An excellent puzzle. Thank you Aardvark.
| Across | ||
| 1 | EGG AND SPOON RACE | Seed playing can read about golf club competition (3,3,5,4) |
| EGG (seed) then anagram (playing) of CAN READ containing (about) SPOON (golf club) | ||
| 9 | NAME TAG | Harry’s blocked by a police force wanting ID (4,3) |
| NAG (harry) contains (blocked by) A MET (police force) | ||
| 10 | CAMPING | English runner takes leg number six in college leisure activity (7) |
| CAM (the River Cam, something that runs in England) with PIN (leg) and colleGe (number six in, sixth letter of) | ||
| 11 | SOLVE | Constable aims to do such sketches of local views – Essex firstly (5) |
| first letters of Sketches Of Local Views Essex | ||
| 12 | SPAGHETTI | Italian serving special crackers at eight (9) |
| S (special) then anagram (crackers) of AT EIGHT – something served in Italy | ||
| 13 | HYDRANGEA | Short water pipe, say, is placed over a shrubby plant (9) |
| HYDRANt (water pipe, short) then EG (say) reversed (placed over) and A | ||
| 15 | GIRTH | Size of waist perhaps taking cook aback (disheartening truth) (5) |
| RIG (cook) reversed (taken aback) then TrutH (disheartened, no middle) | ||
| 16 | MOVIE | Film second contest (5) |
| MO (moment, second) VIE (contest) | ||
| 18 | SAN MARINO | Country health farm signior regularly attended after damage (3,6) |
| SAN (health farm) then sIgNiOr (regularly, every other letter) following MAR (damage) | ||
| 20 | NOROVIRUS | Visor on ground restricts team game – there’s trouble catching (9) |
| anagram (ground) of VISOR ON contains (restricts) RU (Rugby Union, a team game) – if you catch this you are in trouble | ||
| 23 | DOUGH | Maybe change fleece that’s awful (5) |
| DO (fleece, swindle) and UGH (that’s awful) – dough is money, small change perhaps | ||
| 24 | WOUND UP | Injury intensified having pulled someone’s leg (5,2) |
| WOUND (injury) UP (intensified). I can’t quite get the definition to work – “wound up” is “pulled leg”, not “pulled someone’s leg”. | ||
| 25 | NOUVEAU | New type of light seen during Christmas, mostly gold (7) |
| UV (type of light) inside (seen during) NOEL (Christmas) missing last letter (mostly) and AU (gold) | ||
| 26 | YELLOW BRICK ROAD | A way to get rich? Fearful woman in US describes twist (6,5,4) |
| YELLOW (fearful) BROAD (woman, US slang) contains (describes, makes a line around) RICK (twist) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | ERNEST HEMINGWAY | Novelist’s grave edging, reportedly, covers passage (6,9) |
| ERNEST HEMING sounds like (reportedly) earnest hemming (grave edging) on (covers, goes over) WAY (passage) | ||
| 2 | GAMBLED | Took a punt from graduate, on left-hand bank, and drifted (7) |
| Graduate (on left bank, left-hand letter of) and AMBLED (drifted) | ||
| 3 | NOTRE DAME | Celebrity touring switched to glowing religious building (5,4) |
| NAME (celebrity) contains (touring, going around) TO reversed (switched) and RED (glowing). As an aside: I have never liked “touring” as an inclusion indicator. If I tour a country I “go round” that country in the sense of going inside it, not outside. You ask me what I did on holiday and I say I toured Austria. When you ask where in Austria I went you don’t expect me to say that I didn’t visit Austria, I went to Germany, France and Italy. | ||
| 4 | SIGHS | Upset quiet soldier’s expressions of dejection (5) |
| SH (quiet) GIS (soldiers) all reversed (upset) | ||
| 5 | ONCE AGAIN | Performing outside in concrete area, earn encore (4,5) |
| ON (performing) ConcretE (outside in, outer letters of) A (area) GAIN (earn) | ||
| 6 | NYMPH | Spirit Nicky drained with speed? (5) |
| NickY (drained, empty inside) with MPH (speed) | ||
| 7 | AVIATOR | Flier originally appears through Tim’s front door half missing (7) |
| Appears (originally, first letter of) VIA (through) Tim (front letter of) and doOR (half missing) | ||
| 8 | ENGLISH FOXHOUND | Dog discovered outside wrong house by people here (7,8) |
| FOUND (discovered) containing (outside) X (cross mark=wrong) HO (house) all following (by) ENGLISH (the people here, the home of the FT) | ||
| 14 | GASTROPUB | Place to eat and chat about Proust novel (9) |
| GAB (chat) containing (about) anagram (novel) of PROUST | ||
| 15 | GRAND TURK | Old ruler has two thousand pounds to entertain brothers on river (5,4) |
| GRAND K (a thousand pounds, twice) contains (to entertain) TU (trade union, brothers) on R (rivers). TU=brothers is a guess, there maybe some other explanation. | ||
| 17 | VIRTUAL | Practical workers united in repairing rail, after five (7) |
| TU (trade union, workers united) inside anagram (repairing) of RAIL all following V (five) – meaning almost | ||
| 19 | IN UTERO | Embryonic design of iron enthrals university type extremely (2,5) |
| anagram (design) of IRON contains U (university) and TypE (extremes of) | ||
| 21 | VIDEO | Recording number six: poem, start to finish (5) |
| VI (number six) then ODE with O (the start) moved to the end | ||
| 22 | SINAI | Sloth perhaps displayed excellent mount (5) |
| SIN (sloth perhaps) then (displayed by) AI (A1, excellent) | ||
definitions are underlined
I write these posts to help people get started with cryptic crosswords. If there is something here you do not understand ask a question; there are probably others wondering the same thing.
Enjoyed this challenge. Although I didn’t think anything wrong with ‘touring’ in 3d, your criticism makes sense. Similarly, at the time, I didn’t have any objections to 24a but I guess ‘pulled someone’s leg’ translates to ‘wound him/her up’ rather than just ‘wound up’. A minor niggle.
GRAND TURK was my LOI and parsed as you did PeeDee, but wasn’t convinced by ‘brothers’ (ok, a trade union is a type of fraternity, but still….) and didn’t like the way TU appeared in two consecutive clues.
Minor quibbles aside, an excellent workout. Thanks to S&B.
Trade unionists traditionally (used to?) address each other as “brother”, so I think TU = brothers is reasonable. (Chambers gives brother = “a fellow member of … a trade union”.)
Thanks Aardvark and PeeDee
An enjoyable challenge as per usual from this setter. Had to get half way through before I got the first perimeter answer – ENGLISH FOXHOUND, then the others followed consecutively after.
Was also surprised to see TU appear twice in the puzzle.
Had not seen NOROVIRUS before and the clever FOUGH was my last one in.
Just a small error in 12a – ‘special’ should give the SP not just the S.
24a – “wound up” is slang for “teased” and so “pulled someone’s leg”.
Irgrnlife – I can see “teased someone” being the same as “pulled someone’s leg” or “wound someone up”. How does “wound up” on its own work? It doesn’t make sense to me.
Thanks both.
I thought that this was a good challenge and, for me, just about the right level of difficulty, being not too easy and not overly hard.
I found 1ac & 1dn completely impenetrable.
This left me feeling totally frustrated and I therefore derived no pleasure from it whatsoever.
I usually enjoy FT crosswords.
Apologies for forgetting to thank you for the blog, PeeDee.
Usual great puzzle from Aardvark. Thanks for blog Peedee.
I have to agree with Grumpy (No. 7).
No love for 1ac and 1dn (I wasn’t close to getting them), though I did like 8dn and 26ac.
When you have 15-letter spectaculars around the four sides, they need to be really really good, without being easy and giving too much of a simple start all around. The setter is choosing to play a difficult game.
I admire that game, though, especially in the first week of January when we have recently had the Christmas special crosswords with their many-letter edges of Shakespearean or other quotations.
Thanks to Aardvark and PeeDee: all strength to you in 2018.
8d 26a