A super fun puzzle from WANDERER that I found more difficult to parse than to solve! 🙂 Thanks WANDERER for a good solid workout. Lots to like about the puzzle today ..
FF: 10 DD: 9
| Across | ||
| 1 | BERTHA | Shooter with bad breath (6) |
| Â | BREATH*; wiki here | |
| 4 | OBSERVER | Old bachelor, one handling emails for tabloid recently (8) |
| Â | O (old) B (bachelor) SERVER (one handling emails) | |
| 10 | STINKER | Very difficult question from small mischievous child (7) |
| Â | S (small) TINKER (mischievous child) | |
| 11 | SWEATED | Sat around, wife was anxious? (7) |
| Â | SEATED (sat) around W (wife) | |
| 12 | MYTH | A figment of barmy thoughts (4) |
| Â | hidden in “..barMY THoughts” | |
| 13 | KIDNEY BEAN | Child recalled desire to put a stop to eating English food that’s red (6,4) |
| Â | KID (child) NEY (desire = YEN, reversed) [BAN (put a stop to) containing E (english) ] | |
| 16, 17 | NARROW ESCAPES | Close shaves, as pancreas worse after treatment (6,7) |
| Â | PANCREAS WORSE* | |
| 20, 21 | TRIUMPH HERALD | President describes one hotel to usher in classic car (7,6) |
| Â | [TRUMP (preisdent) containing I (one) ] H (hotel) HERALD (usher in) | |
| 24 | RETRACTILE | Capable of being drawn back in by largely select group before president retires (10) |
| Â | reverse of [ ELITe (select group, largely) CARTER (president, jimmy; 39th president of usa) ] | |
| 25 | ECHO | Parrot from Ecuador, originally (4) |
| Â | phonetic alphabet E (Ecuador, originally) | |
| 27 | KON-TIKI | Carp about books one king needed for expedition (3-4) |
| Â | KOI (carp) around [NT (books) I (one) K (king) ] | |
| 29 | SASHIMI | Mash is ordered with one fish dish (7) |
| Â | MASH IS* followed by I (one) | |
| 30 | WELL-NIGH | Almost spring, with shortened hours of darkness (4-4) |
| Â | WELL (spring) NIGHt (hours of darkness, shortened) | |
| 31 | LENGTH | Hospital needed after surprisingly short, gentle stretch (6) |
| Â | GENTLe* (short i.e. without the last letter) H (hospital) | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | BASEMENT | Mammal hiding seed in underground space (8) |
| Â | BAT (mammal) hiding SEMEN (seed) | |
| 2 | REINTERPRET | Give alternative explanation of resistance to film supporting theatre outside Bury (11) |
| Â | [R (resistance) ET (film) ] under (supporting) [ REP (theatre) outside INTER (bury) ] | |
| 3 | HAKE | Topless Wag – a tasty catch for someone (4) |
| Â | sHAKE (wag, without starting letter) | |
| 5, 23 | BUSINESS CLASS | BA option, as part of MBA? (8,5) |
| Â | cryptic def; class of travel on british airways (BA) ; alternatively alluding to what a student pursuing an mba would be sitting in | |
| 6 | EMERY PAPER | Abrasive item Dick possibly found on top of photocopier (5,5) |
| Â | EMERY (dick, possibly; referring to dick emery , comedian) [ P (photo) APER (copier – somone who apes) ] | |
| 7 | VET | Check content of abusive texts (3) |
| Â | hidden in “..abusiVE Texts” | |
| 8 | RODENT | Mammal finding rhubarb outside lair (6) |
| Â | ROT (rhubarb) outside DEN (lair) | |
| 9, 18 | TRAINSPOTTING | Film school on location before Cannes, say? Good! (13) |
| Â | TRAIN (school) SPOT (location) TIN (sounds like can ~ cannes) G (good) | |
| 14 | EYE-CATCHING | Very noticeable ethic agency deployed (3-8) |
| Â | ETHIC AGENCY* | |
| 15 | POPULATION | In brief, 100 is about the current number of inhabitants (10) |
| Â | POPULAr (in, brief) [TON (100) around I (current)] | |
| 18 | Â | See 9 |
| Â | ||
| 19 | ADMONISH | Carpet Simon had fitted? (8) |
| Â | SIMON HAD* | |
| 22 | KRAKOW | Yank regularly featuring in opus about Polish city (6) |
| Â | yAnK (regularly) in KROW (opus = WORK, reversed) | |
| 23 | Â | See 5 |
| Â | ||
| 26 | ISLE | Perhaps a key passage, we hear (4) |
| Â | sounds like AISLE (passage) | |
| 28 | NIL | Nothing to be obtained from detailing River Ouse’s source? (3) |
| Â | double clued; NILe (river, detailed i.e. without last letter) ; O (Ouse, starting letter, zero) | |
*anagram
Thanks for the blog, Turbolegs.
Lovely surfaces throughout, as ever – my particular favourites today were WELL-NIGH, EMERY PAPER [loved ‘photocopier’] TRAINSPOTTING and ADMONISH.
Many thanks, Wanderer, for a ‘super fun puzzle’.
Thanks to setter and blogger.
I parsed the PAPER part of 6d as P (top of Photo) + APER (copier).
I can’t find P as an abbreviation for photo, at least not in Chambers.
Tom_I – that’s how I read it [and why I liked it].
Thanks to Wanderer and Turbolegs. Enjoyable. I did not know the TRIUMPH HERALD, RETRACTILE as opposed to retractable was new to me (ditto for emery board as opposed to EMERY PAPER), and I was slowed down by starting with casement, not BASEMENT.
Yesterday, Paul had 53 comments, the day before Boatman had 99.
Wanderer has 4 so far, he should have had about 60 (closer to Paul than to Boatman, obviously).
Good setter, good crossword.
Thanks Turbolegs & Wanderer.
Well, let’s face it Sil, the Guardian posts do tend to be a bit OTT. Also, a lot of the comments on Boatman were far from favourable.
I agree that this was a good crossword from a good setter. I always appreciate how he lines up all his double-entry clues – can’t be easy.
Saved this for Sunday evening, so a bit late to the party. But an enjoyable solve, though, as Turbolegs says, some answers were more difficult to parse than the clues were to solve.
In 6dn I took ‘found on top of photocopier’ to refer to the way some people take their copies away but leave the original on the copier for the next user to find.
Liked TRIUMPH HERALD – and the other answers split over two lights were good, too.
Thanks, Wanderer and Turbolegs
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
Found this quite challenging but very enjoyable all the same. Â I also had some problems with the parsing of a number of clues and failed to properly work the PAPER part of 6d (what a great clue when it was explained!), didn’t see the workings of POPULATION and only had the NILE part of 26d and a question mark about the ‘Ouse’.
RETRACTILE (rather than retractable) and the TRIUMPH HERALD were both new terms. Â Loved the clue for BUSINESS CLASS but was less enthused with BERTHA (not seen it used before without BIG).
Finished in the SW corner with NIL, KRAKOW (another great clue) and that RETRACTILE as the last few in.