It’s been a while since I’ve tackled a Tees, so this was a welcome change.
Perhaps not as hard as some by this often formidable setter? Unless I’m getting smarter, which seems deeply improbable.
A bit of a literary theme creeping in, with a couple of books and authors dotted around. The two longer book titles in particular were helpful, supplying a good number of letters for other entries.
If I had to pick a favourite it might be 26 across for its slightly groanworthy moment of realisation.
All good fun though, so many thanks to Tees.
| Across | ||
| 1 | SEASONING | Salt perhaps at home breaking into shanty (9) |
| IN inserted into SEA SONG. Liked the surface reading and how the entry has nothing at all to do with seafaring. | ||
| 6 | STAB | Impale vampires coming from the east? (4) |
| BATS<. | ||
| 10 | ABHOR | Men after charge can’t stand (5) |
| ABH + OR. | ||
| 11 | DANGEROUS | Organ used in transplant that’s unsafe (9) |
| Anagram of (ORGAN USED). | ||
| 12 | CANTATA | Work associating responsibility with farewell? (7) |
| CAN + TATA. It took me a while to spot “can” for “responsibility” but I guess it’s in the sense of “carrying the can”. | ||
| 13 | REFUSED | Rubbish dump’s first to be rejected (7) |
| REFUSE + D[ump]. | ||
| 14 | PENSION SCHEME | Author comes in – he’s altered retirement plan (7,6) |
| PEN + (COMES IN HE)*. | ||
| 17 | SCHADENFREUDE | Characters in NHS, red-faced, upset about EU enjoying misfortune (13) |
| EU in (NHS RED FACED)*. | ||
| 21 | REVIVED | In grass, sex with Victor’s given new vitality (7) |
| (VI + V) in REED, with reference to the Latin six. | ||
| 22 | SEDATED | Out to an extent in chair round Land’s End (7) |
| [lan]D in SEATED. | ||
| 24 | EGLANTINE | Rose for example worker planted in row (9) |
| EG + (ANT in LINE). | ||
| 25 | MINOR | Small island about to disappear (5) |
| MINOR[ca]. | ||
| 26 | LEEK | Seeing vegetable, suddenly collapse? (4) |
| Clever once you see it. It’s from “keel over”, ie. KEEL< | ||
| 27 | METALWARE | Items for kitchen meal, saving time, are set by wife (9) |
| (T in MEAL) + W + ARE. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | SEASCAPE | Cover used in small facility’s main view (8) |
| CAP in (S + EASE). | ||
| 2 | ASHEN | Man in central parts of Spain missing Cornish pasty (5) |
| HE in ([sp]A[in] + [mis]S[ing] + [cor]N[ish]). Nice misdirection using “pasty”, I thought. | ||
| 3 | OUR MAN IN HAVANA | Book burning – smoke holds up perpetrator we’re after (3,3,2,6) |
| OUR MAN + IN + HAVANA, as in cigars. Book by Graham Greene, of course. | ||
| 4 | INDRAWN | Breath so taken when pub hosts lottery? (7) |
| DRAW hosted by INN. | ||
| 5 | GENERIC | Low-down American’s heart just like all the rest (7) |
| GEN + [am]ERIC[an]. | ||
| 7 | TROUSSEAU | Bottom drawer opening for trouserless philosopher (9) |
| T[rouserless] + Jean-Jacques ROUSSEAU. | ||
| 8 | BESIDE | Next to best idea volunteers ignored (6) |
| BES[t] IDE[a]. The T and the A to be removed come from the Territorial Army, hence volunteers. Interestingly there’s no indication that they’re separated in this case, but TA for “volunteers” will be so familiar to crossworders that perhaps it would be superfluous. | ||
| 9 | LES FLEURS DU MAL | Surprisingly small and useful Red Book that invited censure (3,6,2,3) |
| Anagram of (SMALL + USEFUL RED). The book of poetry by Charles Baudelaire which was considered a bit racy on its publication in 1857. | ||
| 15 | NASHVILLE | Architect hostile about very English country home (9) |
| (V in (John NASH + ILL)) + E. | ||
| 16 | GENDARME | Nice cop? (8) |
| Cryptic definition, with reference to Nice in France. | ||
| 18 | DADAISM | Movement in barrier surrounding platform (7) |
| DAIS in DAM. | ||
| 19 | NASCENT | An uplifting fragrance now in production (7) |
| NA< + SCENT. | ||
| 20 | ORWELL | Socialist author otherwise sensible (6) |
| OR + WELL. George of that ilk, of course. | ||
| 23 | TONGA | Island nation‘s heavyweight state? (5) |
| TON + GA. | ||
* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; underlined = definition; Hover to expand abbreviations
Excellent workout. Lots of head scratching but completed in the end. Also liked LEEK despite the definition not conventionally placed at one of the two ends. Favourites were SEASONING and ASHEN. Didn’t know the book at 9d so waited until I had all the crossers and then guessed from the anagram fodder, followed by good ol’ Google.
Might have to try 9d
Thanks Simon for some helpful parsing.
What is the significance of “seeing” in the clue for 26a?
And how do I turn chair into seated rather than just seat in 22a?
To Eric@3
It’s “in chair” Eric
I ambled through this without too much head scratching until I filled the grid with my LOI, LEEK, which I could see was keel reversed but still didn’t get the parsing, doh! However I didn’t get a completion notice and searched and searched for a wrong answer until I had to use reveal errors. I then found I’d typed LES FLEURS DE MAL. Didn’t know the book, didn’t read the anagrist properly! An enjoyable puzzle. Thanks Tees and Simon.
It was a good workout, difficulty judges well for the slot.
Some very nice (or Nice) misdirection here and there.
Thanks Tees and Simon.
9d. Juat a “warning”. The book is in, of course, French verse but Project Gutenberg do a reasonable English translation – in verse (for free!).
Eventually (or impatiently) gave up on 27A, which was certainly cryptically clued. Then was able to work out/half remember 9D.
Can somebody help with the parsing for 3D? Apart from Havana, I can’t get the rest of the wordplay.
14A – the final S from “he’s” is also part of the anagram fodder.
Thanks indeed to Tees and and to Simon Harding for the blog.
Gwep@8. My reading was ‘burning’ = ‘in’ (both can mean ‘ardent’), ‘havana’ = ‘smoke’ and ‘our man’ = ‘perpetrator we’re after’.
‘Is the fire in?’ was my take.
Our experience was the opposite to Simon’s – we didn’t get the two long book titles till we’d got nearly all the crossing letters so they were also our last ones in. For once, though, we were sufficiently with it not to fall into the potential traps in 21ac and 16dn. But several groans when we got answers such as MINOR, LEEK and ORWELL.
Thanks, Tees and Simon
Didn’t have time for this today as was out at a chess tournament, but just wanted to say – having looked at the nice blog – that 21a and 2d did make me laugh. Cheers to The Big T and the equally big SH.
Started off very quickly with this, but slowed down and then was out all day. I finally finished it in a branch of Wagamama whilst waiting for my meal to appear.
I didn’t know 9dn, but from the letters I had I guessed it might be a French title, and guessed the first, third and fourth words and looked at the anagram letters to see what was left and guessed the answer.
My last two in were 8dn and 26ac where I was fairly sure I knew what the answers were, but I couldn’t see why. Both pennies dropped eventually before the food turned up.