Interesting puzzle. No complaints, but it does contain 3 clues with valid alternative solutions…
Thanks to Slormgorm for the head-scratchers. Two of the clues were only confirmable with the crossers and one remains unresolved. All comments welcome.
| Across | ||
| 1 | LIBERTINE | Dissolute type, 51, with beer tin (drunk) (9) |
| LI (50, Roman numerals) + anagram (‘drunk’) of BEER TIN. | ||
| 6 | ADDER | Run away from large snake (5) |
| (L)ADDER (‘run’ in a stocking, say) with L[arge] omitted, tho’ the indicators feel a bit wrong-footed. | ||
| 9 | CORAL | Collective group creating an offshore bank? (5) |
| Whole-clue cryptic and qute a nice one. But I wonder how many others confidentally entered SHOAL before crossers? | ||
| 10 | SEDATIVES | Relaxing agents small criminal evades around half-time (9) |
| S[mall] + anagram (‘criminal’) of EVADES around TI (‘half TIme’). | ||
| 11 | EMERY BOARD | Maybe order hammers for one tidying nails? (5,5) |
| Anagram (‘hammers’) of MAYBE ORDER. | ||
| 12 | USED | Did drugs undo some ecstatic dancers’ heads? (4) |
| 1st letters (‘heads’) of words 3-6 in clue, | ||
| 14 | HADDOCK | Fish a theologian smothered in German wine (7) |
| A + DD (‘theologian’) in HOCK (‘German wine’). | ||
| 15 | EMOTION | Top-selling book about fear, perhaps (7) |
| NO 1 TOME, reversed. | ||
| 17 | ARRANGE | Sort out a group of products to be picked up (7) |
| Homophone (‘picked up’) of ‘a range’ (= ‘group of products’). | ||
| 19 | CHEAPIE | Inexpensive tea and pastry-dish earl tucks into (7) |
| CHA (‘tea’) + PIE (‘pastry-dish’) surround E[arl]. Always seen this as a noun but Chambers gives “…(also adjective)”. | ||
| 20 | SCAM | Flipping Apple products can be a con (4) |
| MACS, reversed. | ||
| 22 | TAMBOURINE | Miner about to reassemble percussion instrument (10) |
| Anagram (‘to reassemble’) of MINER ABOUT. | ||
| 25 | ANIMATION | A land-locked island male visits in cartoon (9) |
| A, then I[sland] in NATION (hence ‘land-locked’) surrounds M[ale]. | ||
| 26 | NEARS | Advances towards new listening devices? (5) |
| N[ew] EARS. | ||
| 27 | DENIM | Material dug up on revolution (5) |
| MINED, reversed. | ||
| 28 | NOTORIETY | I note Tory out for ill-gotten fame (9) |
| Anagram (‘OUT’) of I NOTE TORY. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | LUCRE | Temptation to steal bit of company cash (5) |
| LURE (‘temptation’) includes C(ompany). | ||
| 2 | BARTENDER | Render tab to be resolved? I might! (9) |
| Anagram (‘to be resolved’) of RENDER TAB. | ||
| 3 | RALLY ROUND | Come to the aid of motor race’s circuit (5,5) |
| RALLY (‘motor race’) + ROUND (‘circuit’). | ||
| 4 | IN STOCK | Where investors keep their cash ready for buying? (2,5) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 5 | ENDORSE | Back steed taking first after tip (7) |
| hORSE (a ‘steed’ without 1st letter) after END (‘tip’). | ||
| 6 | ARTY | Penniless person into paintings and such? (4) |
| pARTY, (a ‘person’) minus P[enny]. | ||
| 7 | DIVES | Singers making a bit of error with dodgy bars (5) |
| Or DIVAS. The wordplay for both involves swapping E (‘bit of Error’) for A or vice-versa: from the grammar, I think DIVES just shades it. | ||
| 8 | RESIDENCE | You might say flat rice needs to be stirred up (9) |
| Anagram of RICE NEEDS. | ||
| 13 | FORERUNNER | Predecessor’s warning given to potential successor? (10) |
| FORE! (a ‘warning’) + RUNNER or ‘potential successor’, which does double duty as the definition. | ||
| 14 | HEADSTAND | An exercise to give one an Aussie’s point of view? (9) |
| Cryptic. And, again, hands up (or down): who had HANDSTAND before crossers? | ||
| 16 | IN PRIVATE | Where army rations end up behind closed doors (2,7) |
| Double definition, the 1st a whimsical def of possible destination of military food. | ||
| 18 | ELATION | Joyous feeling after Congress removes its limits (7) |
| rELATIONs (= ‘congress’ or sex) without 1st & last letters (‘limits’). | ||
| 19 | CABINET | Taxi I pull in for governmental group (7) |
| CAB + I + NET (to ‘pull in’). | ||
| 21 | AVIAN | A vehicle conveying head of institute of birds (5) |
| A + VAN contain head of I(nstitute). | ||
| 23 | ESSAY | Leaders of Ecuador soft-soaped by state paper (5) |
| 1ST letters of E(cuador) + S(oft…) + SAY (‘state’). | ||
| 24 | WARM | Friendly wife hurt after divorce from husband (4) |
| W[ife] + hARM (‘hurt’) without H[usband]. | ||
*anagram
Gentle and just what I needed as I wait for my third flat tyre in as many weeks to be repaired. I had HANDSTAND, shoal did not occur to me, and I think “making a bit off error” is unambiguous, as in changing A to bit of error, it’s the A that changes into something else.
Many thanks SLORMGORM and Grant
Thanks Slormgorm and Grant
A nice steady puzzle that took a little while to get started but then proceeded without too many hitches.
I was a HANDSTAND entrant at first until ARRANGE presented a bit later. It was always gunna be CORAL at 11 … just had to get my head around what was going on with the word play for a while.
Finished in the NE corner with SEDATIVES, ARTY (after getting the legal sense of a person) and DIVES (after initially writing in DIVAS and then with a second look saw that it should be the A being replaced by an E).
To Dutch, just to keep the conversation going…
Re DIVAS/DIVES. My problem is with ‘with’ as the surface-filler, to coin a phrase. As you – and I, I guess – would say, the word ‘with’ simply means ‘equals’ or something like ‘will do for’. My alternative in full would read something like “With (the phrase) “dodgy bars” (‘dives’), were one to ‘make’ the ‘E’ into an ‘A’, then ‘singers’ would result”.
I’ve never liked loose words like ‘with’ in surfaces. They’re what put folks off cryptics.
Thanks to setter and blogger.
A good steady solve, though I also started out with HANDSTAND, and entered DIVAS before working through the clue more carefully. I didn’t attempt 9 until I had the crossers, so it had to be CORAL.
I found this reasonably kind without too many difficult clues although I was another with an initial ‘handstand’. At least I didn’t have the ‘divas’/DIVES problem as the ‘Singers’ I incorrectly thought of were of the avian variety, though as a result I missed the details of the parsing.
I liked ELATION which is a trademark clue from this setter, in at least one of his incarnations anyway.
Thanks to Slormgorm and Grant
Thanks to Slormgorm and Grant. Since I got ARRANGE first, I was not tempted by Headstand and also started with CORAL, but I ended up choosing DIVAS.
Agree with Grant @3. “with dodgy bars” cannot clue a noun. Replace “with” by “in” and I think it’s just about sound.
SHOAL is a better answer than CORAL in my view, making the clue a proper cryptic DD clue, rather than a hated CD, but LUCRE was by first in, so the red herring did not occur to me.
Thanks Slormgorm and GB
I disagree with your parsing of 13, Grant. There’s no double duty, as FORERUNNER = Predecessor, which is the definition, not ‘potential successor’.
Hi grant,
just to keep the conversation going 😉
I think “with” is a link. WORDPLAY with DEFINITION. It is not my favourite link, but I have used it myself so any criticism would hypocritical. I tried hard to follow your reasoning, but i think i lost it with “were one to make the E into an A”, because try as i may, I can’t get “making a bit of error” to mean that. But I am no doubt locked into my first reading of the clue, I’m certainly not saying that it is impossible to read it another way. And I did fill in handstand!
cheers
goujeers @7
as per my message @9, “with” is not part of the definition. The definition is “dodgy bars”. However, “in” is a valid alternative link, WORDPLAY in DEFINITION, which also makes for a nice clue.
having said that, some purists prefer definition “in” wordplay