A fairly basic challenge from the Don today with just a couple of clues providing some thoughtful moments in parsing.
FF: 7 DD : 7
| Across | ||
| 1 | DISGRACED | Is girl taken in by theologian suffering obloquy? (9) |
| [IS GRACE (girl) ] in DD (theologian) | ||
| 6 | BASED | Having HQ maybe in home counties – nasty to get round (5) |
| BAD (nasty) around SE (home counties) | ||
| 9 | SMITTEN | Little boy’s about 10 and in love (7) |
| SMIT (little boy’s = TIM’S, reversed) TEN (10) | ||
| 10 | BELLOWS | Use these and fire comes to life – and roars (7) |
| double def | ||
| 11 | DROLL | Amusing daughter has a turn (5) |
| D (daughter) ROLL (turn) | ||
| 12 | ESPLANADE | Seaplane’d crashed somewhere by the coastline (9) |
| SEAPLANE’D | ||
| 14 | DOT | E? It’s a point (3) |
| E in morse code is a dot. | ||
| 15 | APPEASEMENT | A legal privilege to keep very quiet comes as a peace offering (11) |
| [ A EASEMENT (legal privelege) ] containing PP (very quiet) | ||
| 17 | MERCENARIES | Troubled men care and rise to become paid fighters (11) |
| MEN CARE RISE* | ||
| 19 | CAR | Vehicle needing endless attention (3) |
| CARe (attention, endless) | ||
| 20 | CANNONEER | Old soldier uses trick, ensnaring girl always (9) |
| [ CON (trick) containing ANN (girl) ] EER (ever, always) | ||
| 22 | GLASS | Good girl, as seen in mirror (5) |
| G (good) LASS (girl) | ||
| 24 | LEOPARD | Beast pope only half forgave (7) |
| LEO (pope) PARDoned (forgave, half of) | ||
| 26 | STINKER | Difficult task finally defeats metalworker (7) |
| S (defeatS, finally) TINKER (metalworker) | ||
| 27 | DENCH | Acting dame in retreat going to church (5) |
| DEN (retreat) CH (church) | ||
| 28 | PEDIGREED | Gym girl attracts desire, having good breeding (9) |
| PE (gym) DI (girl) GREED (desire) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | DOSED | Some Parisian turning up after party drugged (5) |
| DO (party) SED ( some in french is DES, reversed) | ||
| 2 | SPIN OUT | Extend home – talk freely about it (4,3) |
| SPOUT (talk freely) around IN (home) | ||
| 3 | RETALIATE | Alert, stirred up, I had to fight back (9) |
| ALERT* I ATE (had) | ||
| 4 | CONTEMPLATE | Think about opposing stand-in worker not arriving on time? (11) |
| CON (opposing) TEMP (stand-in worker) LATE (not arriving on time) | ||
| 5 | DUB | Call American friend up (3) |
| reverse of BUD (american friend) | ||
| 6 | BALSA | A piece of cake maybe served up in wood (5) |
| reverse of A SLAB (piece of cake) | ||
| 7 | STORAGE | Soldiers in division given somewhere to put stuff (7) |
| OR (soldiers) in STAGE (division) | ||
| 8 | DISSENTER | Show lack of respect for record set down by non-establishment figure (9) |
| DISS (show lack of respect) ENTER (record) – wondering if “..set down..” was necessary for the clue | ||
| 13 | PLAGIARISED | Like a piece of literature that’s taken the wrong way (11) |
| cryptic | ||
| 14 | DOMICILED | Awfully docile and dim, put in a home (9) |
| DOCILE DIM* | ||
| 16 | EASY GOING | Carefree midshipman leaving port behind? (4,5) |
| EASY (from the novel mr midshipman easy by frederick marryat) GOING (leaving) .. port behind is more for surface | ||
| 18 | RANGOON | Managed to get rabbit in capital city (7) |
| RAN (managed) GOON (rabbit??) | ||
| 19 | CRACKLE | Expert departed, discarding paper, making a noise (7) |
| CRACK (expert) LEft (departed, without FT for paper) | ||
| 21 | OMAGH | County town publication placed in old hospital (5) |
| MAG (publication) in [ O (old) H (hospital) ] | ||
| 23 | SHRED | Bit of rubbish in hut – no more than a bit (5) |
| R (bit of Rubbish) in SHED (hut) | ||
| 25 | DIP | Short swim gets someone wet right away (3) |
| DrIP (wet, without R – right) | ||
*anagram
16d. Rangoon was renamed Yangon in 1989 and the capital of Myanmar (or Burma if you prefer) was moved to Napyidaw in 2006. I think Don should have said ‘former capital city’.
16d. To rabbit is to go on (rather than goon), I think.
Thanks for explaining 16d. The best I could come up with was a homonym for ‘e sea-going, which didn’t make much sense. Also had ‘go on’ for rabbit. Wasted a bit of time on 8d, assuming definition was ‘show lack of respect’, beginning with DISC for ‘record’. CANNONEER took a bit of working out. Also bunged in DOT thinking it might be a slang term for the drug, E. Didn’t know it was a dot in morse code but, as the most common letter, I guess it makes sense.
In 2 down, having entered “doped” (do for party, ed for Fr “of” and p for “parisian” ) I could not get “smitten” from p_i_t_n ! Thanks Turbolegs and the Don.
I went for duped in 1d with DUP being the party. They have been in the news quite a lot I think! As I realise now that doesn’t really mean drugged. Not really sure about 14d with the extra two words at the end.
Contrapunctus @ 5
I put someone in a home / I domiciled someone. Per Chambers ‘domicile’ can be a transitive verb.
I suspect Contrapunctus@5 meant to refer to 16d, not 14d. In which case, if a midshipman is ‘going’ then he may well be ‘leaving port behind’.
Thanks Bradman and Turbolegs
Found this one reasonably straight forward to fill in the grid, but did struggle with a number of the parsings – didn’t consider a Morse code dot equating to the letter E, forgot again about the DISS term for treating someone with contempt or no respect and forgot the FT = paper trick this time.
Thought that having ‘leaving port behind’ was fair enough for GOING in the context of a sailor – sure just ‘leaving’ would have done but the extra words were still relevant.
SPIN OUT was my last one in and the one that gave me most trouble having tried to justify SPIT OUT for a while (SPOUT around IT to mean ‘extend home – but couldn’t make it work and finally saw the ‘home’ = IN).