A thoroughly enjoyable, not too difficult challenge from Alberich. Several clues with excellent construction, in my opinion. A couple of words that I didnt know but were clued quite cleanly. Thanks Alberich, for a pleasant workout.
FF: 9 DD: 7
| Across | ||
| 1 | MOZART | Among openers for Melbourne Test, Australia needs a run scorer (6) |
| [OZ (australia) A R (run)] in MT (starting letters of Melbourne Test) – neat surface! | ||
| 4 | ARROGATE | Claim spa town lacks aspiration (8) |
| hARROGATE (spa town, without H – aspiration) | ||
| 9 | NEIGH | We hear no noise from bay perhaps (5) |
| sounds like NAY (no) – bay is a type of horse, brown with black spots | ||
| 10 | NOCTURNAL | Centre of tennis court’s repaired, almost entirely done by night (9) |
| [ NN (teNNis, centre) COURT ]* ALl (entirely, almost) | ||
| 11 | PAGEANT | Time-consuming, long display (7) |
| PANT (long) containing AGE (time) | ||
| 12 | ICEBERG | One church composer is cold, unemotional sort (7) |
| I (one) CE (church) BERG (composer, alban) | ||
| 13 | LAIR | Retreat, bearing left at first (4) |
| AIR (bearing) with L (left) in front | ||
| 14 | INSISTED | Was firm in position to accept small donation initially? (8) |
| IN [SITE (position) containing S (small) ] D (Donation, initially) | ||
| 17 | TEMPORAL | Part-time worker’s said to be worldly (8) |
| TEMP (part-time worker) ORAL (said) | ||
| 19 | CASE | Time off class, for instance (4) |
| CAStE (class, without T – time) | ||
| 22 | INCISOR | One’s for cutting satire, primarily ironic works (7) |
| S (Satire, first letter) IRONIC* | ||
| 24 | ONTARIO | Performing composition about a lake (7) |
| ON (performing) TRIO (composition) around A | ||
| 25 | PROFANITY | Bad language teacher’s reason son missed out (9) |
| PROF (teacher) sANITY (reason, without S – son) | ||
| 26 | PITTA | This bread is mine, thanks (5) |
| PIT (mine) TA (thanks) | ||
| 27 | CATHETER | Provide what’s needed to catch the Tube (8) |
| CATER (provide whats needed) containing THE – did take me longer to solve this than i would have imagined. | ||
| 28 | FESCUE | Second copper blocks payment for grass (6) |
| [S (second) CU (copper)] in FEE (payment) – new word for me but easily gettable. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | MONOPOLY | Fancy carrying on playing pool game? (8) |
| MY (fancy) containing [ON , POOL*] | ||
| 2 | ZEITGEIST | Enthusiasm to embrace it, I say, reflected current feeling (9) |
| ZEST (enthusiasm) containing [ IT GEI (reverse of I EG {say}) ] | ||
| 3 | REHEAT | The woman’s about to put away warm food again (6) |
| REH (the woman = HER, about = reverse) EAT (put away) | ||
| 5 | RECRIMINATORY | Making counter-accusations about politician harbouring felon, mostly (13) |
| [RE (about) TORY (politician)] containing CRIMINAl (felon, mostly) | ||
| 6 | OPULENT | Ring turned up fast? That’s rich (7) |
| O (ring) PU (reverse of UP) LENT (fast) | ||
| 7 | ANNIE | Musical passage in Nabucco holds up (5) |
| hidden reversed in “..passagE IN NAbucco…” | ||
| 8 | EULOGY | Around close of funeral eg you possibly get this? (6) |
| L (close of funeraL) EG YOU* | ||
| 10 | NOT ON YOUR LIFE | No way in or out of Ely? That should be fixed after noon (3,2,4,4) |
| IN OR OUT OF ELY* after N (noon) | ||
| 15 | DIACRITIC | Helper sent up judge’s accent (9) |
| DIA (helper = AID, reversed) CRITIC (judge) | ||
| 16 | DETONATE | Set off from school, protected by boyfriend? (8) |
| ETON (school) in DATE (boyfriend) | ||
| 18 | MISTAKE | Howler monkey’s first, I bet (7) |
| M (Monkey, first letter) I STAKE (bet) | ||
| 20 | BIOPIC | Film writer introduces current work (6) |
| BIC (writer) containing [I (current) OP (work) ] | ||
| 21 | STEPPE | Rung on the phone, that’s plain (6) |
| sounds like STEP (rung) | ||
| 23 | CLOUT | Yobbo under cocaine’s influence (5) |
| LOUT (yobbo) under C (cocaine) | ||
*anagram
Brilliant stuff. One of the best crossies of the year imo. Found it quite tough with lots of misdirections which made the solve all the better. Lovely surfaces. My only misgivings were the word order for PAGEANT – putting ‘on the contrary’ at the end would work better for me, and I thought the clue for CASE was a bit too hard given the ?a?e leading to too little info. Resorted to a thesaurus for ‘class’ to get it. Just my opinion of course. On another day, may have thought of CASE straight away.
What Hovis said, more or less, except that I had no qualms about PAGEANT.
Excellent clues throughout but I have to make special mention of NOT ON YOUR LIFE – stunningly good; I gasped in amazement when I worked it out.
Many thanks to Alberich and Turbolegs.
I was a but disappointed that “Not in your nelly” didnt quite fit!
Excellent puzzle. Just for the surface, 1A was my COD.
10D. I must admit I rarely chuckle over clues, but a few weeks ago I had to drive through Ely and was held up for over half an hour by the roadworks there. I thought today that perhaps I should have gone after lunch!
Many thanks to Alberich and Turbolegs.
Thanks Alberich and Turbolegs
Found this one quite challenging and a lot of good fun ! Like Hovis@1, I struggled with CASE for quite a while at the end before settling on the answer – it felt like eating the cherry on top when it did fall though.
Lots of excellent clues throughout right from the first clue that I wrote in at 1a – quite brilliant – lovely misdirection and impeccable wordplay when one saw through it. 10d was almost in the same category although it fell quite a long time afterwards.
Always thought that a bay horse was a brownish-coloured horse with a black mane, black tail and often black markings on the legs – rather than just a brown one with black spots. (Not that it really mattered in the context of the clue – one just had to know that it was a horse of some description !)