A quick and cheerful solve this morning, with some pleasing surfaces.
One or two quibbles
but only for something to say, really. Thanks, Crux, enjoyed it.
| Across | ||
| 1 | NO OIL PAINTINGS | Portraits in water-colours? Could be the Ugly Sisters, no doubt! (2,3,9) |
| Jocund double definition. | ||
| 10 | ADDLE | Walk like a duck (headless!), so become confused (5) |
| wADDLE, without it head. Chambers says intransitive ‘addle’ is O.K., tho’ I’ve never seen it. | ||
| 11 | EIGHTFOLD | Transport of delight may be so much more (9) |
| Nice anagram (‘transport’) of OF DELIGHT. | ||
| 12 | LORELEI | Old sayings lie about an entrancing maiden (7) |
| LORE (‘old sayings’) + anagram (‘about’) of LIE. | ||
| 13 | THE BEST | First-class punishment once given in sixes, apparently (3,4) |
| Double definition, a play on ‘six of the best [strokes of the cane]’. I was never caned at school. It never did me any harm. | ||
| 14 | THROB | Bother about losing English pound (5) |
| Reverse of BOTHeR without the ‘E’. | ||
| 16 | EXPLAINED | Accounted for wife once getting basic education (9) |
| EX (‘wife once’) + PLAIN (‘basic’) + ED (‘education’, as in B.Ed). | ||
| 19 | GAS-FITTER | Anaesthetic more convenient for a heating engineer (3-6) |
| GAS (anaesthetic) + FITTER (‘more convenient’). | ||
| 20 | TAMER | Not so Wild West Americans admit to (5) |
| Inclusion in wesT AMERicans. | ||
| 22 | NARRATE | Recount managed the wrong way by judge (7) |
| RAN (‘managed’), reversed, + RATE (‘judge’). | ||
| 25 | HUMERUS | The part of the skeleton’s said to be amusing (7) |
| The funny bone, homophone (‘said to be’) of ‘humerous’. Shome duplicashun, shurely? | ||
| 27 | THORNLESS | Heart of sweetcorn, lacking keratin, is non-prickly (9) |
| ‘T’ is the ‘heart’ of sweeTcorn’ + HORNLESS (‘lacking keratin’) | ||
| 28 | GAUGE | Basic food brought back to protect gold standard (5) |
| EGG reversed around AU (gold). | ||
| 29 | CHARACTER ACTOR | Card-player, devotee of the Method, perhaps (9,5) |
| Another jokey double definition. The ‘perhaps’ is necessary: Brando (the ‘Method’ actor) didn’t play eccentrics – ‘cards’ – though he was one, and Thora Hird (the character actor) was not, I submit, over-indebted to Stanislavski. | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | ORDER ARMS | Command in army rifle drill.– or a clue for Mars? (5,4) |
| Double def., the second being a ‘reverse clue’, indicating an anagram (‘order’) of ARMS to give ‘MARS’. | ||
| 3 | IDEAL | Apart from starter, cooking hailed as perfect (5) |
| Anag. of hAILED without first letter | ||
| 4, 24 | PRESIDENT ELECT | Percentiles Ted worked out for one (almost) in White House (9,5) |
| Anagram of PERCENTILES TED. | ||
| 5 | INGOT | Attempt to infuse alloy of tin to make gold, possibly (5) |
| Anag. (‘alloy’) of TIN includes GO (‘attempt’). | ||
| 6 | TITLE PART | Little bird the French catch when climbing – 13 role for 29 (5,4) |
| TIT (‘little bird’) + LE (French ‘the’) + TRAP (‘catch’, reversed or ‘climbing’ in this down clue) to give ‘the best role for [a] character actor’. Again, not quite a simile. | ||
| 7 | NOOSE | Snare none of our soldiers expected, initially (5) |
| First letters of None …. Expected. | ||
| 8 | SEDATED | Seem dead trendy, oddly, though drugged (7) |
| Odd letters of first 3 words. | ||
| 9 | HAMLET | Where country folk may work and play (6) |
| D.D., although I feel that ‘work’ is only there for the surface. | ||
| 15 | BRITANNIA | Did she succeed where Canute failed? (9) |
| Cryptic whole clue. She ruled the waves: he didn’t. | ||
| 17 | PURCHASER | He buys nearly neat vodka after a beer (9) |
| PURe (‘nearly neat’) + CHASER. | ||
| 18 | NUMERO UNO | The big cheese à l’italienne (6,3) |
| Whole-clue cryptic. | ||
| 19 | GENETIC | Boy or girl given endless credit that’s inherited (7) |
| GENE (boy’s or girl’s name) + TICk (‘endless credit’). | ||
| 21 | RASHER | Part of breakfast less carefully prepared? (6) |
| Double def. | ||
| 23 | RIOJA | Former capital needs Germany’s agreement for Spanish export (5) |
| RIO (former capital of Brazil) + JA (German ‘agreement’). | ||
| 24 | See 4 | |
| 26 | MAGIC | Kind of bullet (40% silver) that doesn’t kill – it cures! (5) |
| Whole clue def, with 60% disappointingly unaccounted for. | ||
*anagram
Yes, not too difficult, but I thought NO OIL PAINTINGS, BRITANNIA and EIGHTFOLD were excellent and were ‘worth the price of admission’ by themselves. Thank goodness Thora Hird and others weren’t ‘Method’ actors. With relish as they say.
Thanks to Crux and Grant.
This seemed quite Rufusian with cryptic and double definitions and nice anagrams – LOI was EIGHTFOLD despite identifying the anagram fodder on the first pass! Thanks Crux and Grant.
Thanks Crux and Grant
Still away from continuous internet and had to print off the week’s puzzles last night – this one was a nice gentle start to them all.
Had parsed 29a slightly differently – had it as a charade CHARACTER (card) + ACTOR (player) with ‘devotee of the Method, perhaps’ as the definition. Wasn’t aware of the term ‘the Method’ to describe method acting in general though.
Think that MAGIC was an interesting clue – the novelty approach overcoming any disappointment for me with it.
INGOT was my last in.