Yet another delectable offering from Wanderer. I had some trouble parsing 13ac. Thanks Wanderer, for a clever challenge!
FF: 10 DD: 9
| Across | ||
| 1, 4 | GEORGE MEREDITH | Poet and novelist Beatle mithered dreadfully (6,8) |
| GEORGE (beatle, harrison) MEREDITH (mithered*) | ||
| 9 | AU PAIR | A Disney film show? That’s one that’ll take care of the children (2,4) |
| A UP (disney film) AIR (show) | ||
| 10 | STURGEON | Good person to encourage a swimmer (8) |
| ST (good person) URGE ON (encourage) | ||
| 12 | DASH | Bit of dead wood (4) |
| D (dead) ASH (wood) | ||
| 13 | COURTHOUSE | Woohoo! FA finally lost hearing here (10) |
| COURT (woo) HOUSE (ho[o]) with FA (nothing) finally lost. Thanks Geoff for the help. | ||
| 15 | ASTRONOMICAL | Huge sort of telescope (12) |
| double def | ||
| 18 | SPICK AND SPAN | Small tool, new, keeping groomed pandas spotlessly clean (5,3,4) |
| [S (small) PICK (tool) N (new) ] containing PANDAS* | ||
| 21 | NUTCRACKER | Title from ballet – one that’s opened at Christmas, seen by fan (10) |
| CRACKER (one that’s opened at christmas) by NUT (fan) | ||
| 22 | HIGH | Off on a trip? (4) |
| double def | ||
| 24 | EMPATHIC | Understanding how it feels to be a chimp, with endless tea drunk (8) |
| A CHIMP TEa* (endless) | ||
| 25 | MAGNUM | Bottle shown by US detective (6) |
| cryptic clue; referring to a gun carried by us marshalls | ||
| 26, 27 | SEPARATE TABLES | Film from second Beatles era, with tap-dancing (8,6) |
| S (second) BEATLES ERA TAP* | ||
| Down | ||
| 1, 19 | GUARDIAN ANGELS | Those above helping with newspaper article on hair products (8,6) |
| GUARDIAN (newspaper) AN (article) GELS (hair products) | ||
| 2 | OPPOSITE | Facing river in workplace (8) |
| PO (river) in [OP (work) SITE (place)] | ||
| 3 | GAIN | Good – a home win! (4) |
| G (good) A IN (home) | ||
| 5 | EXTERMINATED | Finished off going east out of city? I’d meant to go another way (12) |
| [ EXeTER (city, without E – east) ] I”D MEANT* | ||
| 6 | EARTHWARDS | Heartbroken over the 1 down’s charges, so the astronaut goes home (10) |
| HEART* (broken – anagrind) WARDS (1 down = guardian |
||
| 7 | ICED UP | First day of winter shortly? It’s frozen over (4,2) |
| first day of winter is DECEMBER 1st; shortly is DEC 1 .. which can be clued as ICED UP | ||
| 8, 17 | HENLEY-ON-THAMES | Where rows regularly occur, hospital treated one extremely lucky man with these (6-2-6) |
| H (hospital) [ONE LY (extremely LuckY) MAN THESE]* | ||
| 11 | MOTORCYCLIST | New costly Micro model for one of the 19? (12) |
| COSTLY MICRO T (model)* – referring to hell’s angels | ||
| 14 | CO OPERATOR | One working closely with another barrel-maker has a roll-up (10) |
| COOPER (barrel maker) ATOR (roll = ROTA, reversed) | ||
| 16 | OPTIONAL | Ring a friend about rise of chart-topping intro to trumpet voluntary (8) |
| O (ring) [ PAL (friend) containing { NOI (No.1, chart topping) T (intro to Trumpet), all reversed) } ] | ||
| 17 | See 8 | |
| 19 | See 1 | |
| 20 | STOP UP | Don’t go to bed in Cork? (4,2) |
| cryptic clue | ||
| 23 | DANA | Coming from England, a naturalised Irish singer (4) |
| hidden in “..englanD, A NAturalised .. “ | ||
*anagram
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Enjoyed this. I took 25a to refer to MAGNUM PI, the TVs detective. In 6d, the clue refers to guardian rather than guardian angel. I do like clues like 13a, at least when I get them which was the case here.
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
Another very enjoyable puzzle from this setter.
I agree with Hovis @1 about the reference in 25, and also that it’s simply GUARDIAN in 6.
On 25 ac, I took it to refer to a US TV show called “Magnum PI” I.e. private investigator
Thanks Wanderer & Turbolegs.
Isn’t 20 down a double definition?
Hi all, thanks for the comments.
Yep – Ref 6d, it should have read just 1d for Guardian, in the parsing.
Ref 25a – I plead ignorance, having not heard of Magnum PI. 🙂
Ref 20d – Could well be a double def.
Regards,
TL
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
Did this one back at the time but only got around to checking it off now. Liked the long perimeter clues and the usual good mix of devices used by this setter.
A bit of general knowledge required throughout with various films, singers and television series used – didn’t know either DANA nor SEPARATE TABLES.
Finished in the SW with MAGNUM, DANA and HIGH the last few in.