Dac occupies this Wednesday’s compiling slot – back where he belongs, one might say!
I found this to be an enjoyable puzzle, not that challenging, which was just perfect for me on a busy mid-week day.
I think that I have parsed everything to my satisfaction, which means that all that is left for me to do is to select my clues of the day: 27, for its & lit. character and for originality – is this the first time that Deliveroo has appeared in a crossword, I wonder?; and 19, for sheer smoothness of surface.
*(…) indicates an anagram; definitions are italicised; // separates definitions in multiple-definition clues
| Across | ||
| 01 | CUTIS | Injure one’s skin
CUT (=injure, with knife) + I’S (=one’s) |
| 04 | ARCHANGEL | Shrewd walker heading west around a northern port
[A + N (=northern)] in [ARCH (=shrewd) + GEL (LEG=walker, i.e. body part; “heading west” indicates reversal)] |
| 09 | REPTILIAN | Like a snake? Traveller hit it, reversing
REP (=traveller, i.e. (sales) representative) + TILIAN (NAIL=(to) hit (on head) + IT; “reversing” indicates reversal) |
| 10 | PEACH | Fruit and vegetable chart
PEA (=vegetable) + CH (=chart, i.e. abbreviation) |
| 11 | SCRAPE | Recaps unusual predicament
*(RECAPS); “unusual” is anagram indicator |
| 12 | BOWL OVER | Send six balls towards the wicket? Wow!
(to) BOWL (an) OVER is to “send six balls towards the wicket” in cricket; to wow, seduce someone is to bowl him/her over |
| 14 | MODERNISMS | Dress mom in pants? They’re said to be up to date
*(DRESS MOM IN); “pants” (=rubbish) is anagram indicator; modernisms are new, recently coined expressions |
| 16 | SLEW | Great number // massacred
Double definition: a slew is a large number/amount of something AND slew (from to slay) means massacred, slaughtered |
| 19 | SLOG | Sinatra’s first record, a big hit
S<inatra> (“first” means first letter only) + LOG (=record, register); a slog is a big hit in e.g. cricket, baseball |
| 20 | BETTERMENT | Guarantee time at hospital dept will lead to a cure?
BET (=guarantee, wager, as verb) + TERM (=time, period) + ENT (=hospital dept, i.e. ear, nose and throat) |
| 22 | SULLIVAN | Old musician‘s dirty-sounding vehicle
Homophone (“sounding”) of “sully (=dirty)” + VAN (=vehicle); the reference is to English composer Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900), of Gilbert & Sullivan fame |
| 23 | AMBLER | Writer, one who risks losing capital
<g>AMBLER (=one who risks, i.e. takes a gamble); “losing capital” means first letter is dropped; the reference is to English thriller writer Eric Ambler (1909-1998) |
| 26 | REEVE | Official participating in more events
Hidden (“participating”) in “moRE EVEnts” |
| 27 | DELIVEROO | Company with consignments of French meat and eggs?
DE (of French, i.e. the French word for of) + LIVER (=meat) + O O (=eggs, i.e. pictorially); Deliveroo is a home-delivery service for pizzas, restaurant meals, hence “company with consignments of …”; & lit. |
| 28 | PAST TENSE | Maybe perfect tapes sent for review
*(TAPES SENT); “for review” is anagram indicator; in grammar, the perfect tense is an example of a past tense |
| 29 | LINED | Entering refurbished deli, number formed a queue
N (=number) in *(DELI); “refurbished” is anagram indicators |
| Down | ||
| 01 | CHRISTMAS | Chartism’s campaigning for annual event
*(CHARTISM’S); “campaigning” is anagram indicator |
| 02 | TAPIR | Bet a piranha will eat a mammal
Hidden (“will eat”) in “beT A PIRanha” |
| 03 | SLIPPERY | Difficult to get hold of, like a mule?
Cryptically, a mule is a type of slipper, hence “slippery” would be like a mule slipper |
| 04 | AGIN | Against Dickensian villain being beheaded
<f>AGIN (=Dickensian villain, in Oliver Twist); “being beheaded” means first letter is dropped |
| 05 | CONFORMITY | Agreement regarding structure in metropolis
[ON (=regarding, about) + FORM (=structure)] in CITY (=metropolis) |
| 06 | APPALS | Shocks friend, stuck in part of church briefly
PAL (=friend) in APS<e> (=part of church; “briefly” means last letter dropped) |
| 07 | GRANVILLE | Family member unwell in village after vacation somewhere in Normandy
GRAN (=family member) + [ILL (=unwell) in V<illag>E (“after vacation” means the word is emptied, i.e. all but first and last letters are dropped)]; Granville is a commune in the Manche départment of Normandy |
| 08 | LEHAR | Shortly acquire knowledge involving Hungary’s principal composer
H<ungary> (“principal” means first letter only) in LEAR<n> (=acquire knowledge; “shortly” means last letter dropped); the reference is to Hungarian composer Franz Lehár (1870-1948) |
| 13 | FIRE WARDEN | About end of the war, friend turned out to be an emergency worker
[<th>E (“end of” means the last letter only) + WAR] in *(FRIEND); “turned out” is anagram indicator |
| 15 | DROLLNESS | Initially deputy head keeps register: that’s very amusing
ROLL (=register, list) in [D<eputy> (“initially” means first letter only) + NESS (=head(land)] |
| 17 | WATERFORD | News about a sea-mist coming up in Irish port
[A + TERF (FRET=sea-mist; “about” indicates vertical reversal)] in WORD (=news, as in to receive word of (something)] |
| 18 | PRIMEVAL | Very old, prudish woman left behind
PRIM (=prudish) + EVA (=woman) + L (=left) |
| 21 | DIGEST | Gradually take in // summary of news
Double definition: to digest is to gradually take in, assimilate e.g. information AND a digest is a summary, a periodic abstract of news |
| 22 | STROP | Small drink knocked over – display of anger results
S (=small, of sizes) + TROP (PORT=drink; “knocked over” indicates vertical reversal) |
| 24 | LOREN | See about making connection with new Italian star
LO (=see!, look!) + RE (=about, regarding) + N (=new); the reference is to Italian actress Sophia Loren (1934-) |
| 25 | FLEE | Run away fast, for the most part
FLEE<t> (=fast, swift; “for the most part” means the last letter is dropped) |
My clue of the week so far – SLIPPERY – it made me smile, something I always hope for in a crossword.
Enjoyed this, on my wavelength and not too tricky.
Thanks Dac and RatkojaRiku
Good puzzle and thanks to both. Just the teeniest, tiniest quibble (after all, that’s what we’re here for) re 20. I’ve seen ‘bet’ to mean ’guarantee’ before & it’s clearly a handy & common 3-letter shorthand but, surely it ain’t so? ‘You can bet’ doesn’t mean ‘ you can guarantee’. At best, It means, more-or-less, ‘You can guess with some confidence…’, which isn’t the same thing at all; indeed, rather the reverse, when you think about it…
Just saying.
Grant @2
I had a similar concern when solving but the ODE does support bet=guarantee. Under ‘bet’:
2 [with clause] informal used to express certainty: I bet this place is really spooky late at night | he’ll be surprised to see me, I’ll bet.
I started this one at a gallop in the NW, but then slowed down considerably, painstakingly assembling the answers. Loved DELIVEROO. SLIPPERY was good too. A biffed MODERNISTS was corrected when CONFORMITY went in. CUTIS went in first, and AGIN was last. Good fun. Thanks Dac and RR.
Thanks Dac and RatkojaRiku (I had to copy and paste that!)
Trapped in by snow, so I had a go at this. Not too difficult, I thought. I too loved SLIPPERY. LOI was DELIVEROO, of whom I’ve never heard. Precise clueing allowed me to work it out eventually.
[Curious, I searched for “Deliveroo” on Google. I went to their website and entered my postcode, only to be told “Sorry, we don’t deliver there”!]
Only got to this after a hectic day of multiple changes of plan, but we solved it in the end despite nodding off once or twice in the process. We were held up in the NE corner but eventually recourse to an atlas showed us the existence of GRANVILLE as a place (well done, Dac, for cluing it without reference to Open All Hours!) and enabled us to see that the definition in 4ac was not ‘shrewd’ and thus get ARCHANGEL.
We took longer than we should getting SULLIVAN – the ‘old’ misled us into thinking about someone from the 16th or 17th century or even earlier.
Favourites were SCRAPE and SLIPPERY.
Thanks, Dac and RatkojaRiku.