Problems today with the fifteensquared site, which was down earlier, so I’m afraid this is a little late. However, you probably won’t be affected because you couldn’t get into it either.
As always Dac has given us an utterly pleasant puzzle. No great problems with it I think — even the slightly doubtful one at 3dn, where my suspicion is that Homer, or the two Homers, nodded, was really perfectly obvious. But then quite possibly they didn’t nod at all and I have missed something.
Definitions in maroon, underlined.
| Across | ||
| 1 | MASTIFFS | Dogs fight during church service (8) |
| mas(tiff)s | ||
| 5 | GALLIC | French girl left in charge (6) |
| gal L i/c | ||
| 9 | TOOK PART | Had role right, showing supreme skill all round (4,4) |
| to(OK)p art — had an acting role I think | ||
| 10 | STATIN | Pronouncing short word for heart drug (6) |
| statin{g} | ||
| 12 | SHIP OF THE DESERT | Transport speeds forth: he and I get bumped about, heading for terminus (4,2,3,6) |
| (speeds forth he I)* t{erminus} — the camel | ||
| 13 | TREE | Three men regularly seen in plane perhaps (4) |
| T{h}r{e}e {m}e{n} | ||
| 14 | LOCOMOTION | The power to shift daft proposal in parliament? (10) |
| loco motion | ||
| 17 | EASTERTIDE | Consumer accepts singular diet, unusual for the time of year (10) |
| ea(s)ter (diet)* | ||
| 18 | ELBE | European banker entering hotel bedroom (4) |
| Hidden in hotEL BEdroom — banker = one with banks = river | ||
| 20 | CIRCUMNAVIGATOR | Traveller beginning to cost Murcian trips Trivago organised (15) |
| c{ost} (Murcian)* (Trivago)* | ||
| 23 | AMBLER | Writer better to leave out introduction (6) |
| {g}ambler — ref this writer | ||
| 24 | INTERACT | Certain tradesmen for a start arranged to work together (8) |
| (Certain t{radesmen})* | ||
| 25 | TWENTY | Number proceeded through Tipperary’s borders (6) |
| T(went)y, the Ty being T{ipperar}y | ||
| 26 | DEADHEAD | Tidy the faded blooms, dullard (8) |
| 2 defs, one a verb, one a noun (US according to Collins) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | MITES | Kids in group I’m raising (5) |
| (set I’m)rev. | ||
| 2 | SHOWINESS | Ostentation of mum and son imbibing old clarets? (9) |
| sh (o wines) s — the definition by example justified by the question mark | ||
| 3 | IMPROS | I am writing brief sketches (6) |
| I’m pros{e} — I’m not very comfortable with this, since I always thought the word was improvs, and that’s what Collins also says. It doesn’t give impro. Chambers agrees with this. | ||
| 4 | FIRST-FOOTING | Trees felled initially in part of S London, an annual tradition (5-7) |
| firs T(f{elled})ooting — referring to the tradition at the New Year | ||
| 6 | AT THE HOP | 50s hit – hope that will be broadcast (2,3,3) |
| (hope that)* — I’d never heard of it, nor the one or two people I asked, but it had to be this. Subsequently I discovered that I was correct. | ||
| 7 | LITRE | Tiler misread measure (5) |
| (Tiler)* | ||
| 8 | CONSTANCE | Lady of the Lake? (9) |
| 2 defs, one of them either being simply a girl’s name, or referring to Lady Chatterley | ||
| 11 | SECOND AVENUE | Support place for meeting south of a Manhattan thoroughfare (6,6) |
| second [= support] a venue | ||
| 13 | TRENCHANT | Deep ditch worker’s cutting (9) |
| trench ant | ||
| 15 | ILL AT EASE | Header from Midlands team guy, unrelaxed (3,2,4) |
| {V}illa tease | ||
| 16 | SECUREST | Most reliable forms of treatment received by group (8) |
| se(cures)t — but are cures forms of treatment? Surely the form of treatment leads to a cure. Perhaps if you regard a cure as an old-fashioned word for the sort of thing people undergo at spas etc then it’s OK. | ||
| 19 | AGREED | Bill eco-friendly party member briefly introduced? That’s right (6) |
| a(Gree{n})d | ||
| 21 | RUBLE | Foreign currency problem underpinned by the French (5) |
| rub le — I’d always thought that rouble was the more common spelling, but although Google has 59M hits for rouble it has 100M for ruble | ||
| 22 | RATED | Scolded group of illiterate dunces (5) |
| Hidden in illiteRATE Dunces | ||
*anagram
Didn’t know ‘at the hop’ either but was clearly the answer. Also equally surprised by your Google result for 21d. I thought 3d must be IMPROS from the clue but couldn’t find it so bunged in IMPROV in the hope that ‘prove’ could refer to ‘writing’.
Thanks John
No problem with 3dn. It’s not in Chambers or Collins but the ODE has:
impro
noun (plural impros) [mass noun] informal improvisation, especially as a theatrical technique: half the skill in impro lies in second-guessing the audience | [as modifier] as impro exercise | [count noun] an impro of this kind.
Danny and the JUNIORS???? How’s my memory?
Thanks for the explanation Gaufrid. An abbreviation of an abbreviation. I only have Collins and Chambers hence the added confusion. Hope the problems with the site this morning weren’t too much of a headache.
Enjoyable puzzle as ever from Dac. Hovis @1, you should check out the film American Graffiti for both enjoyment and to hear At The Hop, which is where I knew it from. Plenty to like here, but 8d was me fave today. Thanks to Dac-man for the puzzle and to John for the blog.
Re 3dn, Keith Johnstone’s seminal work on the subject is called ‘Impro’. He should know!
Solved without access to Chambers, Collins or e-help while on grandparent duty. Had to guess IMPROS from the wordplay and didn’t know (or maybe didn’t remember) AT THE HOP even though we were adolescents in the relevant decade – but we did know ‘Summer Holiday’ that was part of the muzak we had to put up with this morning.
Our only other observation is that Homer may have nodded slightly in using ‘group’ twice to indicate ‘set’ (in 1dn and 16dn) – not that it matters, we suppose.
Thanks, Dac and John.
Not much to add – another enjoyable Dac.
Such a shame that the Indy app thinks that the puzzle today is Maize’s from yesterday with Dac being named as the setter.
No wonder people were confused yesterday. Someone should be red-faced about the mix-up. There doesn’t seem to be any apology though.
Thanks to Dac and John.
8D surely references the renowned Lake Constance in Europe.
Yes gwep@9 you’re surely right.