Apart from one or two little grumbles, referred to below, this was a pleasant crossword with some good clues. I was delayed for ages in the SE corner, resulting in an eventual resort to aids.
It strangely seems to be the case that in an awful lot of crosswords the first few clues (in this case four) have the definition at the beginning.
Definitions underlined in maroon. Anagram indicators in italics.
The leading diagonal contains ‘COLONEL MUSTARD’, but the other Cluedo characters are nowhere to be seen, by me at any rate.
| Across | ||
| 1 | CLERIC | Vicar maybe caught religious artefact changing hands (6) |
| c. relic with the r and l of relic becoming l and r | ||
| 5 | PRIMROSE | Yellow flower border in everyday language (8) |
| p(rim)rose | ||
| 9 | FILTRATE | Coffee perhaps? How fast it drips into jug when left out for short time (8) |
| fill rate with the second l changed into a t | ||
| 10 | CANARY | Yellow bird, a short-tailed duck crossing channel? Yes (6) |
| canar{d} y — canard is the French for duck — y I suppose as in y/n | ||
| 11 | ACORNS | Narcos’ bust could be the start of great things (6) |
| (Narcos’)* — “great oaks from little acorns grow” | ||
| 12 | SUNBATHE | Ashen but surprisingly brown (8) |
| (Ashen but)* — brown as a verb | ||
| 13 | COWGIRL | A neat worker? Good. Roger wilco, out (7) |
| (g R wilco)* — although I can’t see R = roger in Chambers or Collins — neat as in cattle | ||
| 15 | BENEATH | It’s not worthy of being eaten in a stew in Belize (7) |
| B((eaten)*)H — Belize is BH (British Honduras) | ||
| 17 | THWARTS | Crosses from east to west in the creative world (7) |
| the arts with e replaced by w | ||
| 19 | MAILMAN | Macho sort, we hear, might get the sack? (7) |
| “male man” | ||
| 22 | ULCERATE | Become sore as value is attached to bad clue (8) |
| (clue)* rate | ||
| 24 | TSETSE | Troublesome fly set to torment again (6) |
| (set)* (set)* — is ‘torment’ OK as an a.i.? It looks to me as if it should be the set that is tormented, and if set torments then how is that brought about? ‘Torment’ is given in Chambers as a transitive verb. | ||
| 26 | IMPISH | One politician’s desire (toppling the leader) is mischievous (6) |
| 1 MP {w}ish | ||
| 27 | ARMCHAIR | Amateur medium taken in by roguish appearance (8) |
| ar(m)ch air — I found this one very hard, for two reasons: I thought that the initial A was the amateur bit, and I had 25dn wrong (see below) so that it seemed to be A_M_G_I_ | ||
| 28 | UNDERAGE | Too young for nude swimming craze (8) |
| (nude)* rage | ||
| 29 | SALTED | Seasoned traveller at the front leads astray (6) |
| (t{raveller} leads)* | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | LOINCLOTH | Colin’s upset and reluctant to be seen in skimpy dress (9) |
| (Colin)* loth — I think it’s simply loth = reluctant, with ‘to be seen in’ as a link | ||
| 3 | ROTOR | Turner‘s run out to top of road (5) |
| RO to r{oad} — RO the cricketing term run out | ||
| 4 | COARSER | Surprised interjection about bottom is relatively rude (7) |
| co(arse)r! | ||
| 5 | PLEASE | An attachment to request place with peace and quiet (6) |
| pl. ease | ||
| 6 | INCENSE | Anger during stormy scene (7) |
| in (scene)* | ||
| 7 | RING A BELL | Murder victim meets his end coming after cartel – jog your memory? (4,1,4) |
| ring Abel {Abe}l | ||
| 8 | SARAH | Keep quiet about amateur artist’s name (5) |
| s(A RA)h! | ||
| 14 | GRAPEVINE | VIP enraged after sacking director on the fiddle according to rumour (9) |
| (VIP enraged – d)* — but ‘according to the grapevine’ is ‘according to rumour’, so perhaps the definition is just ‘rumour’, but this doesn’t seem quite right either: the grapevine is a repository of rumour, not rumour itself | ||
| 16 | TRANSPIRE | After destroying string of characters Transylvanian vampire’s come to the light of day (9) |
| Trans{ylvanian vam}pire | ||
| 18 | TRACHEA | Throat regularly blocked by dull pain in its passage (7) |
| tr(ache)a, the tra being t{h}r{o}a{t} | ||
| 20 | AUTUMNS | Times of gold and free nuts around start of Michaelmas (7) |
| au (M{ichaelmas}) (nuts)* — with an &littish character, nice clue | ||
| 21 | BEHAVE | Imperatives of existence and ownership make us act well (6) |
| be have, two verbs in the imperative | ||
| 23 | LEMON | Yellow mark seen in Spanish city (5) |
| Le(M)on | ||
| 25 | ETHEL | A noble girl. See the light around her! (5) |
| Hidden in SeE THE Light — ‘ethel’ is an Old English word for ‘noble’ — I had this wrong for a while, which made finishing difficult: it seemed that the definition was ‘her’ with ‘See the light around her!’, referring to an angel’s halo (I was conveniently ignoring the fact that there were male angels as well) and thinking that n was an abbreviation for noble (after all if Crosophile can have R for Roger then n for noble is quite likely …), so thought it was ANGEL | ||
*anagram
Really enjoyed this. Spotted the hidden COLONEL MUSTARD which gave me the A in 27a, which I was struggling with. Sorry, with which I was struggling. Used a word fit to get THWARTS. A fantastic clue I thought. Got ETHEL but didn’t understand the ‘noble’ reference. Thanks to Crosophile and John.
I worked through this quite steadily until I became stuck on a few tough ones including CHAIRMAN, ETHEL (which I’d never heard of for ‘noble’) and THWARTS, my last in. Once I finally saw the nicely hidden ETHEL, the person who immediately sprang to mind was Eth from the Glums in ‘Take It From Here’ – hardly material for the nobility from what I can remember.
I’m probably being too forgiving, but I couldn’t see any problem with ‘torment’ as an anagram indicator; at least it seemed correct enough to spot as the a.i. straight away. I agree with you about being uncertain of the exact def. for GRAPEVINE.
Thanks to John (well done for spotting the Nina which eluded me) and to Crosophile.
I enjoyed this very much, but I think another Cluedo puzzle would have been a bit much! So I hope it isn’t one, but on the other hand I hope we’re not missing out on a super-subtle grid construction.
Agree re Ethel and tsetse. Re grapevine I think the compiler means that the wordplay accords to rumour, but the nouns don’t equate. As you say, ‘according to rumour’ doesn’t really do it as the def.
Thank you to John and Crosophile.
A bit of a mixture , we found. We rattled off CLERIC, CANARY, ACORNS and COWGIRL and thought ‘this is easy for a Thursday’. Then we slowed down but made steady progress before struggling with the SE corner (and putting ‘angel’ for 25dn before we saw the hidden and wondered if there was a famous Ethel Noble we’d never heard of). But LOI was FILTRATE which we biffed but couldn’t parse, and we thought 19ac might have been a rather rude ‘ballbag’, not that we’d ever come across an expression. Missed the nina, but what’s new? Nice that 5ac was something that blooms, not flows.
Favourites included BENEATH, UNDERAGE, TRACHEA and the &lit-ish AUTUMNS.
Thanks, Crosophile and John.
… “not that we’d ever come across an expression”. Or “not that we’d ever come across such an expression”, even.
I failed to parse a few of these, so extra thanks to John. I’m glad I wasn’t alone in mistaking ETHEL for an ANGEL. Thanks to Crosophile too.
I was quite tired when I started this and it showed. I needed to reveal a couple of letters to make progress after stalling. I got as far as THEARTS, but failed to convert it to THWARTS. I needed the B before I was able to solve 15a and had to rethink MAILBAG after I thought I’d finished. No trouble with ETHEL though. Good puzzle though. Thanks John and Crosophile.
Nobody will see this, I guess. Clean forgot it was ‘my’ day!
But thanks, John, and for the other comments. In addition to Colonel Mustard there are a few other yellows making the nina. Seems like nobody at all noticed!
Chambers appendices gives Ethel as meaning noble so this was intended as extra help!
13A Chambers has Roger=R [rather than R=Roger]. 24Ac Torment is indeed used transitively. As in ‘you need to torment ‘set’. 14Ac. Chambers defines grapevine as simply ‘rumour’ – with a reason given.