A witty and absolutely delightful offering from CHALMIE made an otherwise dreary friday light up like an early christmas
FF: 10 DD: 8
| Across | ||
| 1 | CATCH A GLIMPSE OF | Just see pet caught by witch meet weak enemies coming back (5,1,7,2) |
| extended combination of CAT (pet) C (caught) HAG (witch) LIMP (weak) SEOF (enemies = FOES, reversed) | ||
| 9 | EQUERRY | Finally state doubt about queen’s attendant (7) |
| E (finally statE) [ QUERY (doubt) about R (queen) ] | ||
| 10 | FANATIC | Obsessive American inspired by cool reaction (7) |
| A (american) in [FAN (cool) TIC (reaction) ] | ||
| 11 | RHINO | Endangered animal character’s bearing admitted (5) |
| RHO (character) containing IN (admitted) | ||
| 12 | DOUGHNUTS | Money-mad rings (9) |
| DOUGH (money) NUTS (mad) | ||
| 13 | NOTHING ON | Diary clear, get naked (7,2) |
| cryptic clue; ‘nothing on’ could mean no appointments in the calendar | ||
| 15 | PREEN | Groom about to visit prison in Kentucky (5) |
| RE (about) in PEN (american lingo for prison) – i was mislead by kentucky in the clue for a while | ||
| 16 | SAMOA | Country bumpkins a moat restricts (5) |
| hidden in “…bumpkinS A MOAt…” | ||
| 18 | SEEING OFF | Bishop gets one billiards shot to secure grand farewell (6,3) |
| SEE (bishop) [ IN OFF (billards shot) containing G (grand) ] | ||
| 20 | HONEY BEAR | Hard cash doesn’t begin to support tree-dweller (5,4) |
| H (hard) mONEY (cash, without first character) BEAR (support) | ||
| 23 | GULAG | Prison guards use laxatives, angering gang leaders (5) |
| starting characters of “..Guards Use Laxatives Angering Gang..” – funny clue this ! | ||
| 24 | OUTRAGE | Time to stop how old we are being an offence (7) |
| T (time) in [OUR AGE (how old we are)] | ||
| 25 | MARINER | Sailor’s resistance blocks statesman (7) |
| R (resistance) in MAINER (statesman, native of maine) | ||
| 26 | TWENTY-SIX ACROSS | This actress now 60, surprisingly (6-3,6) |
| another interesting clue; ACTRESS NOW SIXTY* | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | CLEAR ONES THROAT | Cough central to a horse disorder (5,4,6) |
| CENTRAL TO A HORSE* | ||
| 2 | TOURIST | Visitor heading for lawyer, not Japan (7) |
| TO jURIST (heading for a lawyer, without J for Japan) | ||
| 3 | HARMONICA | Instrument damage? Toss a coin! (9) |
| HARM (damage) followed by A COIN* | ||
| 4 | GUYED | Made fun of teacher on the radio (5) |
| sounds like GUIDE (teacher) | ||
| 5 | INFLUENCE | Smoke pipe in pub with cigarette ends, changing minds (9) |
| [FLUE (smoke pipe) in INN (pub)] CE (CigarettE, ends) | ||
| 6 | PUNCH | Horse mixed drink (5) |
| double def | ||
| 7 | ENTHUSE | See Hunt squirm and go into raptures (7) |
| SEE HUNT* | ||
| 8 | FACTS AND FIGURES | Solid evidence, initially, for book with characters (5,3,7) |
| F (For, initially) ACTS (book) AND (with) FIGURES (characters) | ||
| 14 | GAS METERS | Energy regulators those risking putting sulphur content up (3,6) |
| GAMESTERS (those risking) with the first S (sulphur) moved up | ||
| 15 | PANEGYRIC | Praise article on, say, backing track in movie (9) |
| [AN (article) EG (say) YR (track = RY, reversed)] in PIC (movie) | ||
| 17 | MANATEE | Fellow with some support for swimmer (7) |
| MAN (fellow) A TEE (some support) | ||
| 19 | ORLANDO | Gold country round US resort (7) |
| OR (gold) LAND (country) O (round) | ||
| 21 | YEAST | Still outside, like fungus (5) |
| YET (still) outside AS (like) | ||
| 22 | REMIX | Make new version by putting successive notes earlier (5) |
| [RE MI (successive notes) ] before X (by) | ||
*anagram
Thanks Turbolegs and Chalmie.
Liked 26ac. Finished crossword but a few unparsed. Thanks for the elucidation.
Didn’t enjoy this as much as you clearly did Turbolegs, but found it a pleasant solve. My favourite clue by far was 26a. Didn’t know PUNCH as a horse. Googling gives Suffolk punch, rather than just punch, but Chambers gives it so I learnt something.
“Punch” denied me a clean solve too. My “pinto” put 12a out of reach. I thoroughly enjoyed the rest, though.
For me, a lovely Chalmie puzzle.
With 26ac as the absolute highlight (even though it was cracked quickly).
14d (GAS METERS) being a good second.
I had some trouble parsing SEEING YOU (18ac) as I didn’t know IN/OFF.
Thanks, Turbolegs, for your blog.
But I think you’ll have to tweak the aforementioned 18ac slightly.
SEE is not really ‘Bishop’, it’s his workplace.
So I think Chalmie meant: ‘Bishop gets one’ = SEE.
‘Some support’ = A TEE?
Fine by me but remember yesterday’s discussion in the Guardian thread?
Thanks all. I was certainly relieved when I found 26a made an anagram with a decent surface. Glad you enjoyed it.
Thanks Chalmie and Turbolegs
An enjoyable solve when I got to it over the weekend. Took a couple of sessions to complete – after not making a lot of progress in the first was able to get most of the long ones quite quickly in the second and the puzzle fell quite quickly after that.
Didn’t know of the Suffolk punch as a breed of horse and didn’t properly parse GAS METERS – needing the blog for them.
As others, I thought TWENTY-SIX ACROSS quite witty and it did take longer than it should have to get.
Finished in the NW corner with EQUERRY, CLEAR ONES THROAT (not helped by marking the wrong word enumeration in the grid) and GUYED the last few in.