The usual Paul solving experience for me: get nowhere at first and then all falls into place once I have got into his mindset again. Thanks Paul, good fun as always.
| Across | ||
| 1 | SPIRIT | Presence of character (6) |
| double definition | ||
| 4 | DODGEM | Gripping wheel, daughters treasure fairground ride (6) |
| DD (daughter, two of) contains (gripping) O (wheel, something round) then GEM (treasure) – I have not seen this singular before now | ||
| 9, 7 | FATA MORGANA | Deceit’s back in anagram of “a hazy mirage” (4,7) |
| DeceiT (back letter of) in anagram (hazy) of ANAGRAM OF A | ||
| 10 | CHAIN STORE | Commercial establishment isn’t entertaining head of staff in routine job (5,5) |
| AINT (isn’t) contains (entertaining) Staff (first letter, head of) in CHORE (routine job) | ||
| 11 | See 16 | |
| 12 | PERUVIAN | National sport in Green Park initially rejected (8) |
| RU (Rugby Union, a sport) inside NAIVE (green) P (park) reversed (rejected) a national of Peru | ||
| 13 | BARBARITY | Savagery in pubs, it ending in affray (9) |
| BAR BAR (pub, twice) then IT and affraY (ending letter of) | ||
| 15 | URSA | Bear fur, say, skinned (4) |
| fUR SAy with no outside letters (skinned) | ||
| 16, 11 | TONY CURTIS | New country with its old player (4,6) |
| anagram (new) of COUNTRY with ITS – an old actor | ||
| 17 | GHOST TOWN | Wearing dress, emcee beginning to tremble as place emptied (5,4) |
| HOST (emcee) Tremble (beginning letter to) inside (wearing) GOWN (dress) | ||
| 21 | EUROPIUM | Rare earth element cut out with impure rocks (8) |
| anagram (rocks) of OUt (cut short) with IMPURE | ||
| 22 | REHASH | What feeds ill-considered second use of an idea? (6) |
| EH (what) inside (feeds) RASH (ill-considered) | ||
| 24 | SHORT STORY | Work of Maupassant, perhaps in schoolboy attire, blue (5,5) |
| SHORTS (schoolboy attire) then TORY (blue, a Conservative) | ||
| 25 | UTAH | Book doesn’t start to cover a state (4) |
| rUTH (book of the Bible, not starting) contains (to cover) A | ||
| 26 | See 23 | |
| 27 | BREEZE | No great effort to produce wind (6) |
| double definition | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | SPATULA | Implement — it is inspiring me to collect last of fondant? (7) |
| SA (sex appeal, it) contains (inspiring) PAUL (me, the setter) and fondanT (last letter of) | ||
| 2, 6 | I CAN’T GET OVER IT | It’s hard to accept that my pants keep getting caught on the stile? (1,4,3,4,2) |
| double/cryptic definition | ||
| 3 | INCISOR | Icons at sea in Irish cutter (7) |
| anagram (at sea) of ICONS in IR (Irish) | ||
| 5 | OWNERS | Those in debt stuffed by new landlords, say? (6) |
| OWERS (those in debt) contains (stuffed by) N (new) | ||
| 6 | See 2 | |
| 7 | See 9 | |
| 8 | CARPET SHAMPOO | Beetle, dog, cat, budgie and pig manure cleaner (6,7) |
| CAR (a Beetle perhaps) PETS (dog, cat, budgie perhaps) HAM (pig) then POO (manure) | ||
| 14 | BONGO DRUM | Try to break stick on unusual percussion instrument (5,4) |
| GO (try) inside (to break) BOND (stick) then RUM (odd) | ||
| 16 | TOUGHEN | Reinforce huge churns in vast weight (7) |
| anagram (churns) of HUGE in TON (vast weight) | ||
| 18 | SPRAYER | Can of deodorant, say, close to armpits on monk, perhaps? (7) |
| armpitS (closing letter of) on PRAYER (someone who prays, a monk perhaps) – something that sprays | ||
| 19 | WASTAGE | A rutter in the Guardian — how much lost? (7) |
| A STAG (something that ruts) in WE (The Guardian) | ||
| 20 | TISSUE | Broadsheet ultimately put out weak paper (6) |
| broadsheeT (ultimately, last letter) then ISSUE (put out) | ||
| 23, 26 | HOUSE NUMBER | One river carrying another over neighbour’s head, how might property be located? (5,6) |
| HUMBER (one river) contains (carrying) OUSE (another river) all containing (over) Neighbour (first letter, head of) | ||
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.
Thanks PeeDee. I found that many of the answers in the lower half wrote themselves in but the upper half took rather more time. I liked 9,7, it’s a nice touch to have the letters of ‘anagram’ as part of an anagram. I had to seek confirmation of the answer though. Given the G in 4a I kept trying to fit ‘cog’ for gripping wheel in somehow and failed to see the pretty obvious for longer than I should have. LOI was 1d, I knew the answer but again took too long to explain it.
Many thanks Paul and PeeDee. Highlights: having the word “anagram” as part of the clue (9, 7); and 8d CARPET SHAMPOO for its sheer brilliant daftness. (Yes “beetle” maybe should have had a definition by example indicator, but who cares.)
Thanks PeeDee. Odd how the 2,6 phrase went in with a single crosser while LOI was 1 across, with three of them – but that was a strange clue, with its distracting ‘of.’ Numerous ticks, eg for TONY CURTIS and REHASH .
Thanks to Paul and PeeDee. At my first pass I got very little, but a day later things started to fall into place, and the crossers were a big help. I did not know EUROPIUM but it did emerge from the clues and HOUSE NUMBER took a long time, but I did finish.
An enjoyable Prize Puzzle last week from Paul. Favourites were 25a UTAH and 2,6d I CAN’T GET OVER IT. Like ACD@4, I had EUROPIUM circled as unfamiliar, but it was gettable. Fortunately I knew 9a,7d FATA MORGANA from sailing. I needed help to parse 14d BONGO DRUM, though now I can’t see why. Appreciation to Paul and PeeDee.
A mainly enjoyable puzzle but I didn’t think that 2,6 dn or 8 dn worked very well.
Thanks to Paul and to PeeDee.
Thank you Paul and PeeDee.
It took me a while to spot URSA and I tried to fit Moravian into 12a, but it would not parse of course, and Moravia is an historical country anyway. I particularly liked the clues for FATA MORGANA and I CAN’T GET OVER IT!
Thank you yet again Paul, a delight as ever. And thank you PeeDee for clearing up a few parsing issues (9/7 & 1dn). My favourites were 14 & 16/11 though, having got the T, I wanted the latter to be Tape something for far too long so missed the anagram as a result. Sigh.
Thanks to Paul and PeeDee for a (relatively) gentle Saturday solve.
I thought at first that 24ac might be something Guide, as in the joke about the Oxford bookshop:
Customer: “Do you have the Guide Michelin?”
Assistant: “No, but we do have Guy de Maupassant.”
Marienkaefer: I genuinely overheard this in W H Smith once:
Assistant: (triumphantly producing a copy of Kerrang!, the heavy metal magazine) “Here you are.”
Customer: “Oh, no, I was asking if you had a copy of the Koran.”
Nice one, Marienkaefer! No question marks or comments (e.g. slow!, d’oh, groan) written next to any clues on my printout, so I guess it must have been a comparative cruise for a prize. Do have ‘dnk?’ next to fata morgana, meaning Do I have a vague memory of this, or am I imagining it? (This is a not uncommon marker; hope it’s not a symptom; hey ho).
Thanks Paul and PeeDee.
FATA MORGANA was new to me, but I did like the clue – as Biggles A @ 1 said, nice to see such a neat use of ‘anagram’. I actually managed to parse everything, which isn’t always the case by any means, although I wrote in PERUVIAN right at the very end because it just had to be the answer and only worked out why when I came back later and looked at it again. I did like 8, particularly the Beetle part. Thanks, Paul. Thanks PeeDee.
Thanks to Paul and PeeDee. My experience sounds like many others, a slow start followed by a steady solve. Last one was Fata Morgana which I eventually managed to drag up from the depths. I quite liked I can’t get over it, carpet shampoo and short story. Thanks again to Paul and PeeDee.
No real problems with this. I had heard of Fata Morgana, though I couldn’t remember what it meant. I also had to construct EUROPIUM from wordplay and confirm. I rather like BONGO DRUM, looking back, and wonder why it took me so long to get. Had to laugh at 2,6 (FOI).
@Cookie, I was also considering Moravian for a while. It was realising that RU was the sport that pointed me to the right area of the world.
@Peedee, in 16,11, I read “old” as referring to “its” (“’tis” = an old form of “it’s”), rather than the actor, but I suppose it works either way.
Tony – I like your way better
🙂
I enjoyed this. I liked FATA MORGANA which I remembered as a novel by William Kotzwinkel but my favourite was TONY CURTIS who gave his name to the haircut sported by every self respecting rocker. I’ve still got the remains of mine!
Thanks Paul.
Bit late to be commenting, but just to add my vote of thanks to setter & blogger.
Fata Morgana is a top=notch clue; there cannot be many other anagrams of ANAGRAM which must be quite a feat of construction.
The clue for CARPET SHAMPOO is also worth a mention – the kind of thing you could easily show to a non-cryptic crossword solver to excite their interest and yet challenging enough to not be a write-in.
My LoI was the rather trivial 1A SPIRIT — as someone mentioned earlier, the wording is a bit ambiguous.
But, all said a fine puzzle, well explained. Thanks Paul, thanks PeeDee.