Apart from my complete blank with 18dn, and one or two very slight misgivings (27ac, 28ac, 1dn) the clues here are very pleasant and this is one of Eccles’s (you may notice Eccles’s not Eccles) typical good productions. The clues at 9ac and 6dn are very nice.
Definitions underlined and in maroon.
I’ve become rather slack over the matter of hunting for Ninas. Probably because I seldom seem to find them, as here.
| Across | ||
| 1 | PRIOR | Former port in Puerto Rico (5) |
| P(Rio)R | ||
| 4 | BODY BLOWS | Old boy’s empty bungalow being damaged leads to setbacks (4,5) |
| (old boy’s b{ungalo}w)* | ||
| 9 | LUBRICANT | Oil spill in Cuba ends in all out war (9) |
| (in Cuba {al}l {ou}t {wa}r)* | ||
| 10 | LLAMA | Andean native lives next to American mother (5) |
| l l A ma — l = live (as in live rather than neutral in the wiring of a plug, I suppose) doesn’t seem to be in Chambers but is in Collins | ||
| 11 | THIRD DIMENSION | It makes flat stand out (5,9) |
| CD it seems | ||
| 13 | OFFENCE | Old fellow saw guide attack (7) |
| o f fence — a fence is a guide for a cutting tool such as a saw | ||
| 15 | IMPULSE | Urge current politician: keep pound in operation (7) |
| I MP u(L)se | ||
| 17 | SUBJECT | Discipline underling (7) |
| 2 defs | ||
| 19 | GRANDMA | Nan with marg spread over it (7) |
| and [= with] in (marg)* | ||
| 21 | DRESS REHEARSAL | Groom tries again, completely forgetting one line, in final run-through (5,9) |
| dress [= groom] rehears al{l} | ||
| 25 | OPERA | Ring for an ambulance, primarily for show (5) |
| O per a{mbulance} — opera = show seems a bit odd but OK I suppose | ||
| 26 | ATTRIBUTE | Characteristic quality of a dry joke: subtle, regularly ignored (9) |
| a TT rib {s}u{b}t{l}e | ||
| 27 | POLYTONAL | Cunning NATO ploy to hamper opening of lock with many keys (9) |
| (NATO ploy)* l{ock} — |
||
| 28 | GASPS | He possibly pilfers skirts and pants (5) |
| gas p{ilfer}s — He, helium, is the gas — a slight quibble here: it isn’t so much pilfers as pilfers’s; I’m not really comfortable with X skirts to indicate the skirts of X | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | PILOT HOUSE | Peterhead 1, Heart of Midlothian 0 – exploit room for control (5,5) |
| P{eter} 1 loth 0 use, so long as you accept that Peterhead means Peter’s head | ||
| 2 | IN BRIEF | To sum up wearing singular underwear? (2,5) |
| in brief — but at first I confidently entered ‘in short’ — however, Eccles gets away with it because ‘shorts’ is an American usage for ‘underpants’ and he’d surely have indicated this fact | ||
| 3 | RAIN DANCE | Ritual Native American people displayed outside, wanting a bit of irrigation (4,5) |
| CD so far as I can see, although it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that there’s something clever there [Yes, Hovis@1 immediately points out that it’s def: ritual; ra(Ind{i}an)ce, the i being ‘bit of irrigation; indeed very clever; thanks Hovis] | ||
| 4 | BHAJI | I blow up eating hot food (5) |
| (I jab)rev. round h | ||
| 5 | DITHERING | Some discredit her in government for being indecisive (9) |
| Hidden in discreDIT HER IN Government | ||
| 6 | BELLS | Calls boyfriend, at first, on landlines after splitting up four times (5) |
| b{oyfriend} e(l l)s — ‘landlines’ split up into ‘l and l in es’, five bits, four splits | ||
| 7 | ON A ROLL | Where you might find poppy seeds, with luck (2,1,4) |
| You might find poppy seeds on a roll — I had doubted whether ‘on a roll’ meant ‘having good luck’ rather than ‘in a run of good form’, but the dictionaries seem to show that Eccles is right | ||
| 8 | SCAN | Closely examine sulphur-tin compound (4) |
| S can [= tin] | ||
| 12 | DEFAULTERS | Fed up over changes involving Union, they won’t pay the fees (10) |
| (Fed)rev. a(U)lters | ||
| 14 | ENTERTAIN | Consider internet wrong about answer (9) |
| (internet)* round a | ||
| 16 | PLACATING | Soothing and unpretentious German guards? About time! (9) |
| pla(ca t)in G — you must disregard the question mark so that it reads … guards ‘about time’ | ||
| 18 | BARBELL | Bishop visits Andalusian city naked, displaying piercing (7) |
| I have said that ‘piercing’ is the definition, but goodness knows why: I can see no connection whatever between piercing in any sense and a barbell (and I think there is only one sense of this); it is only the fact that the wordplay seems to be B {M}arbell{a} that leads to this by a process of elimination [Yes, there it was, thanks again Hovis@1, it’s to do with body piercing] | ||
| 20 | DISCUSS | Track and field competition requires second review (7) |
| discus s | ||
| 22 | SHAFT | Quiet at the back, Ray (5) |
| sh aft | ||
| 23 | HOTEL | Prostitute allowed back in temporary accommodation (5) |
| ho (let)rev. | ||
| 24 | LOOP | Toilet paper’s beginning to twist (4) |
| loo p{aper} | ||
*anagram
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