Good puzzle. A notch up from Tuesday’s normal degree-of-difficulty and welcome for that.
First solve for a coupla weeks – we’ve been in Brittany, no wi-fi & 2 days by pack-mule from the nearest English papers – so a nicely testing welcome back to the old routine. Smooth, misleading surfaces and some clever DDs. Thanks, Armonie.
| Across | ||
| 1 | ASSEMBLY | Convention competently handles failure, on reflection (8) |
| MESS (‘failure’) reversed (‘on reflection’) in ABLY (‘competently’). | ||
| 5 | ASHRAM | A quiet drive to religious retreat (6) |
| A + SH (‘quiet’) + RAM (‘drive’). | ||
| 10 | CHURN | Agitate Chinese vessel (5) |
| CH[inese] + URN (‘vessel’). | ||
| 11 | TRIATHLON | Art Hilton devised sports event (9) |
| Anagram (‘devised’) of ART HILTON. | ||
| 12 | PARTY LINE | Alliance views shared link (5,4) |
| Double definition. The ‘party line’ reflects the shared views of an alliance and in olden days, children, a ‘party line’ was a shared telephone line. Who remembers them? | ||
| 13 | LAYER | Covering for hen (5) |
| Another DD. | ||
| 14 | ALCOVE | Vocal arrangement by European found in recess (6) |
| Anagram of VOCAL + E[uropean]. | ||
| 15 | STOICAL | Clio sat composed and resigned (7) |
| Anagram of CLIO SAT. | ||
| 18 | LEGROOM | Space for large English curry (7) |
| L[arge] + E[nglish] + GROOM (to ‘curry’). | ||
| 20 | MADRAS | Passionate painter’s in India (6) |
| MAD (‘passionate’) + RA’S (‘painter’s). | ||
| 22 | TEPID | Edward keeps relationship lukewarm (5) |
| PI (mathematical ‘relationship’) in TED (‘Edward’). | ||
| 24 | INDICATOR | Guide for much-loved autocrat short of time (9) |
| IN (‘much-loved’; a slightly unusual and welcome use of ‘in’ here, kind of “I’m IN with the in-crowd”) + DICtATOR lacking its first T[ime]. | ||
| 25 | REPROCESS | Once more treat commander in silence (9) |
| O[fficer] C[ommanding] (= ‘commander’) in REPRESS (to ‘silence’). | ||
| 26 | RINSE | Swill some beer in Serbia (5) |
| Inclusion (‘some’) in ‘beeR IN SErbia’. | ||
| 27 | HARLEM | Novice appears in The Seraglio in New York (6) |
| L[earner] (= ‘novice’) in HAREM (‘seraglio’). Hands up who thought NY was going to be in the answer? Hands up who couldn’t make ‘rooky’ fit? Thought so. Good clue. | ||
| 28 | ONE-SIDED | Partial description of a Möbius strip (3-5) |
| Neat DD. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | ACCEPT | Welcome law restricting fungal growth (6) |
| ACT (‘law’) surrounds CEP (the delicious ‘fungal growth’). | ||
| 2 | SQUARE LEG | Conservative member on the cricket field (6,3) |
| SQUARE (‘conservative’) + LEG (‘member’). | ||
| 3 | MONEY FOR OLD ROPE | One poorly formed arrangement to make easy profits (5,3,3,4) |
| Very nice anagram (‘arrangement’) of ONE POORLY FORMED. | ||
| 4 | LATTICE | Greek infiltrating the French network (7) |
| ATTIC (‘GREEK’) in LE (‘the’ in French). | ||
| 6 | SETTLE OLD SCORES | Calm down with early music compositions to deal with grudges (6,3,6) |
| SETTLE (‘calm down’) + OLD SCORES (‘early music compositions’). | ||
| 7 | RALLY | Turn the corner in driving contest (5) |
| DD. | ||
| 8 | MANDRILL | Fellow bit monkey (8) |
| MAN (‘fellow’) + BIT (‘drill’). | ||
| 9 | DIVERS | Various old aquatic birds (6) |
| Another DD; ‘Old’ word for ‘various’ + diving birds. | ||
| 16 | CHASTENED | Charlie’s urged to be contrite (9) |
| C[harlie] + HASTENED (‘urged’). | ||
| 17 | PLUTARCH | Greek god endlessly leading Greek philosopher (8) |
| PLUTo (‘endless’ Greek god) + ARCH (‘leading’, as in -angel, -bishop, rival, enemy &c. Odd bed-fellows). | ||
| 19 | MAIDEN | Miss people without support (6) |
| MEN (‘people’) outside (‘without’) AID (‘support’). | ||
| 20 | MADISON | Old US president’s domains regulated (7) |
| Anagram (‘regulated’) of DOMAINS. | ||
| 21 | FRIEND | Beast takes redhead for partner (6) |
| FIEND (‘beast’) contains R, (‘head’ of ‘Red’). | ||
| 23 | PIPER | Musician is quiet in supporting part (5) |
| PIER (‘supporting part’) contains P[iano] = ‘quiet’. | ||
*anagram
A pleasant solve. Agree that the anagram for 3d was nicely constructed. For 7d, I initially put in ROUND thinking ‘driving contest’ was a cryptic reference to golf. Was this just me? Thanks to all.
I found this pretty gentle, but missed some of the parsing, particularly the significance of ‘shared link’, even though, yes, I do remember PARTY LINE(S) from my childhood. HARLEM, without an ‘NY’ was good as you say, and even though it wasn’t a difficult clue, I loved the ‘man bit dog’ variation on a theme for the surface of MANDRILL.
Thank you to Grant (welcome back) and Armonie.
Thanks Armonie and Grant
A relatively quick solve over lunch – straightforward answers but some really nice elegant clueing and subtle misdirection to be found.
Must’ve been right on his wavelength as the NY and ROOKY (perhaps seeing ‘seraglio’ in another recent puzzle may have helped here). I actually had more trouble seeing CHURN and the parsing of INDICATOR to be honest.
Nice puzzle and glad to see you back to civilisation and getting through your first ‘toughie’ 🙂
I’m wondering if it would be possible to put the solved grid at the bottom of the solutions, so if I want to look up one clue, I don’t see the est of them. Thanks.
To John@4:
We had this discussion a fortnight ago. In the blogware I use, no, I’m afraid moving the grid down isn’t possible. So it’s either grid-or-no-grid, on which the world seems to be about equally divided. I’m neutral myself, but I’ll leave it out next week and what we all think.
Thanks Armonie & Grant.
Enjoyed this. Missed 25 across (trying to fit in CO rather than OC for commander) and solved without completely understanding 16 down (had CHAS for Charles).
Not waiting for next week, can I vote for inclusion of the grid. It is always helpful, particularly if there is a theme or a Nina to spot. Perhaps John could avert his gaze whilst scrolling down to the bottom of the blog and then scroll back to the clue of interest.
Thanks Grant. I’m new to the FT puzzles, so wasn’t aware of the discussion. Cheers!