My second Peter on the trot after 1,482 a few weeks back, and it seemed a fairly similar experience. A few easier ones, a few that few put up a fight, and I learned a handful of bits and bobs along the way.
Getting the long 1 down straight off was a helpful start, though 8 down was slower to yield for whatever reason. 26 across was entirely new to me, happily being sine prole myself. A bit of googling suggests it isn’t that common anyway, and may in fact be a Regency term.
No real holdups otherwise, just good fun all round, so thanks once again to Peter.
| Across | ||
| 9 | ALLAHABAD | God associated with a poor Indian city (9) |
| ALLAH + A + BAD. | ||
| 10 | ROWAN | Fuss about North American tree (5) |
| ROW + NA<. | ||
| 11 | LATRINE | Engineer let rain into bog (7) |
| Anagram of (LET RAIN). | ||
| 12 | INCENSE | Popular feeling expressed as anger (7) |
| IN + homophone of “sense”. | ||
| 13 | FLOG | Sell fine piece of wood (4) |
| F + LOG. | ||
| 14 | STAGECRAFT | Cast get far developing theatrical skills (10) |
| Anagram of (CAST GET FAR). | ||
| 15 | EN MASSE | Broadcast end of ‘open sesame’ as a group (2,5) |
| Anagram of ([ope]N + SESAME). | ||
| 17 | TITANIC | Enormous heads of neoclassical icons found during attic conversion (7) |
| (N[eoclassical] + I[cons]) in ATTIC* . | ||
| 19 | IMPRESSIVE | Noteworthy setter’s given gift-wrapped volume (10) |
| I‘M + (V in PRESSIE). | ||
| 22 | STAR | Brilliant time to leave foundation (4) |
| STAR[t]. A slight pause for thought while I convinvced myself that ‘star’ can indeed work as an adjective. | ||
| 23 | ECLOGUE | European part of puzzle about old German literary work (7) |
| E + ((O + G) in CLUE). | ||
| 24 | RAVIOLI | Rabbi visiting Italy stirred oil into dish (7) |
| RAV + I + OIL*. | ||
| 26 | CORAL | Teething ring for child originally at an early stage of development (5) |
| C[hild] + ORAL. | ||
| 27 | PIECEMEAL | Dish given to cold English male cooked in stages (9) |
| PIE + C + E + MALE*. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | HALL OF RESIDENCE | Hot and cold ale is free to distribute round new place for students (4,2,9) |
| H + (N in (COLD ALE IS FREE)*). Timely, since my main challenge this week will have been to find somewhere to live when I go to university again this autumn. It won’t be halls though, not at my age. | ||
| 2 | PLATFORM | Philosopher welcoming foot soldiers in part of station (8) |
| (F in PLATO) + RM. Not sure I recall seeing F for ‘foot’ before, though it doesn’t seem particularly controversial. | ||
| 3 | CHAI | Host losing end of cracker in drink (4) |
| CHAI[r]. | ||
| 4 | ABSENTEE | Sailor posted to Eastern Europe is a missing person (8) |
| AB + SENT + EE. | ||
| 5 | IDLING | Fish making slow progress (6) |
| ID + LING. Spent a while wondering if there was a fish called an “edging” but no, the answer is far more sensible than that. | ||
| 6 | PRICE CUT | Reduction set to include staple source of cereal (5,3) |
| (RICE + C[ereal]) in PUT. | ||
| 7 | RWANDA | Country artist covering washed-out base of wood (6) |
| (WAN + [woo]D) in RA. | ||
| 8 | ENTENTE CORDIALE | Understanding hospital departments provided tablet and drink at end of procedure (7,8) |
| ENT + ENT + E + CORDIAL + [procedur]E. | ||
| 16 | SVENGALI | Mistress finally leaving terrible control freak (8) |
| [mistres]S + LEAVING*. | ||
| 17 | TAVERNER | Publican upended vessel over bird at end of bar (8) |
| VAT< + ERNE + [ba]R. | ||
| 18 | NITROGEN | Changed ringtone element (8) |
| Anagram of RINGTONE. | ||
| 20 | PALTRY | New leader of Labour party is insignificant (6) |
| Anagram of (L[abour] + PARTY). | ||
| 21 | SHERPA | Travel guide tucked into kosher paella (6) |
| Hidden in [ko]SHER PA[ella] | ||
| 25 | VIEW | Struggle with appearance (4) |
| VIE + W. | ||
* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; underlined = definition; Hover to expand abbreviations; BOLD = letters forming part of entries.
I had the same uncertainties, putting in an unconvincing ‘edging’ for 5d until I realised ‘Fish’ was in the plural, and wondering about STAR as an adjective. CORAL as a ‘Teething ring’ was also new, as was RAV for ‘rabbi’.
Wondered if there may be a theme with TITANIC and STAR, but nothing came of it.
A pleasant confidence builder after a few tough ones at the end of last week.
Thanks to Peter and Simon – best of luck for your University course.
In my book idling is going nowhere, not going somewhere slowly.
And isn’t the fish ide
with an e?
David @ 2 & £
I was idling gently along the path…
Chambers definition 1:
id1 /id/ or ide /?d/
noun
A fish (Leuciscus idus), closely related to the chub, inhabiting fresh water in N Europe
hth
What WordPlodder said, except that we had no doubts about STAR.
Thanks, Peter and Simon.
I thought, perhaps apart from 5d (which I didn’t fully understand but is perfectly all right), this was a really nice crossword.
For a solver like me, harder than her previous offerings.
I liked it (perhaps because of that).
Many thanks Simon & Peter.