A steady solve, with a couple of Hamilton’s trademark long anagrams.
I cruised easily through this until 17 d, (WORD GAME) which brought me to a dead stop. I polished off the rest of the puzzle and came back to it but it still took an age: if I hadn’t been blogging, I’d have given up, I think. One of those clues that’s either a write-in or an all-day job. Rueful thanks to Hamilton.
| Across | ||
| 1, 18 across | CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT | CID authorise cell to get Kitty banged up. Snooping did for her (9,6,3,3) |
| Anagram (‘banged up’) of CID AUTHORISE CELL + KITTY, ‘kitty’ doing double duty as part of the definition. | ||
| 9 | INSULIN | Sugar production regulator? (7) |
| Cryptic (though not very) whole clue. | ||
| 10 | REIGATE | Cereal as requested by spectators in Surrey (7) |
| Homophone (‘as requested’, I suppose) of ‘rye’ (a ‘cereal’) + GATE (sporting ‘spectators’) for the Surrey town. | ||
| 11 | KNIFE | Perhaps Stanley has potassium, nickel and iron amalgam (5) |
| K + NI + FE as elemental abbreviatons make the proprietary trimming knife. The company was founded in 1843. | ||
| 12 | ENCHANTED | Magical French singer foregoes exercise in finale (9) |
| END (‘finale’) includes CHANTEuse (‘French singer’) minus her ‘use’ (‘excercise’). | ||
| 13 | NEARSIDE | Approach inventor who’s returning, not on the left in UK (8) |
| NEAR (to ‘approach’) + reversal of EDISON (‘inventor’) minus his ‘ON’, to give the side of a vehicle nearer to the kerb. | ||
| 15 | PLACID | Tranquil lake (6) |
| Double definition. Lake Placid, in New York State, was a venue for the 1980 Winter Olympics. | ||
| 18 | See 1 across | |
| 19, 1 down | NO SPRING CHICKEN | Ageing boiler has run out of water? (2,6,7) |
| Jocular cryptic double def. | ||
| 22 | DEBAUCHED | Abandoned gel craved university admission (9) |
| DEB[utante], an upper-class ‘gel’, + ACHED (‘craved’) to include U[niversity]. | ||
| 24 | PLAZA | Show a change from 25th to 26th at the Mall (5) |
| PLAY (a ‘show’) + A, the Y (25th letter) replaced by Z (the 26th). | ||
| 25 | OBLIQUE | Inclined to be devious (7) |
| Double def. | ||
| 26 | AUSPICE | A unique selling point launches one church’s sign (7) |
| A + USP (‘Unique Selling Point in marketing-speak) + I + CE. ‘Launches’, I presume, means merely ‘precedes’. | ||
| 27 | SLIP OF THE TONGUE | Footling upset he passed off as minor mistake (4,2,3,6) |
| Nice anagram (‘passed off’) of FOOTLING UPSET HE. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | See 19 | |
| 2 | RUSTICATE | Suspend girl who’s out of practice, we’ve heard (9) |
| Homophone (‘we’ve heard’) of RUSTY KATE. | ||
| 3 | OLLIE | Miner loses credit for snowboard jump (5) |
| COLLIER without his outside CR[edit]. | ||
| 4 | INNUENDO | Cast out unsanctioned organisation over slur (8) |
| Anagram (‘organisation’) of UNSANCTIONED minus CAST. | ||
| 5 | YORICK | Funny man’s only appearance is from beyond the grave (6) |
| Cryptic def of the jester who’s skull (only) appears in ‘Hamlet’. | ||
| 6 | IT IS ALL UP | One has attraction to a model raised, but there’s no hope (2,2,3,2) |
| I (1), then PULL (‘attraction’) + SIT (to ‘model’), both reversed. | ||
| 7 | LEAST | Poorest laptop allocated to contract partner (5) |
| L (Lap ‘top’) + EAST (a partner in the game of contract bridge). | ||
| 8 | DREADED | Fearsome lecturer’s not finished infiltrating payment mechanism (7) |
| READER (‘lecturer’, without last R) in D[irect] D[ebit]. | ||
| 14 | STATUS QUO | Group that sees no reason to change (6,3) |
| DD of the late, great rock band. | ||
| 16 | CLIMAXING | Coming to hold on to one guy in the middle (9) |
| I (1)+MAX (a ‘guy’) in CLING (‘hold on to’), with saucy definition. | ||
| 17 | WORD GAME | Activity that requires guarantee to be prepared (4,4) |
| WORD (‘guarantee’, as in “to give one’s word” + GAME (‘prepared’, ready for anything). By far the hardest clue, I thought, because of the vagueness of the definition: my last clue in by several cups of coffee. | ||
| 18 | TEDIOUS | Flat outside is in a bad way (7) |
| Anagram (‘in a bad way’) of OUTSIDE. | ||
| 20 | GLAD EYE | Meaningful look clearing before six months? (4,3) |
| GLADE (a ‘clearing’) + YE, i.e., half of YEAR, or, cryptically, 6 months. | ||
| 21 | THREAT | Risk comes at that point where umpire finally stands down (6) |
| THEREAT (‘at that point’) minus E (‘umpirE finally’). | ||
| 23 | BALTI | Commit laboratory to return a little of the dish . . . . (5) |
| Reversed inclusion (‘return a little’) in ‘commIT LABoratory’. | ||
| 24 | PESTO | . . . . of selected canapes tonight. Such sauce! (5) |
| Anotherc inclusion (‘…of selected’) in canaPES TOnight. These last two clues seem linked but individually gettable. | ||
*anagram
Thanks Hamilton and Grant
A good solid puzzle that took one 3/4 hour spell to break the back of it and then another shortish stint to finish off the last couple – AUSPICE and that WORD GAME. Didn’t help myself toward the end by thinking that it must be a pangram with all of the unusual letters having presented and only a V, J and W not there – unfortunately only the W showed up in the last couple. Did spend a bit of time tracking down CHANTEUSE in order to take away the exercise at 12a.
Looks like a mini-theme of sorts with idiomatic expressions – at 1a,18a – 19a, 1d – 27a – 6d.
Thought that YORICK, INNUENDO and CLIMAXING were all very good.
WORD GAME and AUSPICE were my last two in as well. I really enjoyed this with the anagrams being quite difficult, and some inventive word play including the ‘six months’ in 20d and the ’25th to 26th’ in 24a. The DEBAUCHED ‘abandoned gel’ was my favourite. I (probably mistakenly) just took ‘launches’ to mean the first letters of.
Thanks to Hamilton and to Grant.
Until I read this blog I thought of this as a challenging inventive fun puzzle where I happened to fail on one clue (17d).
Now I feel a bit cheated! “word game” as “activity” is ridiculously vague and overly general. It would be like “wastepaper basket” clued as “thing”. Unless of course there is more to it than I can see.
Thanks to Grant for clarity and Hamilton for an excellent puzzle – with the one caveat.
I didn’t see any marketing speak in 26a – just the “launching” letters of consecutive words.
USP is a long-established, indeed cliched, marketing abbreviation for ‘unique selling point’, such that I didn’t even bother looking it up as I solved but now I do and see Chambers certainly has it, which does make the ‘launching’ seem a bit clumsy to me.