A brilliant challenge from CHALMIE, thanks to whom for enlivening an otherwise normal Friday. Superb cluing and excellent surfaces – lucky to have drawn him for my blog this week.
FF: 10 DD: 8
| Across | ||
| 1 | MATCHBOX | Colour-coordinate packaging for small car company (8) |
| MATCH (colour-coordinate) BOX (packaging) – refers to the company that makes diecast models of cars; nice misdirection within the clue. | ||
| 5 | EAGLES | Fear naked golfers regularly get below-par scores (6) |
| fEAr (naked, without end letters) GoLfErS (regularly – alternate letters) | ||
| 10 | TEMPLES | River swallows politician with large facial features (7) |
| TEES (river) containing [ MP (politician) L (large) ] | ||
| 11 | ECHIDNA | Anteater chained up (7) |
| CHAINED* | ||
| 12 | BOTTOMS UP | Rejected American slogan adopted by oil company – it’s toast! (7,2) |
| [US (american) MOTTO (slogan)] reversed (rejected) in BP (oil company, british petroleum) | ||
| 13 | NUDGE | Wearing nothing, German stops to poke (5) |
| G (german) in NUDE (wearing nothing) | ||
| 15 | LITHE | Supple snake’s movement to shed skin (5) |
| sLITHEr (snake’s movement, without end letters) | ||
| 16 | VOLTAIRE | Critic of French art I love to bits (8) |
| ART I LOVE* | ||
| 19 | MOUNTAIN | Horse excellent, hitting new peak (8) |
| MOUNT (horse) AI (excellent, A1) N (new) | ||
| 20 | DISCO | Club cut price in half (5) |
| DISCOunted (cut price, in half) | ||
| 21 | FUSED | Half-heartedly worried about having a safety device (5) |
| FUSsED (worried, half-heartedly) | ||
| 23 | UNCLEARER | More difficult to understand relative with rare disorder (9) |
| UNCLE (relative) RARE* | ||
| 25 | CABARET | Taxi about to stop at nightclub (7) |
| CAB (taxi) [RE (about) in AT ] | ||
| 27 | DICKIES | Bows down in church, knocking into ecumenical service leaders (7) |
| starting letters (leaders) of “..Down In Church Knocking Into Ecumenical Service..” – extremely well disguised clue | ||
| 28 | SAMOSA | Snack excellent on Greek island (6) |
| SAMOS (greek island) A (excellent – A grade) | ||
| 29 | PERSISTS | Goes on forward, keeping relative sweet at first (8) |
| [SIS (relative) in PERT (forward) ] S (first letter of Sweet) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | MOTHBALL | After uniform disappears from test hub, everything is put into storage (8) |
| MOT (test) HuB (without u – uniform) ALL (everything) | ||
| 2 | TEMPTATIONS | First of 20 points team lost to distractions (11) |
| [ T (first of Twenty) POINTS TEAM ]* | ||
| 3 | HALLOWEEN | Greeting small number at festival (9) |
| HALLO (greeting) WEE (small) N (number) | ||
| 4 | OASIS | Nothing like island retreat (5) |
| O (nothing) AS (like) IS (island) – elegant surface | ||
| 6 | ASHEN | Like chicken grey (5) |
| AS (like) HEN (chicken) | ||
| 7 | LED | Was first light (3) |
| cryptic clue ; light refers to LED – Light Emitting Diode | ||
| 8 | SLADE | Art school puts up decorations which miss the mark (5) |
| reverse of mEDALS (decorations, without M – mark) | ||
| 9 | ZEPPELIN | Marx Brother shortly going up- river in aircraft (8) |
| ZEPPo (marx brother, shortly) ELIN (river = NILE, reversed) | ||
| 14 | DIRE STRAITS | In a desperate situation, princess needs knight to break free from chains (4,7) |
| DI (princess) RESTRAInTS (chains, without N – knight) – beautiful surface once again | ||
| 16 | VIADUCTS | A French nobleman with time and power to go over bridges (8) |
| [A DUC (french nobleman, duke) T (time)] in VIS (power) | ||
| 17 | AUDIENCE | Car crash scene with groups of people watching (9) |
| AUDI (car) [SCENE]* – strong candidate for my COTD | ||
| 18 | TOURISTS | Half of town’s lawyers heading off travellers (8) |
| TOwn (half of) jURISTS (lawyers, without first letter) | ||
| 21 | FACES | Confronts experts with force (5) |
| F (force) ACES (experts) | ||
| 22 | DARTS | Pictures taken by detective showing weapons (5) |
| ART (pictures) in DS (detective) | ||
| 24 | CADGE | Beg prison to take Donald first (5) |
| CAGE (prison) containing D (Donald, first letter) – a political statement here perhaps? | ||
| 26 | BUM | Unacceptable 24 (3) |
| double def; 24 refers to CADGE | ||
*anagram
An excellent setter and a great cryptic. Such lovely surfaces – my favourites being CABARET and AUDIENCES. I hope the golfers at 5a clean their balls before tee off.
To be very pernickety, I would have preferred the ‘In’ to have been dropped at the start of 14d, changing the comma to a semicolon to make the surface. As it is, I don’t see ‘In’ as being part of the definition.
Thanks to Chalmie and Turbolegs.
Matchbox, Eagles, Temples, Cabaret Voltaire, Mountain, Dickies, Faces, Temptations, Halloween, Darts, Oasis, Led Zeppelin, Dire Straits, Slade, Tourists.
Any more?
Sil @2 – not that I know of; you’ve got all the ones I consciously put in there. Audience were also a (dreadful) band, but the grid entry is the plural form and doesn’t quite count in my book.
To TL and Hovis, thanks for the kind words.
There is also an (even more dreadful) Canadian metal band called Möthball … Complete with umlaut, probably nicked from the band that gave us The Ace of Spades.
I liked this puzzle very much but seeing almost immediately what was going on, it was over in 20 minutes or so. 2d (TEMPTATIONS) and 14d (DIRE STRAITS) went in after a few crossers without even having looked at the clue.
That said, the cluing was lovely today with perhaps one that Hovis mentioned (25ac, CABARET) being the best of all.
While 24d has a great surface, I am not keen on ‘Donald first’ for D. But there’s always something one doesn’t like, isn’t there? [like Matchbox, or Darts, or Halloween – don’t mean the clues! 🙂 ]
Thanks Turbolegs & Chalmie.
Thanks to Chalmie and Turbolegs. I failed to get DICKIES and needed help parsing TEMPTATIONS. Very enoyable.
Enjoyed the crossword, but the theme passed me by; unsurprising as I had never heard of many of the bands. Thanks to Sil for the enlightenment.
Sil@2 – Well done!! I completely missed the theme – which is ironic as I did look for a nina and couldnt find any.
Cheers
TL
Thanks Chalmie and Turbolegs
Enjoyable puzzle that I was able to nearly complete without aids on a plane trip from Melbourne to the Sunshine Coast. Needed help to get my last couple in – DICKIES (trickily disguised and an expression for a bow tie that I didn’t know) and SLADE (ignorant of the art school of UCL).
Completely missed the theme which would have helped with the last one but not DICKIES. Very clever all the same to fit that number of bands into the grid and have it not noticed by at least a few posters here.