Easy in some parts, tricky in others. A very pleasant start the day, thank you Gozo.
The theme is plants. I am a hopeless gardener. I had at least heard of most of them but had to make a guess at a couple from the wordplay.
| Across | ||
| 1 | PRIMROSE | Writing round the border (8) |
PROSE (writing) contains (round) RIM (the border) |
||
| 5 | VIOLET | Unrestrained number left (6) |
VIOLEnT (unrestrained) missing (left) N (number) |
||
| 9 | WISTERIA | Huns leaving White Russian bewildered (8) |
anagram (bewildered) of WhITE RusSIAn missing HUNS |
||
| 10 | CACTUS | Caught you and me in the act? No! (6) |
C (caught) then US (you and me) contains ACT – the opposite (no!) of US in C ACT |
||
| 12 | TANSY | Partners playing bridge in river (5) |
N and S (partners in bridge) in TAY (the River Tay) |
||
| 13 | FORSYTHIA | New history about the Football Association. Quite the opposite (9) |
FA (the Football Association) contains (about) an anagram (new) of HISTORY – the opposite of HISTORY containing FA |
||
| 14 | TEASEL | Oddly, they answer to Liberal leader (6) |
odd letters of ThE AnSwEr then Liberal (leading letter of) |
||
| 16 | TEA ROSE | Got up after meal (3,4) |
ROSE (got up) following (after) TEA (meal) |
||
| 19 | ANEMONE | Individual taking new name first (7) |
ONE (individual) follows (taking…first) anagram (new) of NAME |
||
| 21 | OXEYES | Dog’s heart. Certainly (6) |
the middle letters (heart) of bOXEr (a dog) then YES (certainly) |
||
| 23 | DANDELION | Daughter vetted on-line ad (9) |
D (daughter) then anagram (vetted) of ON-LINE AD |
||
| 25 | BUGLE | Blue and golden odd bits (5) |
the odd letters of BlUe and GoLdEn |
||
| 26 | ORCHID | Old king and offspring reported (6) |
O (old) R (rex, king) then CHID sounds like (reported) “kid” (offspring) |
||
| 27 | FUMITORY | If returned without hesitation to party member (8) |
IF reversed (returned) contains (without) UM (hesitation) then TORY ( a member of the Conservative party) |
||
| 28 | SORREL | Steamroller dismantled, metal components thrown out (6) |
anagram (dismantled) of StEamROLleR with the letters (components) of METAL removed (thrown out) |
||
| 29 | SELFHEAL | Renegotiated Hall’s fee (8) |
anagram (renegotiated) of HALL’S FEE |
||
| Down | ||
| 1 | PEWITS | Birds taking exercise with humorists (6) |
| PE (physical exercise) with WITS (humorists) | ||
| 2 | INSINCERE | Elected because half were fake (9) |
| IN (elected) SINCE (because) weRE (half of) | ||
| 3 | REEDY | Eyes bigger than stomach, missing starter to get thin (5) |
| gREEDY (eyes bigger than stomach) missing starting letter | ||
| 4 | SKILFUL | Capable Silk led astray. Corrupted, nothing less (7) |
| anagram (astray) of SILK them FoUL (corrupted) missing (less) O (nothing) | ||
| 6 | IN ANY CASE | No matter where and how you pack – whatever! (2,3,4) |
| double/cryptic definition | ||
| 7 | LATCH | Lock for a door left at church (5) |
| L (left) AT CH (church) | ||
| 8 | TESTATES | Note declares they have a will (8) |
| TE (note, music) then STATES (declares) | ||
| 11 | FRET | Worry about appearing in here? (4) |
| RE (regarding, about) in FT (here, the newspaper) | ||
| 15 | SCORELINE | High priest, derided endlessly about result (9) |
| ELI (high priest) inside (with…about) SCORNEd (derided, endlessly) | ||
| 17 | OVEN GLOVE | Kitchener may have had a hand in this (4,5) |
| cryptic definition – a “kitchener” might be someone who works in a kitchen | ||
| 18 | EARDROPS | Timeless indicators of crying that may relieve any listener (8) |
| tEARDROPS (indicators of crying) missing T (time) | ||
| 20 | EMIR | Muslim ruler mentioned in the Mirror (4) |
| found inside (mentioned in) thE MIRror | ||
| 21 | OF NO USE | Unemployable boffin regularly on river (2,2,3) |
| every other letter (regularly) of bOfFiN on OUSE (the River Ouse) | ||
| 22 | JEKYLL | Horticulturist’s literary counterpart (6) |
| the alter ego (literary counterpart) in the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – Gertrude Jekyll garden designer | ||
| 24 | NICER | More pleasant at French city with a drop of red (5) |
| NICE (French city) with Red (first letter, a drop of) | ||
| 25 | BRIEF | Short letter for Fritz (5) |
| BRIEF means “letter” in German (for Fritz) | ||
definitions are underlined
I write these posts to help people get started with cryptic crosswords. If there is something here you do not understand ask a question; there are probably others wondering the same thing.
Got through this pretty quickly. Enjoyable all the same, I found the across clues, in most cases, easier than the down clues.
What with this and Chifonie in the Guardian, a nice Wednesday twosome. Probably the calm before tomorrow’s storm.
Many thanks Gozo and PeeDee.
Thanks to Gozo and PeeDee. I did much better than anticipated with this setter (often I get nowhere), partly because my first in was TEA ROSE so that most of the themed items followed suit. However, the SE corner defeated me. I correctly guessed BRIEF without parsing it, got SELFHEAL after much experimenting with the anagram, but could not untangle FUMITORY and was totally stumped by JEKYLL.
Was stumped by selfheal and tansy and a couple of other flowers, names of which I hadn’t heard of. Thank you PEEDEE for the lovely pictures with the answers
Thanks Gozo and PeeDee
A slightly easier than normal for this setter, helped along by getting PRIMROSE and then WISTERIA as the second / third entry to expose the theme very early.
The only plants that I didn’t know were FUMITORY, BUGLE and SELFHEAL, but the wordplay was fair enough to be able to construct the answer and then verify them in a dictionary.
Liked the two subtraction anagrams and finished in the SE corner with BRIEF (some new learning of the German language) and JEKYLL (where I had to check to see if there was a gardener of that name) as the last two in.