Tees on a monday? Been a while since I blogged the Teaser.
Seems to be a plain crossword, that fell out very quickly, less than half a pint on the Flash difficulty scale.
Thanks Tees for a gentle start to the week.
Across
1 Retrospective works coming into view immediately (8)
STRAIGHT
ART reversed – retrospectively in SIGHT (view). The definition is slightly worrying as straight away works better to my mind.
6/2 Tees tutoring tricky to take in with tortuous talking test (6,7)
TONGUE TWISTER
W(ith) inside [TEES TUTORING]* trickily. I got this early on and wondered whether this would lead to tongue twisters in the grid, but it appears not.
9 Impressive room in town house (4)
MINT
Housed by rooM IN Town
10 Cleaners win lottery (10)
SWEEPSTAKE
SWEEPS (cleaners) & TAKE (win)
11 Resigns and copes with not working (6,4)
STANDS DOWN
STANDS (copes) & DOWN (not working)
12 Nothing stops intense scream (4)
HOOT
0 (nothing) inside HOT (intense)
13 Brazilian cash presumably not counterfeit (4)
REAL
If it’s real it’s not fake
14 Penny shaking and chattering foolishly (9)
PRATTLING
P(enny) & RATTLING (shaking)
16 Philosopher shows unusual zest in specialist area (9)
NIETZSCHE
An unusual ZEST* inside NICHE
19 Beer‘s mine around noon (4)
PINT
N(oon) inside PIT (mine)
21 Back after a big shock (4)
AFRO
Shock as in hair-do. A & FRO (back as in to and fro)
23 Electronic noise on silent broadcast intercepted message (8,2)
LISTENED IN
E(lectronic) DIN (noise) inside a broadcast SILENT*
25 Iceland tie disastrous and embarrassing (10)
INDELICATE
I guess Tees has had this ready ever since England lost to Iceland last year. [ICELAND TIE]* disasterously
26 Order to have noticeable effect (4)
TELL
Double definition
27 Secretive person in the pink (6)
OYSTER
Double defintion, the secretative person seems to be an Americanism
28 Leave country singer regularly embraced by English friend (8)
EMIGRATE
Alternate letters of sInGeR inside E(nglish) MATE
Down
2 See 6 Across
3 Drunken dean entertains booze-free worker and steward (9)
ATTENDANT
T.T. (booze free) inside a drunken DEAN* & the worker ANT
4 Methane etc good when Elvis drops guts (5)
GASES
G(ood) & AS (when) & a gutted E(lvi)S
5 Aesthete of truth hammered news media (3,6,6)
THE FOURTH ESTATE
[AESTHETE OF TRUTH]* hammered. Obvious fake news from Tees here.
6 Best bird shows decorative crest (7)
TOPKNOT
TOP (best) & KNOT (bird). Obviously a Pierre link needed here
7 Nick evidently secular? (5)
NOTCH
If it’s NOT CH(urch) then it’s secular
8 Posh knights protecting king at once mysterious (7)
UNKNOWN
U (posh) & 2 x N (knight in chess) around K(ing) & NOW (at once)
15 Take oblique look round cool street in city (9)
LEICESTER
Ahh, my home town, ICE (cool) & ST(reet) inside LEER
17 Artist leaves Iran with sudden liking for childhood (7)
INFANCY
R.A. taken from I(ra)N & FANCY (sudden liking)
18 Diligent employee prepared sild and roe (7)
SOLDIER
[SILD ROE]* prepared. A sild is a small herring
20 Journey allowed three similar things (7)
TRIPLET
TRIP (journey) & LET (allowed)
22 Obvious poverty traps (5)
OVERT
Very nice little clue I though, the answer is trapped inside pOVERTy
24 Sweetheart in wood one obtaining tree resin (5)
ELEMI
Crossword chestnut of the heart of swEet inside ELM (wood) & 1
Unusually accessible for Tees, only problem I had was 26A where I entered TALK.
23A is E + DIN on/after (not inside) SILENT*.
Thanks to Tees and flashling.
Agree with Gwen re 23a. 6/2 was a lovely tongue-twisting surface, I thought. Also thought 5d was cleverly constructed. Nice and easy, as you say, which makes a change from of late. ELEMI was new to me but easy to guess. Thanks to all.
Sorry I meant gwep, autocorrect at work again.
Agreed – a straightforward solve, but well-constructed. I took the Iceland reference to be footie-related too, although you didn’t need to have that horror story in your head to reach the solution.
Thanks to Tees for a good start to the week and to flashling for blogging.
Well done GWEP on spotting the err, umm deliberate error. Oops.
Great constructions, and some amusing clues here. 6 2 across, 25 across, and 4 and 5 down in particular, but all good stuff.
Forgot to mention e.g. ‘go straight to it’ can explain that definition.
Thanks Tees and Flashling.
First time I’ve tackled a Tees puzzle. Thought it was going to be an easy ride but then got a bit bogged down in the lower half where I didn’t know the resin and hadn’t heard of the 27a Americanism before today.
As usual, I had to check the spelling of 16a!
10a raised the biggest smile.
Thanks to Tees and to Flashling for the review.
Always enjoyable stuff from Tees and a nicely pitched Monday solve to boot. Lots of nice clues and funnies with my pick of the bunch being 25a for I remember it well (unfortunately!). Thanks to The Tickler for the puzzle and The Flash for the blog.
Tees in forgiving form for sure, but none the worse for it. I really enjoyed this. A great Monday solve. Particularly liked the use of sild and roe for the fodder in SOLDIER and the alliterative 6/2.
Ta to Tees and to Flash for the write-up
On the easy side, but exuding quality. And 25 is a wonderful spot!
OYSTER I do not think is American. Collins has it as just ‘informal’. Well, the cheapo ‘Collins Lite’ anyway.