A fine crossword from Loroso. One of my answers is just a guess, if anyone can explain what is going on I would be very grateful. Thank you Loroso.
| Across | ||
| 1 | CODSWALLOP | Unbelievable talk of kids given beer (10) |
| CODS (kids, deceives) with WALLOP (beer) | ||
| 6 | SPAR | Boom box (4) |
| double definition – sailing and boxing | ||
| 9 | MALCOLM | X L L, possibly (7) |
| 10 | TOPONYM | Placename found by satnav with 50% off – about £25 (7) |
| TOMtom (make of satnav) missing 50% contains (about) PONY (£25) | ||
| 12 | SUSPENSION | Stay in South American B&B? (10) |
| S (south) US (American) PENSION (B&B) | ||
| 13 | CON | Pilot’s fleece (3) |
| double definition | ||
| 15 | BOEING | In reality, old aircraft name (6) |
| O (old) in BEING (reality) | ||
| 16 | CASEMENT | Join guards when finding Irish nationalist (8) |
| CEMENT (join) contains (guards) AS (when) – Roger Casement (1864-1916) Irish Nationalist | ||
| 18 | TWOCCING | Car crime duo repeatedly caught in Golf (8) |
| TWO (duo) C C (caught, repeatedly) IN G (golf, phonetic alphabet) – twoc is to steal a car, from the legal expression Taking Without Owner’s Consent | ||
| 20 | TOBAGO | Part of WI also around corner (6) |
| TOO (also) contains BAG (to corner) – part of West Indies | ||
| 23 | EFT | Being terrestrial, force captured by extra-terrestrial (3) |
| F (force) inside (captured by) ET (extra-terrestrial) – a newt, a terrestrial being | ||
| 24 | UTILISABLE | Sporting a suit, I’ll be practical (10) |
| anagram (sporting) of A SUIT I’LL BE | ||
| 26 | BIG SHOT | Somebody racist, perhaps, should keep quiet (3,4) |
| BIGOT (racist) contains SH (quiet) | ||
| 27 | TRIGGER | Launch a ship on time (7) |
| RIGGER (a ship) following (on) T (time) | ||
| 28 | TANK | Spectacularly fail to find reservoir (4) |
| double definition | ||
| 29 | ADULTEROUS | Criminal ruled out as deceitful (10) |
| anagram (criminal) of RULED OUT AS | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | COMB | Groom wants jazz band to finish early (4) |
| COMBo (jazz band) shortened (finish early) | ||
| 2 | DELOUSE | Escorted over river free of parasites (7) |
| LED (escorted) reversed (over) and OUSE (river) | ||
| 3 | WHOOPING COUGH | Potentially dangerous baby’s rattle (8,5) |
| cryptic definition | ||
| 4 | LAMINA | Film Buddhist monk outside home (6) |
| LAMA (Buddhist monk) contains IN (home) | ||
| 5 | OUTRIVAL | S African chap, one out in flimsy top (8) |
| OU (chap, South African) then TRIViAL (flimsy) missing (out) I (one) | ||
| 7 | PANACHE | Criticise and hurt spirit (7) |
| PAN (criticise) and ACHE (hurt) | ||
| 8 | RUMINATION | During fall, man’s first thought (10) |
| RUINATION (fall) containing Man (first letter of) | ||
| 11 | PONDEROSA PINE | Weigh old sap in English tree (9,4) |
| PONDER (weigh) O (od) SAP IN E (English) | ||
| 14 | A BETTER BET | More likely one will encourage Lizzie (1,6,3) |
| ABTTER (one who will encourage) with BET (Elizabeth) | ||
| 17 | ANOINTED | Put oil on it and one slips (8) |
| anagram (slips) of IT AND ONE | ||
| 19 | OCTAGON | One month before getting new figure (7) |
| OCT (October, one month) AGO (before) with N (new) | ||
| 21 | ALLEGRO | Only I will cross river quickly (7) |
| ALL (only) then EGO (I) contains (will go across) R (river) | ||
| 22 | PISTOL | Cut up about first one of 25 (6) |
| LOP (cut) reversed (up) contains (about) IST (1st, first) | ||
| 25 | ARMS | Outfits and why they have sleeves (4) |
| double/cryptic definition | ||
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.
I think this may be the first time I’ve finished a Loroso, but cheated to get 5d, ou for S African chap was new to me. Unfortunately, my reasoning for 9a only went as far as yours, Peedee. Hope somebody can explain L L. I know it can stand for Lord Lieutenant but this didn’t seem to lead anywhere.
Thanks for the blog, PeeDee. I’m glad you saw 9ac at the last minute, because it had me stumped: I’d got as far as MALCOLM X…
Some great cluing here, as always from Loroso – too many favourites to mention. Many thanks to him.
Regular readers won’t be surprised to learn that my thoughts on this one exactly match Eileen’s.
An absolute gem from start to finish. I’ve already posted that Anax/Loroso- is like Bonxie in that he appears rarely but he’d well worth waiting for.
many thanks to PeeDee for cracking the comma in MALCOLM.
Thanks Loroso and PeeDee
I saw the recommendation (from you, copmus? – thanks, if so) elsewhere and thought I’d have a go at my first FT. I quite enjoyed it, though I too didn’t understand OU or MALCOLM. I had to look up TWOCCING too.
A pleasanter experience than last attempt to do an Indie one as backup when I’d finished the Guardian quickly. That was some time ago – is the interface still as frustrating?
muffin@5 The Indy is on shaky financial grounds so you have to endure an ad until you can press play.Which reminds me-what has happened to Monk?
Just tried it, copmus. It won’t let me in until I’ve disabled my ad-blocker, which I have no intention of doing. Looks like it will be the FT in future when the Grauniad has been too quick…
Muffin @7
After clicking on today’s puzzle (or any other) you need to wait for ~60 seconds until the video ad has finished and then you should receive a box containing the option to ‘play’ (without any need to turn off your ad-blocker).
Thanks Gaufrid – that worked. Still a clunky interface, though!
So, this makes it Loroso 3 Anax 0 for this year.
The latter must feel like Barcelona! 🙂
Some longer anagrams broke the puzzle open for me.
Had to google WHOOPING COUGH – do not like these kind of cryptic definitions.
And to check that TWOCCING is something.
Could see MALCOLM at 9ac but couldn’t explain.
Thanks PeeDee for enlightening us all – marvellous!
On the downside, a bit of a pity to have ‘out’ in the clue for OUTRIVAL (5d).
And I had to change ‘decagon’ (perfectly all right) into the more familiar OCTAGON.
Liked the puzzle very much (but that’s really news when it’s about Loroso).
(but that’s not really breaking news when it’s about Loroso)
Thanks Loroso and PeeDee
A very good puzzle that I could only get to intermittently which was probably beneficial with some of the lateral thinking required on many of the clues. Was another who missed the clever play with MALCOLM X.
Had to look up OU and CODS (for that definition – originally thought it a very bad homophone for kids – might be how a NZer might pronounce it though!)
Finished in the NE corner with CASEMENT and OUTRIVAL (with the tricky South Africa term) as the last couple in