Tees is becoming quite the Monday Indy regular. Since Monday is my blogging day, you’ll hear no complaints from this direction. A fine puzzle, with excellent surfaces, clear cluing, and a wide variety of subject areas (including, as always, some Classical stuff).
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = angram indicator
[x] letter(s) missing
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Cross, having endless pain in face
DIAGONAL
An insertion of AGON[Y] in DIAL.
6 Preserve odd parts in Andean country
CANADA
A charade of CAN and the odd letters of AnDeAn.
9 Travellers‘ god maintaining order
ROMA
An insertion of OM for ‘order’ [of Merit] in RA for the Egyptian god.
10 General oversaw nothing fishy
WASHINGTON
A reversal of SAW and (NOTHNG)* gives you the US ‘General’ and 1st President. The anagrind is ‘fishy’ and you need to lift and separate ‘oversaw’ to get the reversal indicator. Do disciples of the crossword god Ximenes approve of ‘lift and separate’? I honestly don’t know, but it works for me and in this case makes for a cleverly written clue.
11 Roman lawyer, ogre, returned to secure reserve
CICERO
An insertion of ICE in ORC reversed. ORC for ‘ogre’ seemed a bit of a stretch, but thesauruses do give similar definitions.
12 Prince is detained in serious act of vengeance
REPRISAL
An insertion of PR and IS in REAL. ‘Rising sea levels pose a real/serious threat to low-lying communities.’
13 Silenced on changing form language takes
DECLENSION
(SILENCED ON)* Nominative, Vocative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, Ablative … flashback time for those who learnt Latin at school. DECLENSION is important in many modern and ancient languages and is the process by which nouns, pronouns and some other parts of speech change form to indicate – for example – number, case or gender. Modern English has, rather sensibly, mostly done away with it, apart from distinctions like I/me/my and so on. For those that really want a flashback to Latin declensions at school and have three minutes to spare, watch this.
16 Welshman where congregation sits facing west
EVAN
Since it’s an across clue, Tees is inviting you to reverse NAVE, the part of the Christian church that is reserved for the laity.
17 Suppress key report that’s shocking
BANG
A charade of BAN and G for one of the musical ‘keys’.
19 God’s claim? One backed it in Mahatma Revisited
I AM THAT I AM
A charade of I and IT reversed in (MAHATMA)* with ‘revisited’ as the anagrind. The quote is God’s reply to Moses at the Burning Bush:
And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
(Exodus 3:14, King James Bible)
22 Interminable nonsense about on street
CONSTANT
An insertion of ON and ST in CANT.
24 Is it smoking jacket that becomes one?
BLAZER
A cd, with the play on words suggesting an on fire BLAZE.
26 Stagnation irritated rival
ANTAGONIST
(STAGNATION)*
27 Iodine in decay gives dazzling display
RIOT
An insertion of I for the chemical symbol in ROT.
28 Stick heard to shatter — ultimately brittle
ADHERE
A charade of (HEARD)* and E for the last letter of ‘brittle’.
29 Greek character observed pulling back trigger
DETONATE
A reversal (‘pulling back’) of ETA NOTED.
Down
2 Love is cutting single benefit
IDOLISE
An insertion of IS in I DOLE.
3 Good people in freedom from sin
GRACE
A charade of G and RACE.
4 Women moving forward in emergent body
NEW MOON
A charade of (WOMEN)* and ON.
5 Large ears reshaped — such treatment as benefits looker
LASER
(L EARS)* with the ‘looker’ referring not to physical appearance, as suggested by the surface, but eyesight.
6 Saint caught by scripture with political bias
CRISPIN
A charade of C, RI for Religious Instruction or ‘scripture’ and SPIN for what doctors do gives you the Saint most often referenced in relation to the Battle of Agincourt.
7 Lingerie shortened, not wanting zip that’s slack
NEGLIGENT
A charade of NEGLIGE[E] and N[O]T. The two removal indicators are ‘shortened’ and ‘wanting’ and the O comes from ‘zip’.
8 Satellite appearing in play’s miniature scene
DIORAMA
An insertion of IO, Jupiter’s moon and a crossword setter to boot, in DRAMA.
14 Make provision as member’s missed appointment
LEGISLATE
A charade of LEG and IS LATE.
15 Some rabbis mocked specific doctrine
ISM
Hidden in rabbIS Mocked.
18 Trouble editor to cover sailors decorated
ADORNED
An insertion of RN for Royal Navy or ‘sailors’ in ADO and ED.
19 Man roadies thrashed
ISADORE
Not the most common man’s name, but since it’s an anagram and we’ve got more than 50% checking letters, we mustn’t grumble. (ROADIES)*
20 Living space somewhat limited in Derby?
HABITAT
Lots of things are limited in Derby, like culture, but it’s the hat you need here. Insert A BIT into HAT and you’ve got your answer.
21 Beer firm evacuated Southport plant
ALECOST
One of those clues where the pleasure comes from working it out and then finding that it really is a plant. A charade of ALE, CO and ST for the outside letters of ‘Southport’.
23 First person in jazz making three-note chord
TRIAD
An insertion of I for the first person singular pronoun (see 13ac) in TRAD.
25 City border with kilometres for parking
AKRON
APRON for ‘border’ with K replacing the P gives you the city in Ohio.
Many thanks to Tees for this morning’s puzzle.
Thanks, Pierre – and special thanks for the hilarious clip.
I totally agree with your preamble – great stuff and highly enjoyable. I think my favourites were WASHINGTON [I do like ‘lift and separate’ clues] and ALECOST [I shared Pierre’s pleasure in constructing this unlikely sounding word: I call this kind of clue a ‘jorum’, because that’s how I made acquaintance with that word.]
Many thanks to Tees.
I knew alecost both from growing herbs and home-brewing. I think it’s the one flawed clue today, as it gets this form of its name because it was used in brewing ale in the middle ages before hops were grown in England, so “ALE” has the the same meaning in both the part answer and the whole.
An enjoyable puzzle, which I had little trouble with until my LOI, 4d, where I had NEW BORN. I had to “Show Errors” before I spotted my mistake, but then worked it out fairly quickly. Loved the Romanes Eunt Domus sketch! Thanks Pierre and Tees.
Diagonal Nina, or a bizarre accidental.
Usual neatness, apart from 10 across providing entertainment for non-Ximeneans. I am shocked.
Thanks Pierre and Tees.
We couldn’t think of anything else but ‘new born’ for 4dn, although (of course) we couldn’t parse it. If we’d looked at an astronomical calendar we might have guessed NEW MOON as that happens tomorrow. We got all the rest, though.
No problems for us with ‘lift and separate’ in 10ac – it gives a little extra satisfaction to realise it’s needed.
All good stuff, although we thought 24ac a bit of an old chestnut.
Thanks, Tees and Pierre.
There seems to be a Nina present, but I don’t think I fully understand it. If you look down the DIAGONAL from the first letter of 1, you find ‘DDM crosstalk’, which Google reveals to be an undesirable aspect of the technology supporting global satellite navigation systems…
“Cross-talk occurs when the Delay-Doppler Map (DDM) of a tracked satellite overlaps others from undesired satellites.”
Is there more to this? ‘DDM crosstalk is …’
Sorry featherstonehaugh @4 – missed your first line as I skim read the existing posts.
Thanks, Dtd, for explaining the nina – I couldn’t make head or tail of what it was supposed to be.