A good challenge from Bradman this Friday with more than the average number of anagrams sprinkled through out the grid. Thanks Don for a pleasurable workout.
Nearly a pangram. Mini children’s theme?
FF: 9 DD: 9
| Across | ||
| 1 | PILLOWCASE | A POW cell is unlikely to provide a bit of bed linen (10) |
| A POW CELL IS* | ||
| 6 | STEW | When suffering setback wimps fret (4) |
| WETS (wimps) reversed | ||
| 9 | AVANT GARDE | A very small worker cultivated land endlessly, setting the trend (5-5) |
| A V (very) ANT (worker) GARDEn (cultivated land, endless) | ||
| 10 | ANON | A new cricket side will get together in a while (4) |
| A N (new) ON (cricket side, leg) | ||
| 12 | SELENOGRAPHY | Study of a heavenly body, dancing angel so hyper (12) |
| ANGEL SO HYPER* – refers to study of the moon | ||
| 15 | TRAVAILED | Initially those reinforcements helped and worked hard (9) |
| TR (Those Reinforcements, initially i.e. first letters) AVAILED (helped) | ||
| 17 | TANGO | Long after sunbathing one may see this dance (5) |
| cryptic clue; if its been a long time since one sunbathed, one would see the TAN GO | ||
| 18 | CHOIR | Mostly hard work when one is in group of entertainers (5) |
| CHORe (hard work, mostly) containing I (one) | ||
| 19 | FIREWORKS | Get rid of factory producing explosive devices (9) |
| FIRE (get rid of) WORKS (factory) | ||
| 20 | SOFTLY SOFTLY | Characters held by copper are seen to be so careful (6-6) |
| cryptic clue; expansion of PP in coPPer | ||
| 24 | IRAQ | Rebel army facing question in country (4) |
| IRA (rebel army) Q (question) | ||
| 25 | MYCOLOGIST | What could make cot go slimy? One looks at mouldy stuff (10) |
| COT GO SLIMY* | ||
| 26 | LIEU | Place where a lady powders her nose, we hear? (4) |
| sounds like LOO (where a lady powders her nose) – I liked this clue ! | ||
| 27 | HEADSTRONG | Get hard with son terribly self- willed (10) |
| GET HARD SON* | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | PLAN | Design of apparatus inadequate (4) |
| PLANt (apparatus, incomplete) | ||
| 2 | LEAN | No problem for Mr Sprat, being thin (4) |
| crptic clue, from the nursery rhyme, “jack sprat could eat no fat and his wife could eat no lean …” | ||
| 3 | ON THE PAYROLL | Another Polly working, employed by the company (2,3,7) |
| ANOTHER POLLY* | ||
| 4 | CRAVE | Longing to be less than totally cowardly (5) |
| CRAVEn (cowardly, less than total) | ||
| 5 | SIDE ORDER | Dish desired after battle – soldiers tucked in (4,5) |
| DSIRED* containing OR (soldiers) | ||
| 7 | TIN OPENERS | Kitchen gadgets in store moved outside enclosure (3,7) |
| IN STORE* around PEN (enclosure) | ||
| 8 | WENDY HOUSE | What offers a domestic structure for children playing (5,5) |
| cryptic clue | ||
| 11 | TRUTH WILL OUT | Girl and boy taken in by illegal seller? It’s sure to get heard about (5,4,3) |
| [RUTH (girl) WILL (boy) ] in TOUT (illegal seller) | ||
| 13 | STOCK-STILL | Goods in front of cash-receiver not shifting at all (5-5) |
| STOCKS (goods) in front of TILL (cash-receiver) | ||
| 14 | CAMOUFLAGE | Call UFO image phony – not fine one, a sort of optical trick? (10) |
| CALL UfO IMAGE* (without F – fine and I – one) | ||
| 16 | LIFESTYLE | A way of being silly with feet all over the place (9) |
| SILLY FEET* | ||
| 21 | FJORD | Jack sits in car in a body of water (5) |
| J (jack) in FORD (car) | ||
| 22 | MIRO | Artist makes marks with topless pen (4) |
| M (marks) bIRO (pen, topless) – joan miro, spanish painter | ||
| 23 | STIG | Caveman a disgrace ousting mother (4) |
| STIGma (disgrace, without MA – mother) – referring to the book “stig of the dump” by clive king | ||
*anagram
Agree this was fun. Thanks Don and TL.
Re 14d, the anagram only works if you retain the F in UFO and remove one of the ls in Call (as well as the I of course). Pewrhas Don meant ‘not line one’ rather than ‘not fine one’?
I think Steven is right, sorry
Antripasti-antipasto.Lets call the whole thing off.
For 26ac I had Love in Cornwall – thus could not get 14d to finish!
Oops, I meant Love
Auto correct doesn’t like Looe
Anagrams of the two slightly more difficult words won’t please everyone, but a nice change from yesterday’s rather tricksy offering. Quite long-ish clues just as in the Guardian today.
Good puzzle from the Don. Couldn’t parse 14d. Not 100% happy that crave = longing in 4d. Surely craving = longing? Or am I missing something?
Yes CRAVE is a verb, not a noun. But to crave is to long for, wouldn’t you say?
Pommette@9 – I had the same thought as you did ref 4d. Wasn’t very comfortable with LONGING = CRAVE.
Regards,
TL
Just visit Mrs Chambers.
She tells us that CRAVE can be a noun meaning ‘a longing’.
Thanks Bradman and Turbolegs
Enjoyable crossword where I liked unravelling the long anagrams to get the two scientific studies that I had not seen before and had to look up to see that they were in fact words. Didn’t know that CRAVE could be a noun, so thanks Sil.
Finished in the SE corner with TRUTH WILL OUT (another new term for me), STIG (a character that I hadn’t seen as a kid) and MIRO (who I did know but had to dig out from the wordplay). Lots of learning and fun to do which is what I enjoy from the Don.