A stylish puzzle frpm Neo, not too taxing but some witty wordplay in the surfaces.
A thoroughly enyable solve for me this morning, sitting in a bay window overlooking the early-sun-lit Cobb in Lyme Regis. Apologies for the late-ish blog; I’m on holiday!
| Across | ||
| 1 | QUESTION MARK | Cast doubt upon gospel? (8,4) |
| Double definition, if you count the punctuation mark: QUESTION (‘cast doubt upon’) + MARK (2nd ‘gospel’). | ||
| 8 | FRAUGHT | Under stress, having clashed with artist for nothing (7) |
| FOUGHT (‘having clashed’) with its 0 (‘nothing’) replaced by RA (‘artist’). | ||
| 9 | APROPOS | Pertinent area with rugby forwards keeping ball (7) |
| A (= ‘area’) + PROPS (‘rugby forwards’) to include O (visually, a ‘ball’). | ||
| 11 | EARDRUM | Regularly repaired unusual membrane (7) |
| EAR (alternate letters, i.e. ‘Regularly’, of ‘rEpAiReD’) + RUM (‘unusual’). | ||
| 12 | REALISM | Art style student is wrapped in paper (7) |
| L (motoring learner or ‘student’) + IS, both contained (‘wrapped’) in REAM (‘paper’). | ||
| 13 | TULLE | Fine material from agriculturalist given ecstasy (5) |
| Jethro TULL (pioneer ‘agriculturist’) + E[cstasy]. | ||
| 14 | ORPHANAGE | Pagan hero surprisingly abandoned children here (9) |
| Anagram (‘surprisingly’) of ‘PAGAN HERO’. | ||
| 16 | OPPENHEIM | Work with author – he gets one month to become novelist (9) |
| OP (‘work’) + PEN (‘author’) + HE + I (‘one’) + M[onth]. E Phillips OPPENHEIM was an English, early and prolific writer of thrillers none of which I’ve heard of, sadly. | ||
| 19 | ADAMS | First man and second president (5) |
| ADAM (biblical ‘first man’) + S[econd]. John ADAMS was U.S. president from 1797 to 1801 (turbulent times elsewhere in the world).The ‘second’ isn’t part of def, cleverly. | ||
| 21 | GALLOWS | Birds circling gloomy structure at Tyburn (7) |
| GALS (rather datedly, ‘birds’) surrounding LOW (‘gloomy’). Disturbing image. | ||
| 23 | EHRLICH | Nobel winner’s horse runs in Chile, looking lively (7) |
| Anagram (‘looking lively’) of CHILE surrounds H[orse] + R[uns]. Paul EHRLICH found the first cure for syphilis. Worth the gong, I think. | ||
| 24 | TERMITE | Call upright character The Heartless Insect (7) |
| TERM (‘call’) + I (visually, an ‘upright character’) + TE (= ThE, its heart removed). | ||
| 25 | NOCANDO | Tory backed with nothing offers negative response (2,3,2) |
| CON (‘Tory’, reversed) + AND (‘with’) + O (‘nothing’). | ||
| 26 | COSMOPOLITAN | Worldly commander’s complaint about petty officer settled (12) |
| CO’S (‘commander’s’) + MOAN (‘complaint’), this latter surrounding PO (‘petty officer’) + LIT (‘settled’). | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | QUARREL | Fall out from missile (7) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 2 | EN GARDE | End rage in battle call to alert swordsman (2,5) |
| Anagram of END RAGE. | ||
| 3 | TOTEM POLE. | Staff in village having to rate Nancy’s article (5-4) |
| TO + TEMPO (musical ‘rate’) + LE (definitely an ‘article’ in Nancy, France). | ||
| 4 | ON AIR | Love new song being broadcast (2,3) |
| O (zero, ‘love’) + N[ew] + AIR (‘song’). | ||
| 5 | MARSALA | Wine stain’s unfortunately showing up (7) |
| MAR (‘stain’) + reversal – in this down clue – of ALAS (‘unfortunately’). | ||
| 6 | REPLICA | Salesman’s liar not right about carbon copy (7) |
| REP (‘salesman’) + LIAR without R[ight] around C[arbon], which, again, is not part of the def. Neat | ||
| 7 | AFTERTHOUGHT | Certainly not an original idea (12) |
| Jocular cryptic. | ||
| 10 | SUMMER SCHOOL | No term for this computer instruction? (6,6) |
| Cryptic, with SUMMER (that which sums, perhaps a ‘computer’) + SCHOOL (to ‘instruct’). | ||
| 15 | PIMPERNEL | Plant’s solicitor given fifty to entertain flighty type (9) |
| PIMP (one who ‘solicits’) + L (‘fifty’ in Latin) surrounding ERNE, a sea eagle or ‘flighty type’. | ||
| 17 | PALERMO | Friend comes to Rome rebuilt as capital (7) |
| PAL (‘friend’) + anagram (‘rebuilt’) of ROME. Palermo is of course the capital of Sicily. | ||
| 18 | NIOBIUM | Principal in Number Ten wrong about one element (7) |
| A slightly complicated parse but it goes: N (‘principal’ character in ‘N[umber’) + IO (‘Ten’) + BUM (adj., ‘wrong’) around I (‘one’). Phew. | ||
| 19 | APRICOT | Fruit and a soft white cheese? No thanks! (7) |
| A + P (musically ‘soft’) + RICOTta (‘white cheese’ minus its TA thus with ‘no thanks’). | ||
| 20 | AVIGNON | Article about wine involves grand French location (7) |
| A (‘article”) + ON (‘about’) + VIN (‘wine’) surrounding G[rand], as in ‘Ten Gs’, or ‘ten grand’ in gangster-speak. | ||
| 22 | SHEEP | Farm animals slowly escape – hard to stop that! (5) |
| SEEP (‘slowly escape’) ‘stopped’ by H[ard] (as in pencils). | ||
*anagram
Thanks to Neo and Grant. In 20d, I think you need to take ‘vino’ as wine and ‘an’ as the article, otherwise ‘about’ is doing double duty.
Thanks Neo and Grant
Another neat puzzle from this setter. Agree with Hovis@1 with regard to VINO in 20d and had 1a as a charade of QUESTION + MARK with the ? being the definition.
A couple of new words including the NIOBIUM element and OPPENHEIM (the prodigious thriller writer whom I’ve never heard of before – I counted 132 novels + short stories in his Wiki entry !!!)
Think that TOTEM POLE was my favourite with it’s clever definition and word play.
Finished with those two new words and funnily enough TERMITE as the last one in.
Defeated by NIOBIUM, a new word and the parsing was too complicated for me. I like clues with the def being an “incidental ” punctuation mark – I agree with brucew@aus @2 – so QUESTION MARK was my pick, with ‘Nancy’s article’ worthy of an honourable mention.
Thanks to Neo and Grant.
It is always a delight to complete a delightful puzzle. As has been often said clues can be solved from the word-play without knowledge of the definition.
So it was for me with EHRLICH. Not being a scientist (and not having had syphilis) I took some time to spend with him on his Wikipedia web-page. Phew! What achievements.
Many, many thanks to you both.