTATIVE | Provisional shelter I have for accommodating volunteers (9) |
| [TENT (shelter) I’VE (I have)] containing TA (volunteers, territorial army) | ||
| 26 | THETA | Some epithet Athenian provided for Greek character (5) |
| hidden in “…epiTHET Athenian…” | ||
| 27 | RESIDE | Live with team attached to soldiers (6) |
| SIDE (team) attached to RE (soldiers) | ||
| 28 | ALDEHYDE | He messes around with deadly chemical (8) |
| HE DEADLY* | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | PICKLE | Choose the French item for the meal table (6) |
| PICK (choose) LE (the, in french) | ||
| 2 | ENDEAVOUR | Try, as nurse, to eat around start of afternoon (9) |
| EN (nurse, enrolled nurse specifically) [DEVOUR (eat) around A (start of Afternoon) ] | ||
| 3 | MARSHALLING YARD | Where vehicles gather in boggy area, getting everybody angry, I’d fancy (11,4) |
| [MARSH (boggy area) ALL (everybody)] followed by ANGRY ID* | ||
| 4 | LOCKOUT | Hair not properly arranged may mean exclusion from work (7) |
| cryptic clue; HAIR = LOCK, not properly arranged could be LOCK OUT | ||
| 6 | GRASPS THE NETTLE | Deals with a difficulty and clears the ground for future growth? (6,3,6) |
| cryptic clue | ||
| 7 | NEEDS | Observed getting up around crack of dawn for essentials (5) |
| SEEN (observed) reversed around D ( beginning character of Dawn) | ||
| 8 | ANNOYING | Irritating girl playing around, wasting time (8) |
| ANN (girl) tOYING (playing around, without T – time) | ||
| 9 | REVERB | Acoustic device for ever blasting to some extent (6) |
| hidden in “..foR EVER Blasting..” | ||
| 16 | MONASTERY | Tom yearns to be trained in a religious community (9) |
| TOM YEARNS* | ||
| 17 | DAUGHTER | Relation will show expression of disgust in time, right? (8) |
| [UGH (expression of disgust) in DATE (time)] R (right) | ||
| 19 | NITWIT | One idiot upsetting home with another (6) |
| NI (home = IN, reversed) TWIT (another, idiot) | ||
| 20 | BIG DEAL | I beg lad to reform? There’s nothing special about that! (3,4) |
| I BEG LAD* | ||
| 21 | ESCAPE | Get away – peace comes finally, surprisingly (6) |
| PEACE S* (comeS, finally) | ||
| 23 | LINES | Policies for traditional school punishment (5) |
| double def | ||
*anagram
Re. 18a. The Collins dictionary cites “complain about” as an alternative to “arraign.” “Arraign the weather?” Hm.
Thanks Turbolegs. Thanks, Don.
Like you I had pasta and couldn’t fit in annoying and didn’t have your patience and gave up 🙁
Thanks Bradman and Turbolegs
Found this unusually easy for the Don and completed it quite quickly early Sunday morning. Didn’t have the problem at 13, immediately twigging to the fork (in the road) – maybe from doing a bit more driving than usual over the past couple of days.
Thought that ‘section’ was a bit tenuous as a definition for CAESAREAN without at least a question mark, although it didn’t cause any hold ups.
Hadn’t heard of the BLENNY and thought that TIGRESSES was quite clever.
Finished in the NE corner with UGANDA (which I found difficult to see for some reason) and GRASPS THE NETTLE as the last couple in.