eXternal takes the mid-week slot this week – an enjoyable, fairly straightforward solve.
There are no particularly unusual words in the grid and all the definitions and wordplay are clear enough – what more could we ask of a puzzle?
| Across | ||
| 1 | Feline resting in outhouse is injured (7) | |
| SCATHED | CAT (feline) ‘resting’ in SHED (outhouse) | |
| 5 | Lose heart of French gent hugging secretary (7) | |
| DESPAIR | DE (French for ‘of’) SIR (gent) round or ‘hugging’ PA (personal assistant – secretary) | |
| 9 | Catches opponents around northern area coming back (7) | |
| ENTRAPS | E and S (East and South, opponents in Bridge or other card games) around N (Northern) PART (area) reversed or ‘coming back’ | |
| 10 | Smears mark broken signal (7) | |
| MALIGNS | M (mark) + an anagram of SIGNAL – anagrind is ‘broken’ | |
| 11 | Happen to interrupt crude gesture that’s not usual in pub (5,4) | |
| GUEST BEER | BE (happen) in or ‘interrupting’ an anagram of GESTURE – anagrind is ‘crude’ | |
| 12 | Wife, nag dismissing husband being inferior (5) | |
| WORSE | W (wife) |
|
| 13 | Break around heel of the boot again (5) | |
| RESET | REST (break) round E (last letter or ‘heel’ of ‘the’) | |
| 15 | Conscious about male attitude (9) | |
| SENTIMENT | SENTIENT (conscious) round M (male) | |
| 17 | Excellent grass obtained from unruly youngster (9) | |
| SUPERBRAT | SUPERB (excellent) RAT (grass, as in informer) | |
| 19 | Animal part taken from beast, a piranha (5) | |
| TAPIR | Hidden in, or ‘a part taken from’ beasT A PIRanha | |
| 22 | Long way to walk in endless bid for spicy food (5) | |
| BHAJI | HAJ (long way to walk) in BI |
|
| 23 | Model has to slim for promotional material (9) | |
| MAILSHOTS | An anagram of HAS TO SLIM – anagrind is ‘model’ | |
| 25 | Milk added at the start contaminating tea (7) | |
| EXTRACT | EXTRA (added) C T (first letters or ‘at the start’ of ‘Contaminating Tea’) | |
| 26 | Stay away from Kelvin with messed up toupee (4,3) | |
| KEEP OUT | K (Kelvin – SI unit for measurement of temperature) + an anagram of TOUPEE – anagrind is ‘messed up’ | |
| 27 | Plants bought here, north Surrey complex (7) | |
| NURSERY | N (north) + an anagram of SURREY – anagrind is ‘complex’ | |
| 28 | Religious teaching place, centre’s regularly full (7) | |
| REPLETE | RE (Religious teaching) PL (place) + alternate or ‘regular’ letters of cEnTrE | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | Female’s in poor clothing going round award-winning bay (7) | |
| SHERGAR | HER (female’s) in RAGS (poor clothing) reversed or ‘going round’ – a reference to the famous racehorse, stolen in 1983 and never seen again. | |
| 2 | Plain, like an empty gallery (7) | |
| ARTLESS | An empty gallery would be devoid of art, or ARTLESS | |
| 3 | Bit of veg hard to lift in soil (5) | |
| HEART | EARTH (soil) with the ‘h’ (hard) ‘lifted’ to the front | |
| 4 | Vending machine, perhaps, faulty — drips seen (9) | |
| DISPENSER | An anagram of DRIPS SEEN – anagrind is ‘faulty’ | |
| 5 | Object bird deposited in drive (5) | |
| DEMUR | EMU (bird) ‘deposited’ in DR (drive) | |
| 6 | Very glum and quiet game (4,5) | |
| SOLO WHIST | SO LOW (very glum) HIST (quiet) | |
| 7 | A large buggy to go round very touristy area (7) | |
| ALGARVE | A + an anagram of LARGE (anagrind is ‘buggy’) round V (very) – and where we spent our honeymoon in 1971! | |
| 8 | Admire other people embracing exercise clubs (7) | |
| RESPECT | REST (other people) round or ‘embracing’ PE (exercise) C (clubs) | |
| 14 | Complete rent, mate and I cobbled together (9) | |
| TERMINATE | An anagram of RENT, MATE and I – anagrind is ‘cobbled together’ | |
| 16 | Particular person, one that lifts depression, according to Spooner (9) | |
| NITPICKER | A Spoonerism of PIT (depression) NICKER (‘one that lifts’ or steals) | |
| 17 | In Revolution, American daughter housed by head cleric (7) | |
| SUBDEAN | US (American) reversed or ‘in revolution’ + D (daughter) in or ‘housed by’ BEAN (head) | |
| 18 | Starter in pub, modern dish (7) | |
| PLATTER | P (first letter or ‘starter’ in ‘pub’) LATTER (modern) | |
| 20 | Plan work with writing at the margins (7) | |
| PROPOSE | OP (work) with PROSE (writing) around, or ‘at the margins’ | |
| 21 | Men upset dog with no tail gets award (7) | |
| ROSETTE | OR (‘men’ – other ranks) reversed or ‘upset’ SETTE |
|
| 23 | PM meal said to be familiar (5) | |
| MATEY | A homophone (‘said’) of MAY (PM) TEA (meal) | |
| 24 | Excessive energy used in walk (5) | |
| STEEP | E (energy) ‘used’ in STEP (walk) | |
Held up this morning due to independent crossword page refusing to load on Safari despite numerous tries on two occasions. Finally gave up and tried Chrome which worked fine. Found this straightforward but didn’t know SUPERBRAT, easy to guess, or the spelling of hajj with one j (not in my Collins but in my Chambers). Thanks to BJ and eXternal.
This is good throughout. My favourite one of them all, SUPERBRAT, is ironically the only one that gave pause, as for me the answer should come FROM the wordplay and not vice versa.
An excellent puzzle.
Enjoyable easier-end stuff. My thoughts on it as a whole match B&J’s and my favourite clue and the pause it also gave me matches NHS @2. Thanks to The Outsider for the puzzle and to B&J for the blog.
An enjoyable solve with a mix of clues some of which went straight in as I read them and others which had me scratching my head, ie SUPERBRAT and SUBDEAN. Thanks eXternal and B&J
Took me a while to get started, and it took me ages to see 18dn, mainly because I was fixated on BALTI for 22ac.
Thanks, B&J. We agree entirely with your preamble.
A little bit of headscratching (not enough to get splinters in our fingers) mainly for the MAILSHOTS/NITPICKER crossers, our last two in. We originally thought ‘balti’ for 22ac but couldn’t see hoe to get ‘alt’ from the clue so left the middle three letters blank, so that PLATTER was no problem and led us to BHAJI.
Favourite was GUEST BEER – sadly, though, I couldn’t sample it tonight as I was driving and had to stick to coffee.
Thanks, too, to eXternal.
“… couldn’t see hoe …”. Oops, finger slipped, it’s “how”, of course!