A stern test from Peto this Tuesday…
Maybe just me but, after very brisk start I found this hard going. Not unenjoyably so; everything was fair and above board but there was a lot reversal of elements and I found myself blogging ‘preceded by’ much more often than usual. Good head-scratching stuff. Thanks, Peto.
| Across | ||
| 1 | HEARTS | Receives information about Turkey’s earliest football club (6) |
| HEARS (‘receives information’) around T (1st letter of Turkey) for Edinburgh’s Heart of Midlothian F.C. | ||
| 4 | PROPOSAL | Supports accepting old fellow’s plan (8) |
| PROPS (‘supports’) includes O[ld] then AL (a ‘fellow’). | ||
| 9 | NO-SHOW | Someone not turning up with food immediately lacks a bit of neighbourliness (2-4) |
| NOSH (‘food’) + nOW (‘immediately’, without its ‘N’, or ‘bit of Neighbourliness’) | ||
| 10 | IGNORANT | Unaware of refusal to stand by soldier over angry tirade (8) |
| NO (‘refusal’) follows IG (= reversal of GI, or ‘soldier over’) then RANT (‘angry tirade’). | ||
| 12 | MORE | Earth wiped from Scottish weapon again (4) |
| clayMORE, a scottish weapon, without its ‘clay’ or ‘earth’. | ||
| 13 | LEITMOTIFS | Set limit of difficult words often repeated in literary works (10) |
| Anagram (‘difficult’) of SET LIMIT OF. | ||
| 15 | INCONVENIENT | Girl almost entering where nuns may be found causing trouble (12) |
| ENa (a girl, shortened) in IN CONVENT, where nuns hang out. | ||
| 18 | STRANGLEHOLD | Unusually long halters on donkeys at the front giving complete control (12) |
| Anagram (unusual) of LONG HALTERS then D for Donkeys. | ||
| 21 | REFRACTORY | Stubborn resistance seen in workplace on the outskirts of Rochdale (10) |
| R[esistance] in FACTORY (‘workplace’) preceded by RE (= ‘outskirts of RochdalE’) | ||
| 22 | WELL | Advisable for a supplier of water (4) |
| Double definition. “It would be well for you to such-and-such”. | ||
| 24 | FRIGHTEN | Restore to a normal position following earlier alarm (8) |
| RIGHTEN (‘restore to a normal position’) preceded by F[ollowing]. | ||
| 25 | DIKTAT | Tease about finding tasteless articles in some kind of order (6) |
| KID (‘tease’) reversed + TAT (‘tasteless articles’). | ||
| 26 | BRANDISH | Island hit at the outset by a particular kind of wave (8) |
| IS[land] + H (= first letter – ‘at the outset’ – of ‘Hit’) preceded by BRAND (‘a particular kind’). | ||
| 27 | SEEMLY | Suitable space found in Spain’s capital city (6) |
| EM (a printer’s ‘space’) in S (caps letter of ‘Spain’) + ELY (a city). | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | HANDMAID | Servant reportedly assigned by agency (8) |
| HAND (‘agency’ as in ‘by the hand of God’) + MAID (homphone of MADE, ‘assigned’ as in ‘She was made the chair of the committee’, I suppose, though none of Chambers’ 42 definitions of ‘make’ quite fits this sense). | ||
| 2 | ABSTRACT | Treatise on muscles is hard to understand (8) |
| ABS (abdominal ‘muscles’) + TRACT (‘treatise’). | ||
| 3 | THOR | Evident in umpteenth oracle from God (4) |
| Inclusion in ‘umpteenTH ORacle”. | ||
| 5 | RIGHT-WINGERS | Blues singer with good range initially all at sea (5-7) |
| Anagram (‘all at sea’) of SINGER + WITH + G[ood] + R(age). An anagram which took some finding. | ||
| 6 | PRONOUNCED | Very noticeable when once proud knight breaks down (10) |
| Anagram (‘breaks down’) of ONCE PROUD + kNight. | ||
| 7 | STALIN | Soviet leader’s son to finish off story at home (6) |
| S[on] + TALe (endless ‘story’) + IN (‘at home’). | ||
| 8 | LUTIST | Longing to hug withdrawn Italian musician (6) |
| LUST (‘longing’) includes TI (reversal of IT[alian]) | ||
| 11 | BENEFACTRESS | Bishop to sense trouble over truth about female patron (12) |
| B[ishop] then anagram (‘trouble’) of SENSE around FACT (‘truth’) + RE (= ‘about’). Phew. | ||
| 14 | UNATTACHED | Single aunt hated Dicky without a hint of contrition (10) |
| Anagram (‘dicky’) of AUNT HATED + C (bit of ‘Contrition’). | ||
| 16 | MOMENTUM | Silent about foreboding at the launch of this political movement (8) |
| MUM (‘silent’) around OMEN (‘foreboding’) + ‘T’ (= ‘launch’ of ‘This’). | ||
| 17 | IDOLATRY | Extreme admiration for an artificial language experiment involving the French (8) |
| IDO (an ‘artificial language’) + TRY (‘experiment’) includes LA (‘the’ in Fr.) | ||
| 19 | PREFAB | Soldiers having excellent parking in front of living accommodation (6) |
| R[oyal] E[ngineers] + FAB (‘excellent’) preceded by P[arking]. | ||
| 20 | AFRICA | In charge after France occupies areas of the second largest continent (6) |
| FR[ance] + I[n] C[harge] in A,A (2 ‘Areas’). | ||
| 23 | RITE | Ceremony’s just on the radio (4) |
| Homophone of ‘right’ (‘just’). | ||
*anagram
There’s an I missing in your parsing for 15a. I had INCONV(ENI[d])ENT.
Tricky in parts. Annoyed myself in failing to get LEITMOTIF even after identifying the correct anagrist. Wasn’t sure on the parsing for 1d.
Thanks to Peto and Grant.
Five go mad in the FT?
The girl in 15a is ENId.
Thanks Peto and Grant
Haven’t seen this setter since April, so I must have missed him in my backlog hiatus in June. Usually have difficulty getting this guy solved and parsed and this one was certainly no exception – two coffees and still not finished ! Finally got it finished quite quickly after giving it a break for a few hours – the long ones were the ones that had initially given trouble.
DIKTAT was a new term for me. I had ENI[D] as the ‘girl almost’ at 15.
Finished in the SW corner with FRIGHTEN (RIGHTEN was also new for me as a legitimate word), BRANDISH (trickily hidden definition) and PREFAB as the last few in.
Satisfied when I eventually got it out.
Harder than the usual Tuesday FT with quite a few just entered from the def. and not parsed properly. Even so, took a long time to finish, with the sneaky definition and anagram for RIGHT-WINGERS holding out to the last.
A bit tougher than puzzles by this setter in his other guise in the Indy. I look forward (I think!) to the next one here.
Thanks to Peto and Grant.
DIKTAT was a solution in Everyman 3744 (15 July), and the history of the word is discussed in Alan Connor’s latest blog: it originated (in English at any rate) as referring to the Treaty of Versailles.
ENId is certainly right. Apologies.