A quick and enjoyable solve, with some trickier parsings worked out after the fact, and a couple of unfamiliar words that needed looking up. 16ac, 19ac and 4dn particular favourites. Thanks, Nutmeg
| Across | ||
| 1 | OPTICS | Regulators behind bars providing scientific study (6) |
| double definition: =measures for alcoholic drinks used in bars or pubs; =the study of light | ||
| 5 | MASSACRE | Mother’s daughter flees religious slaughter (8) |
| MA’S=”Mother’s”; plus d[aughter] leaving SACRE[d]=”religious” | ||
| 9 | BLUE JOHN | Crystalline mineral cast down toilet (4,4) |
| =a semi-precious mineral – see [wiki] BLUE=”cast down” plus JOHN=”toilet” |
||
| 10 | UNSAFE | Where peacekeepers send their reserves, based on dodgy evidence? (6) |
| =e.g. not a ‘safe’ conclusion U[nited] N[ations]=”peacekeepers” might keep reserves [of material assets] in a SAFE |
||
| 11 | SCUT | Last of dogs with docked tail (4) |
| =a short tail, for example of a rabbit or deer [dog]S plus CUT=”docked” |
||
| 12 | PAGE TURNER | Riveting work that could make servant spit (4-6) |
| PAGE=”servant” plus TURNER=”spit”=rotating skewer for roasting meat | ||
| 13 | OCTAVE | Old church keeps back wine aplenty for duration of festival (6) |
| =eight days of a church festival O[ld]; plus C[hurch of] E[ngland] around a reversal of VAT=”wine aplenty” |
||
| 14 | ABSINTHE | Drink consumed by Arabs, in theory (8) |
| Hidden in [Ar]ABS IN THE[ory] | ||
| 16 | SNEAKERS | Footwear all kids initially held in derision (8) |
| A[ll] K[ids]; held inside SNEERS=”derision| | ||
| 19 | ASSORT | Arrange completely powerless travel document (6) |
| [p]ASS[p]ORT=”travel document”, with all of its p[ower] removed | ||
| 21 | STOCKPILED | Spoilt deck shuffled and put in store (10) |
| (Spoilt deck)* | ||
| 23 | AMOS | Book? English author gets nothing for one (4) |
| =a book of the Bible Kingsley AMIS=”English author”; exchanging O=”nothing” for I=”one” |
||
| 24 | ABRUPT | Unexpected point concluding a second-rate game (6) |
| P[oin]T after: A; plus B=”second-rate”; plus RU=rugby union=”game” | ||
| 25 | CREATURE | Being right to worry, with smoke closing in (8) |
| R[ight], plus EAT=”worry” as in ‘my problems are eating at me’; both inside CURE=”smoke” | ||
| 26 | WESLEYAN | Christian playing partners no golfer’s backing (8) |
| W[est] and E[ast] are bridge partners; plus NAY=”no” and Ernie ELS=”golfer”, all reversed/”backing” | ||
| 27 | SORBET | Ice in fixed form circling globe (6) |
| SET=”in fixed form” around ORB=”globe” | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | POLICE CONSTABLE | Officer in charge of feeding European prisoners on board (6,9) |
| I[n] C[harge], both inside POLE=”European”; plus CONS=”prisoners”; plus TABLE=”board” | ||
| 3 | INERTIA | Nudged, I retain disinclination to move (7) |
| (I retain)* | ||
| 4 | SHOWPIECE | Exhibit involving cow and sheep, Hirst’s second (9) |
| (cow sheep i)*; where i is the second letter of [H]i[rst] Damien Hirst is an artist whose works have involved dead animals including a cow and a sheep |
||
| 5 | MANAGUA | Staff car JR scratched in American capital (7) |
| =capital of Nicaragua MAN=”Staff”; plus [J]AGUA[R]=”car” minus JR |
||
| 6 | SPURT | President’s taken over, throwing master off jet (5) |
| TRU[m]P’S=”President’s”, reversed/”over” and throwing away M[aster] | ||
| 7 | ALSO-RAN | No winner‘s too stretched (4-3) |
| ALSO=”too”=as well; plus RAN=”stretched”=to extend along a distance, as in e.g. a river | ||
| 8 | REFRESHER COURSE | New student in resort finds means of getting up to date (9,6) |
| FRESHER=”New student” in RECOURSE=”resort” | ||
| 15 | ST ANDREWS | Sports venue broadcasting darts news… (2,7) |
| =golf course (darts news)* |
||
| 17 | ACCRUAL | …report of a barbarous gathering (7) |
| sounds like/”report of”: ‘a cruel’=”a barbarous” | ||
| 18 | SILICON | £1 among loose coins used for chips? (7) |
| =used for electronics chips L[ibra]=£, plus I=”1″; both inside (coins)* |
||
| 20 | STARTER | Dish to get the runners moving? (7) |
| double def: =a first course; =the person who signals the start of a race | ||
| 22 | PETTY | Junior‘s favourite toy’s lost its stuffing (5) |
| =low in rank or standing; or =a junior schoolboy PET=”favourite”; plus T[o]Y without its inner letter/”stuffing” |
||
Thanks Nutmeg and manehi
Very enjoyable, with BLUE JOHN, MANAGUA and REFRESHER COURSE favourites. I wasn’t (and still am not) entirely convinced be RAN = “stretched”.
I had never heard of ACCRUAL, so spent some time trying, unsuccessfully, to justify ACCOUNT. Fortunately Ernie came to the rescue – what will compilers do when he retires?
Not convinced by ran=stretched, assort=arrange or turner=spit and I didn’t know OCTAVE or ACCRUAL, but apart from these tough chewy lumps it was a delicious dish.
PS: who’s Ernie?
Gladys @2
Ernie ELS, one of only two golfers who ever appears in crosswords,as far as I know (see manehi’s blog. The other is Tiger Woods).
Actually I’ve changed my mind and think “stretched” just about works. SPIT for “turner” is fine by me – it’s referring o roasting meat, as manehi said. “Assorted” to me means “unarranged”, but there is justification for “assort” to mean “arrange”.
What a fabulous surface at 1down!
Much enjoyed blue john and page turner.
But I can’t see what the dots add to clues for 15 and 17 down. Any ideas?
Bagel@5
If you had ever seen a darts contest on television, you would realise
that the audience could well be described as a barbarous gathering.
Quite a surprise to start with a double meaning for one across, I think.
Thank you Nutmeg and manehi.
This was fun, so many lovely clues, those for MANAGUA, ASSORT, SILICON, PAGE TURNER and BLUE JOHN being my favourites. I had to look up OCTAVE and ACCRUAL, but they were gettable from their clues.
Muffin @1 – useful people things never retire. Gangster = Al (70 years dead). Model = T (90 years ago)
Not especially quick, the E side needing a couple of visits, though when the long one dropped in things moved more quickly. A very sound crossword; not much wrong with that.
No doubt, the decease of Tom PETTY is just a coincidence; no Heartbreakers.
Sorry – should be an “and” between people/things
Fine puzzle from Nutmeg – thanks to her. Lots to like: for me the favourite this morning was BLUE JOHN, for no other reason than in the UK it’s found only in my adopted county, Derbyshire. It’s very beautiful, like most of Derbyshire.
I went with Martin AMIS for the ‘author’, although either he or his dad works of course. He’s on R4’s Book at Bedtime this week which is probs what brought him to mind. SCUT was clever.
Thanks too to manehi for the blog.
Shirl, ABE for ‘President’ goes back even further and is still regularly used.
I had no problem with ACCRUAL or spit=TURNER, but have never heard of BLUE JOHN. I briefly took stretched=RAN to refer to nylons, but perhaps not.
A question: what do the ellipses between 15d and 17d indicate? I used to think I understood this convention, but now I’m convinced that I don’t.
For those not happy with ‘stretched’ = ‘ran’, perhaps something like ‘the rope ran/stretched from one side of the canyon to the other” might do the trick?
Kathryn’s Dad @13
More recently ABE has been “Japanese PM”, but I suppose Lincoln will be remembered long after he is forgotten!
I’m warming to Nutmeg. An enjoyable puzzle which yielded pleasantly after some resistance. An entry via the rear window was required, the front door locked on first inspection. 15down got the ball rolling, the south-west largely opened up, though I had to return to dispatch 25ac close to the end. My last three were a sprinkling of recalcitrant outliers; 26, 25 and 13ac. I enjoyed 26, when realising finally it was not ‘no’ but ‘nay’ to be reversed- nay, nay and thrice nay! Octave works perfectly fairly though I hadn’t heard of it and had to check in the dictionary. I will end this as I have to switch the radio off, Jo Whiley is telling some self-aggrandising tale on somebody els-es show.
K’sD@13
…and General LEE marches on!
And Marshal NEY, who’s passed his bicentenary, is still remembered.
Thank you very much to setter and blogger; I enjoyed this immensely.
My only criticism is of the “editor” (no surprise there, then!). This crossword was far more appropriate for a Monday than Imogen’s. Oh well! Can’t win ’em all.
Lovely puzzle and very welcome after being mauled by her in the Inquy.
@13 Di for princess seems to have gone out of fashion though
I typically find Nutmeg’s puzzles to be “good but not great”, and today’s fit that description also. There were a few challenging clues, a few too-obvious ones, and a head-scratcher or two, but overall it was an enjoyable solve. BLUE JOHN, my LOI, was unknown to me, and I had to resort to trial-and-error in the check function to get it into the grid (but then saw that it was well clued). COD for me was CREATURE, for the misdirection of having “Being” turn out to be the definition. I also noticed that this has been a busy week for St. Andrew — his second appearance in the grid in the last three days! Many thanks to Nutmeg and manehi.
muffin @3, I agree about Ernie Els and Tiger Woods, but I wanted to mention that (Rory) McIlroy made it into the puzzle as part of a clue, anyway, in Tramp’s puzzle on Friday.
Shirl @9 et al. — to the list of useful (for crosswords) people or things I would add Artist = EMIN
DaveMc @23
Yes he did, and a lovely clue it was too. He was just in the clue, though – only his R made it to the solution, as I recall!
I’ve checked and I was mistaken – it was his M.
Hovis@15
Up north here we say, “I only had loose change in my pocket but it ran to 2 pints.” ran to=stretched to.
Thanks to Nutmeg and manehi. Lots of fun as usual from this setter. I did not know OPTICS as a measure, OCTAVE as a festival, BLUE JOHN, or ACCRUAL in this sense, but all were well clued.
Thanks manehi and Nutmeg.
I found the last few quite difficult to crack (9a,12a, 23a, and 5d), but enjoyable nevertheless.
For SPURT I got hooked on TRUMANS backwards, with MA removed, but couldn’t account for the P, of course.
Plenty of golfers in St Andrews this week – it is the Dunhill Cup.
Nutmeg is one of my top setters, but I was underwhelmed by this. Everything was fine and there was plenty to enjoy – I just didn’t feel it had the intrigue, wit or misdirection that I’ve come to expect from her. As said elsewhere this was more Mondayish than Monday’s Imogen.
Thanks to Nutmeg and manehi.
Most of this was Ok but I got bogged down in the SE. ASSORT,STARTER,CREATURE and finally AMOS flummoxed me for quite a while and I can’t say I’m convinced by all of them even now. I did like PAGE TURNER and SCUT.
Thanks Nutmeg.
As a ‘mondayer’ I can confirm I found Imogen much more attuned to my expectations – nearly finished that one, only about 35% today…
OPTICS defeated me. Guess I will have to spend more time in bars.
I found 25Ac to be unsolvable – I had not heard of ‘accrual’, so was labouring under the erroneous presence of a ‘t’ from my bodged-in ‘account’ for 17Dn.
Also, I am no expert on golf, so was unable to parse the clue. Once I gave up and came here it became obvious, and I had to laugh at how obvious it was (I had been trying to dredge my memory for names of obscure middle-eastern Christian sects, when the actual answer is far less exotic).
The extent of my ignorance of golf is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that I immediately interpreted the ‘sports venue’ mentioned in the clue for 15Dn as a reference to the home of Birmingham City FC, and only thought of the venerable institution outside the Scottish university town much later on. D’oh! 😀
Gem @33
If it’s any reassurance, despite being a golfer, my first (admittedly fleeting) thought was Birmingham too! (…and I don’t even follow football. Jasper Carrott is to blame; I can’t forget him saying “I was at St. Andrew’s to watch Birmingham on Saturday, and said to the guy next to me OY!!)
If a few clues make me smile, I’m happy. Thanks, Nutmeg. I’ll pick no nits!
A delight from start to finish. Thanks, Nutmeg.
A fine puzzle with lots of misdirection (must have spent hours trying to find the anagram in STUDENT IN RESORT!)
I’d never heard of that other meaning of OPTICS – clearly I don’t go to the pub often enough (as a near teetotaller, pub-going isn’t that much of an attraction!)
Clearly I should have included Nutmeg’s name, in my post yesterday about the dearth of female setters. Sorry!