Tough but all gettable with enough concentration. There is a lot going on in here and it took me a long time to sort it all out and get it written up into the blog. Thanks Gaff, super puzzle.
We have HARRISON FORD playing the hero INDIANA JONES in:
(1981) Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
(1984) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
(1989) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
(2008) Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
| Across | ||
| 1 | HARRISON | President’s rash iron shot (8) |
| anagram (shot) of RASH IRON – either William or Benjamin Harrison | ||
| 5 | SLACKS | Loosens trousers (6) |
| double definition | ||
| 10 | KINGDOM | Natural division of family leads to extremely good order (7) |
| KIN (family) and (leads to) GooD (extremes of) and OM (Order of Merit) – in taxonomy | ||
| 11 | KASHMIR | State like queen overwhelmed by booze (7) |
| AS (like) HM (Her Majesty, queen) inside (overwhelmed by) KIR (booze, wine and cassis). Splitting hairs, but is Kashmir really a state? I thought it was division of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. | ||
| 12 | DISAVOWALS | Denials valid, so was flummoxed (10) |
| anagram (flummoxed) of VALID SO WAS | ||
| 14 | DOOM | Turn to humour a lot (4) |
| MOOD (humour) reversed (turn to) – a fate or destiny | ||
| 16 | RAIDERS | Batman in flash car’s unmasking pirates (7) |
| AIDE (batman) in RR’S (Rolls Royce’s, posh car’s) – unmasking is just a link word | ||
| 17 | TEMPLE | Stand in the French shrine (6) |
| TEMP (stand in) and LE (the, French) | ||
| 20 | RADIAL | Spreading money about these days (6) |
| RIAL (money) contains (about) AD (these days) – spreading out from the centre | ||
| 21 | CRYSTAL | Team leader in lycra’s cycling clear (7) |
| Team (leading letter of) in anagram (cycling) of LYCRA’S | ||
| 23 | FORD | Cross diplomats’ path (4) |
| 24 | COMPREHEND | Get company representative inflamed about poultry (10) |
| CO (company) MP (representative) and then RED (inflamed) containing HEN (poultry) | ||
| 27 | CRUSADE | Campaign pressing South Africa on damage limitation (7) |
| CRU (pressing, of grapes) SA (South Africa) on DamagE (limitation, outer limits of) | ||
| 28 | INDIANA | Butcher and I in a state (7) |
| anagram (butcher) of AND I IN A | ||
| 30 | SEDATE | Collected boyfriend from London area (6) |
| An SE DATE would be a boyfriend form the South East | ||
| 31 | DEERSKIN | Hide injured skier in cave (8) |
| anagram (injured) of SKIER in DEN (cave) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | HIKED | Put up with high-resolution image of president? (5) |
| A high resolution image of President Eisenhower would be IKE in HD | ||
| 2 | RUN | The single thing that ruins a maiden (3) |
| cryptic definition – in cricket a maiden over is one in which no runs are scored | ||
| 3 | INDIVIDUAL | Liked division : half double is single (10) |
| IN (liked) DIVIsion (half of) then DUAL (double) | ||
| 4 | ON MY WORD | Really not up, I promise (2,2,4) |
| upON MY WORD (really, interjection) missing UP | ||
| 6 | LOST | Misplaced loyalty often sustains tyrannical leaders (4) |
| leading letters of Loyalty Often Sustains Tyrannical | ||
| 7 | COMMONPLACE | Ealing is unremarkable (11) |
| Ealing is a place with a common, Ealing Common | ||
| 8 | STRIMMER | Tool to cut edges on blades? The opposite! (8) |
| a tool to cut the grass (blades) on the edges of your lawn | ||
| 9 | SKULL | Hear row in your head (5) |
| SKULL sounds like (hear) “scull” (row) | ||
| 13 | STAND AROUND | Have nothing to do with Spooner’s currency surprise (5,6) |
| a spoonerism of the well known phrase RAND ASTOUND (currency surprise) | ||
| 15 | NEWSREADER | Maybe one anchoring near sewer died horribly (10) |
| anagram (horribly) of NEAR SEWER and D (died) | ||
| 18 | PREFECTS | Monitors old 23s (8) |
| double definition – school prefects and the Ford Prefect car | ||
| 19 | GRAPHITE | Lead character in scrape (8) |
| PHI (Greek character) in GRATE (scrape) – the lead in a modern pencil | ||
| 22 | JONES | Welshman gets jump start on opponents (5) |
| Jump (starting letter of) ON and then E and S (opponents in the card game bridge) | ||
| 25 | DRAIN | A lot of people from Barcelona may be raised in the gutter (5) |
| found inside (part of, a lot of) spaNIARDs (people form Barcelona maybe) reversed (raised) | ||
| 26 | LAST | Survive to the final (4) |
| double definition | ||
| 29 | ARK | Old pairs’ refuge left high and dry (3) |
| cryptic definition – in Noah’s Ark the animals went in two-by-two, in pairs | ||
definitions are underlined
I write these posts to help people get started with cryptic crosswords. If there is something here you do not understand ask a question; there are probably others wondering the same thing.
23 across is FO (Foreign Office, for diplomats) and RD (road, for path).
Nice themed puzzle, nice blog – thanks to both.
I’d agree with ‘tough but gettable’ and I noticed the theme too! I particularly liked the penny drop moment that was the ‘old 23s’ in 18d
Thanks to Gaff and PeeDee
Very nice – it took a second sitting to get the last couple (14a and 17a).
Great day across the papers (Graun, Indy, FT).
Many thanks both.
Thanks Gaff and PeeDee
Found this pretty challenging and like JS, I needed a second sitting to finish off the NE corner with DOOM and STRIMMER (a term that I hadn’t seen before).
Interesting Spoonerism at 13 where it used the second syllable of the second word for the transposition – hadn’t seen that before. The only one that I couldn’t parse was DRAIN – didn’t take that extra step to convert Barcelonians to Spaniards.
Knowing that it was Gaff, there would be a theme and even for me, the Indiana Jones theme beaconed !! Was thinking that KASHMIR and DEERSKIN might somehow shoehorn into the theme too somehow.