A tough offering from Redshank today. I struggled from start to finish and had to do this over multiple settings. Very fair clues , and a solid challenge, as can be expected from this setter. Thanks Redshank!
FF: 7 DD : 10
| Across | ||
| 1 | MATRIX | Fools follow PM on air, making case for growth? (6) |
| sounds like TRICKS (fools) after sounds like MAY (PM, uk) | ||
| 4 | QUATRAIN | Verse, one of five impressing a West End academician (8) |
| QUIN (one of five) containing [ A T (wesT, end) RA (academician) ] | ||
| 9 | SUPPLY | Drink and work flexibly (6) |
| SUP (drink) PLY (work) | ||
| 10 | FINALISE | Boxer’s breaking superb clinch (8) |
| ALI’S (boxer’s) in FINE (superb) | ||
| 12 | ELAN | Line in each number shows flair (4) |
| L (line) in [ EA (each) N (number) ] | ||
| 13 | OFF THE WALL | Wacky way to play squash? (3,3,4) |
| double def | ||
| 15 | RECALCITRANT | Mostly remember tirade about citation that’s perverse (12) |
| RECALl (remember, mostly) CIT (citation) RANT (tirade) | ||
| 18 | HABEAS CORPUS | Rebus has a cop trained in order to appear in court (6,6) |
| REBUS HAS A COP* | ||
| 21 | CROSSBONES | Angry doctor often portrayed with skull (10) |
| CROSS (angry) BONES (doctor) | ||
| 22 | FRET | Worry about filling this paper (4) |
| RE (about) in FT (this paper) | ||
| 24 | EGGHEADS | Quiz experts beaten at breakfast? (8) |
| cryptic def | ||
| 25 | WEAVER | He tends to loom and dither over everything at first (6) |
| WAVER (dither) over E (Everything, first letter) | ||
| 26 | APERTURE | Opening a smart university about to close (8) |
| A PERT (smart) U (university) RE (about) | ||
| 27 | PUBLIC | Prominent suburbs of Dublin missing in postcard (6) |
| UBLI (inner letters of dUBLIn) in PC (postcard) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | MUSKETRY | Old soldiers have to track round half of Kent (8) |
| [MUST (have to) RY (track, railway)] around KE (half of KEnt) | ||
| 2 | TAP DANCE | Definitely don’t shuffle or hit ball (3,5) |
| TAP (hit) DANCE (ball) | ||
| 3 | IDLE | Paid less essentially? (4) |
| &lit; hidden in “paID LEss..” | ||
| 5 | UNINTERESTED | Indifferent coach enters boring team (12) |
| ENTERS* in UNITED (team) | ||
| 6 | TRADE UNION | Deal with college running labour group (5,5) |
| TRADE (deal) UNI (college) ON (running) | ||
| 7 | ANIMAL | Writer’s obsessed cradling pig (6) |
| ANAL (obsessed) containing I’M (writer’s) | ||
| 8 | NEEDLE | Mainly unwarranted hype (6) |
| NEEDLEss (unwarranted, mainly) – hype referring to hypodermic needle | ||
| 11 | OFFICE-HOLDER | Person supervising ring binder about chief suspect (6-6) |
| O (ring) [ FOLDER (binder) around CHIEF* ] | ||
| 14 | CLEANSHEET | What keeper wants that depresses author? (5,5) |
| cryptic def | ||
| 16 | APPROVAL | Software runs cricket ground OK (8) |
| APP (software) R (runs) OVAL (cricket ground) | ||
| 17 | ESOTERIC | Hard to grasp drunk in east Morecambe (8) |
| SOT (drunk) in [ E (east) ERIC (morecambe) ] | ||
| 19 | ECZEMA | MacKenzie’s poorly, shedding skin, due to this? (6) |
| semi &lit; MACkEnZiEs* (without the letters of SKIN) | ||
| 20 | MORGUE | Where to find stiff chap briefly stopping extra (6) |
| GUy (chap, briefly) in MORE (extra) | ||
| 23 | BEAU | Maybe author pens The Dandy (4) |
| hidden in “mayBE AUthor..” | ||
*anagram
I surrender: well done, Turbolegs. I just couldn’t get 10ac, 7dn or 8dn. But no complaints — Redshank got me fair and square, and I had a great time persevering.
Thanks to Redshank and Turbolegs. With this puzzle I did a lot of working with definition, then parsing, though I had trouble with OFFICE HOLDER, ANIMAL, and the tap in TAP DANCE.
My first Redshank and I enjoyed it a lot. Nothing caused me too much difficulty – quite possibly a ‘wavelength’ thing. But I wasn’t quite convinced by EGGHEADS – well if you scramble them for breakfast, I guess you beat the eggs, but where does the ‘heads’ come from? A bit dubious about IDLE too at the time, looking for a containment indicator, but it is, of course, an &lit, as you say. Failed to parse ANIMAL so thanks for explaining that. UNINTERESTED my favourite for the great surface. “boring team”, indeed. Thanks Redshank for the nice puzzle and Turbolegs for the great blog.
Thanks Redshank and Turbolegs
Johninterred @ 3: my take on 24 was boiled eggs, where you can either take a knife and slice the top/head off, or beat the top/head to crack the shell and remove the bits by hand.
Managed to finish this in a reasonable time without too many hold-ups, helped by QUATRAIN appearing elsewhere today.
Thanks for explaining UNINTERESTED which I couldn’t parse. I liked the economical IDLE &lit and the surface of 13a. Looking forward to an ‘ernie’ for ‘wise’ some day – I might be waiting a while.
Thanks to Redshank and to his powered cousin blogger.
Thanks Turbolegs and Redshank.
Superb puzzle. Hard but scrupulously fair. Thanks for parsing QUATRAIN and OFFICE-HOLDER. I was messing with OFFICRR and was stuck.
That was OFFICER..
For some reason my comment becomes jumbled up with Name Email Website boxes below in Samsug tablet
Samsung.
Much later to the party than usual – just in from a stunning tour performance of Les Mis [‘TheGlums’] – lovely puzzle overall but just had to record my admiration for 18ac.
Thanks to Radian and Turbolegs
Thanks Redshank and Turbolegs
Found this pretty challenging too – starting it quite late on Friday evening and then having to finish it off next morning. A lot of tricky charades, his traditional subtraction anagram and a couple that I wasn’t a 100% happy with.
I did like OFF THE WALL, the tricky definition of NEEDLE and the construction of RECALCITRANT.
Finished in the SW corner with EGGHEAD (one of the dubious ones – see that one might cut it off a boiled egg, don’t know about beating it though), MORGUE (where I needed the G to get CORPSE out of my line of thinking) and ANIMAL (where I would’ve expected a ? with the definition by example). Still an very enjoyable solve !
Still don’t see where you get “heads” in EGGHEADS. The suggestion about boiled eggs isn’t plausible to me; the eggs here are beaten, not boiled. Dubious.