An enjoyable and fairly easy puzzle with some amusing clues.
26 was probably the pick in terms of surface definitions, but everything read quite nicely.
| Across | ||
| 7 | RECORDER | Stenographer’s instrument (8) |
| DD | ||
| 9 | ASHORE | A runaway horse is on the beach (6) |
| A + horse* | ||
| 10 | LOOM | John given master’s weaving equipment (4) |
| Loo + m(aster) | ||
| 11 | COLD TURKEY | Unsympathetic country offering unpleasant cure for addiction (4,6) |
| Cold + Turkey | ||
| 12 | LESBOS | Island the French cry about (6) |
| Les(=the in French) + sob< | ||
| 14 | TOLERATE | Large bag containing real dancing bear (8) |
| Tote around real* | ||
| 15 | TENANT | One renting basic accommodation outside centre of Monaco (6) |
| Tent around [mo]na[co] | ||
| 17 | DANUBE | Bad painting featuring Northern European river (6) |
| Daub around N(orthern) + E(uropean) | ||
| 20 | ENGORGED | Bulbous bananas go green close to mould (8) |
| (Go green)* + [moul]d | ||
| 22 | CLEANS | Decontaminates front of chairlift next to slopes (6) |
| C[hairlift] + leans | ||
| 23 | STRIPTEASE | Entertainment offered by naughty 6 carrying drinks? (10) |
| Priest* around teas | ||
| 24 | BATS | Try to take back clubs (4) |
| Stab< | ||
| 25 | LEDGER | Account book found by shelf close to Chancellor (6) |
| Ledge + [chancello]r (close to used in the sense of end of). | ||
| 26 | DYSLEXIA | Daily sex sorted out learning difficulty (8) |
| (Daily sex)* – sounds like a good treatment. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | REDOLENT | Sweet-smelling ore turning up in fissure (8) |
| Lode< in rent | ||
| 2 | FORM | Panel dismissing university’s document (4) |
| For[u]m | ||
| 3 | EDICTS | Bank upset about court orders (6) |
| Side< around ct. | ||
| 4 | MANTILLA | Fellow on farm given a scarf (8) |
| Man + till + a | ||
| 5 | CHARTREUSE | Cold animal about to resort to drink (10) |
| C(old) + hart + re + use – did spend quite a while trying to work hare into it. | ||
| 6 | PRIEST | Clergyman forces open bottom of casement (6) |
| Pries + [casemen]t | ||
| 8 | RELATE | Retired queen having story to tell (6) |
| (ER around tale)< | ||
| 13 | BINGO WINGS | Flaps of skin wobbling in big gowns? (5,5) |
| (In big gowns)* | ||
| 16 | NUGATORY | Letter by good American conservative is inconsequential (8) |
| Nu + g(ood) + A(merican) + Tory | ||
| 18 | EINSTEIN | Unconventional nineties scientist (8) |
| Nineties* | ||
| 19 | EDWARD | England and Germany fighting over daughter of old king (6) |
| E(ngland) + D(=Deutschland) + war + d(aughter) | ||
| 21 | NUTMEG | Enthusiast lifted perfect example of spice (6) |
| Nut + gem< | ||
| 22 | CREASE | Tuck sides of robe into luggage (6) |
| R[ob]e in case. | ||
| 24 | BRED | Raised money for speakers (4) |
| Hom of bread | ||
*anagram
As you say, Neal, an enjoyable and fairly easy puzzle – just right for a Monday and one I’d recommend for less experienced solvers. My only struggle was with REDOLENT (my LOI) as I was trying to make something of *ERO*E*T – ‘ore’ reversed rather than ‘lode’, and also I only thought of ‘redolent’ as meaning ‘smelling of’ rather than ‘sweet-smelling’. But perhaps I was influenced by the Latin phrase redolet lucerna – to describe something such as a document hastily completed but which literally means ‘it smells of the lamp’ and in my experience most oil lamps are not sweet-smelling.
Some excellent and witty surfaces to many of the clues – my favourite was STRIPTEASE, with ENGORGED a close second.
Thanks, Peter and NealH
Agree with Neal’s ‘fairly easy’ comment as it got a little tougher towards the end (4d, 5d & 17a taking me the most time). Fave clues were 14a & 23a, the latter of which I thought an amusing image – it’s the inclusion of ‘real’ that made it really chucklesome for me – so thanks to Peter for the enjoyable puzz and to Neal for the blog.
Thanks Peter, very enjoyable. I missed the homophone BRED, doh, so thanks NealH for pointing that out. Also, know NUGATORY and had entered the unsatisfactory negatory, even tho I wanted the character to be NU.
I also liked the real dancing bear, as well as priest and bingo wings
Many thanks again