A typical delightful offering from WANDERER – with a healthy range of difficulty in the clues. Some parsings could be improved upon I think.
Unusual number of 8 letter words split 4,4 in the grid.
FF:8 DD: 8
| Across | ||
| 1 | ACROBATICS | Tumbling around a bit, see through short kind of clue (10) |
| {[ A BIT]* C (see?) } in ACROSs (kind of clue, short) | ||
| 6, 10 | ANTELOPE | One inclined to blow top about bound animal (8) |
| ANTE (reverse of ETNA – one inclined to blow top, volcano) LOPE (bound) | ||
| 9 | TROUSERING | Wrongly pocketing euros lost in Herts town (10) |
| EUROS* in TRING (herts town) | ||
| 10 | See 6 | |
| 12 | MARSHALL PLAN | Financial aid programme in Slough – a Liberal Left policy (8,4) |
| MARSH (slough) A L (liberal) L (left) PLAN (policy) – aid from the us to europe after wwii | ||
| 15 | EVENTIDES | Something happening just before March 15, say, as poet’s day ends? (9) |
| EVENT (something happening) IDES (march 15th, say) | ||
| 17 | POSIT | One in job gets put forward (5) |
| I (one) in POST (job) | ||
| 18 | ENTER | Start off letter to Putin after a break (5) |
| cryptic def; clue read as PUT IN (after a break). not sure what the ‘letter’ part of the clue refers to? | ||
| 19 | CAST ASIDE | Players with different ideas for discard (4,5) |
| CAST (players) IDEAS* | ||
| 20 | COLONIALISTS | Empire-builders: one’s including the most famous celebrities (12) |
| COLON (:) [ I’S (one’s) containing A-LIST (most famous celebrities) ] | ||
| 24, 26 | POSTCARD | Form of communication appearing briefly in Snapchat (8) |
| expansion of PC appearing in “..snaPChat” | ||
| 25 | AMPERE HOUR | Extended “Ah” from a politician, before alluring woman’s briefed? (6,4) |
| A MP (politician) ERE (before) HOURi (alluring woman, cut short – persian/islamic origin) | ||
| 26 | See 24 | |
| 27 | PREMARITAL | Type of sex upsetting parliamentarians – a sin, an awful going astray (10) |
| PaRLIAMEnTARians* (without the letters of A SIN AN) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1, 2 | ANTEROOM | Waiters here act heartlessly? No more ordered! (8) |
| AcT (heartlessly) NO MORE* | ||
| 3 | BESPATTERING | Defamation, especially during heavy beating (12) |
| ESP (especially) in BATTERING (heavy beating) | ||
| 4 | TORUS | Ring for a doughnut, sign said (5) |
| sounds like TAURUS (sign) | ||
| 5 | CANVASSES | Solicits votes, using two neighbouring states’ topless young women (9) |
| CA NV (california, nevada – neighbouring states) lASSES (young women, topless) | ||
| 7 | NEOCLASSIC | Novel, one great work from a late 18th century revival? (10) |
| ONE* CLASSIC (great work) | ||
| 8 | ETERNITIES | European seabird one draws for ages (10) |
| E (european) TERN (seabird) I (one) TIES (draws) | ||
| 11 | ELEPHANTS EAR | What’s big, grey and floppy? Large marine mammal finally changing direction, making a bloomer (9,3) |
| ELEPHANT SEAl (large marine mammal with L – left changing to R – right {changing direction} ) | ||
| 13 | TELESCOPIC | Type of ladder with a little extra length, key within theme (10) |
| [ E (extra) L (length) ESC (key) ] in TOPIC (theme) | ||
| 14 | FERTILISER | It helps one produce trifle, stirring in sherry regularly (10) |
| TRIFLE* [In ShErRy (regularly)] | ||
| 16 | DECLAIMER | Ranter does perhaps admit entitlement (9) |
| DEER (does, perhaps) containing CLAIM (entitlement) | ||
| 21 | I-BEAM | Content to describe a metal girder (1-4) |
| hidden in “..descrIBE A Metal..” – i think its fair to include metal in the definition | ||
| 22, 23 | POSTURAL | Our pal’s unhappy about toddlers at front of carriage (8) |
| OUR PALS* around T (front of Toddlers) | ||
*anagram
Re 18, Maybe start off letter is (r)enter and BREAK = enter. Sort of a double definition with PUT IN?
Great puzzle. The SW needed a beer to knock it to the finish line. Love FERTILISER
Thanks turbolegs and Wanderer.
Thanks for a great blog, Turbolegs.
Re your query at 1ac: Chambers has ‘see³ – the third letter of the alphabet [C, c]’. I’m afraid I still don’t fully get 18ac.
Yes, another delightful offering from Wanderer. My favourites today were COLONIALISTS, POSTCARD, NEOCLASSIC and, like copmus, I loved FERTILISER – Wanderer knows how to make a trifle. 😉
Many thanks, Wanderer- I really enjoyed it.
Eileen @3
“I’m afraid I still don’t fully get 18ac.”
Wordplay: ‘start off letter’ = [r]ENTER
Def.: put in (‘Putin after a break’)
Many thanks, Gaufrid – a case of not seeing the wood for the trees. I did ENTER the answer but, like Turbolegs, I had it as ‘start’ [but wasn’t happy] rather than ‘put in’. ‘Renter’ never occurred to me, as I wouldn’t equate it with letter, but I now see that Chambers has, for ‘renter’, ‘a person who lets out property’ as well as ‘a person who pays rent’ – another of those pesky words. 😉
Tough indeed but excellent. Parsed 18a as Gaufrid @4. Got stuck at one stage and used a word fit to get 3d but then finished it off. Didn’t know 12a or 11d but both were solvable from wordplay. If I had to pick a favourite, I think I would choose COLONIALISTS.
Thanks to Wanderer and Turbolegs.
Twice ANTE, twice POST – before & after. Can’t be a coincidence.
Splendid crossword as we’ve come to expect from Wanderer.
Thanks to Wanderer and Turbolegs. Tough going for me. I struggled and eventually got most of the longer answers but was defeated by PREMARITAL and POSTURAL and could not parse ENTER and POSTCARD.
Came to this after finding the Guardian Friday and Saturday a bit disappointing. Found this great fun. Didn’t get the Putin clue; thought the 4,4 splits were very cleverly done. The post/ante was an added nice touch.
I was wondering where the colon came from in 20a – I was doing this on the online page and there the clue read “Empire-builders, one’s including [etc]” – no colon!
Happy to have met Wanderer.
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
Did this one over the weekend but only got around to posting it today. Initially thought that there was an blooper with the second ANTE when 6, 10 went it as second last, but when POST-URAL went in as the last pair – it became obvious that something was going on with the ‘before and after’ !
Otherwise a typically interesting and well clued puzzle in which I liked both the ‘trifle-making’ FERTILISER and EVENTIDES.