Not the world’s easiest crossword, but it is Thursday after all. No complaints though: a whole lot of very nice clues, and the only holdups were the result of my own incompetence.
Definitions in maroon, underlined. Anagram indicators in italics.
As usual I can see nothing special happening, but you may be able to.
| Across | ||
| 1 | ANAEMIC | Spooks surrounding base after revolution that’s bloodless (7) |
| (CI(mean)A)rev. | ||
| 5 | CAPABLE | Impossible to avoid denying Spanish girl is qualified (7) |
| {ines}capable — Ines is the Spanish girl | ||
| 9 | ENNUI | Dissatisfaction seen in Nubia at regular intervals (5) |
| {s}e{e}n {i}n {N}u{b}i{a} | ||
| 10 | SCINTILLA | Wrong type of steering device, some say, could produce a spark (9) |
| “sin tiller” | ||
| 11 | DICK CHENEY | Hawk, cock and hen in church yard (4,6) |
| dick [= cock; it had to be that meaning of cock, didn’t it] C(hen)E y | ||
| 12 | UNIT | One group of workers not on time (4) |
| uni{on} t | ||
| 14 | ULTRAMODERN | New sort of mortal, curiously under wraps (11) |
| *(mortal) in *(under), wraps a verb — I had ultramonder for a while: so far as I can see from Google the word ultramond is connected to some computer game and I suspected that this word was a very modern one that the dictionaries hadn’t caught up with yet | ||
| 18 | SWISS CHEESE | Son’s prudent to accept visit round school – it’s full of holes (5,6) |
| S wi(s(sch)ee)se | ||
| 21 | ARGO | A constellation in the past? That’s about right (4) |
| a(r)go | ||
| 22 | STRONGHOLD | Keep provoking Hardy and Nelson? (10) |
| strong [= hardy] hold [= nelson?] — but what about provoking? Presumably it’s a link-word, at least that’s the only explanation I can give. | ||
| 25 | DANCE HALL | Chad Allen trips in ballroom (5,4) |
| (Chad Allen)* — this is Chad Allen, of whom I’d never heard | ||
| 26 | AGGRO | Some scallywag group’s belligerent behaviour (5) |
| Hidden in scallywAG GROup | ||
| 27 | RELENTS | Advanced research all round is slackening (7) |
| re(lent)s. — res. = research | ||
| 28 | TIDINGS | Container full of papers and grammar school reports (7) |
| t(ID)in GS | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | AGENDA | Items up for discussion: time and bucks (6) |
| age (and)* | ||
| 2 | ARNICA | African after injury refuses foot ointment? (6) |
| (A{f}rican)* — does f = foot? Well not in Collins so far as I can see, but it’s in Chambers; not what I would have expected, though. | ||
| 3 | MAIN COURSE | A substantial amount to digest in principal series of lectures? (4,6) |
| 2 defs | ||
| 4 | CASTE | Man on board dismisses Latin class (5) |
| cast(L)e — well that’s if you don’t play chess or are a young child — but to do Wiglaf justice it’s in the usual dictionaries, although in Chanbers it does say ‘(informal or childish)’ | ||
| 5 | CRIME WAVE | One thousand English and Welsh dons long to see rise in vice (5,4) |
| cr(1 M E W)ave, dons a verb, as it so often is in crosswords | ||
| 6 | PITT | Leaders of Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership rebuffed prime minister (4) |
| First letters reversed | ||
| 7 | BALANCED | Auntie is supposedly wrong to conceal weapon (8) |
| ba(lance)d — Auntie refers to the BBC, which is supposedly balanced | ||
| 8 | EXACTING | Tough old deputy (8) |
| ex- [= old] acting | ||
| 13 | FOREIGN AID | Institute of Reading organised financial assistance (7,3) |
| (I of Reading)* | ||
| 15 | TAHITIANS | Saint Itha converted some 16s (9) |
| (Saint Itha)* — 16 is ISLANDERS — never heard of her, and you don’t need to know anyway, but this is who Saint Itha is | ||
| 16 | ISLANDER | Maybe Corfiot and I throw dirt (8) |
| I slander [= throw dirt] — this one it was a help to know: you might guess that a Corfiot is an islander: it’s a group of people from Corfu — actually I didn’t guess this last bit, thinking that Corfiot was some fictional character, but the wordplay + checkers made it easy enough | ||
| 17 | VIRGINAL | Antique keyboard in immaculate condition (8) |
| 2 defs | ||
| 19 | NOGGIN | Gill usually gives head (6) |
| A noggin in a pub is usually measured by the gill, a unit of measurement, which those of a certain age know is a quarter of a pint — no, hardly in a pub, for the measurement you’re more likely to get there is 1/1000 of a pint — more Indy dirt in the surface | ||
| 20 | ODIOUS | It’s unpleasant lacking funds with financial liabilities (6) |
| O/D [= overdrawn] IOUs | ||
| 23 | OWLET | Junior member of parliament stuck in Glasgow letterbox (5) |
| Hidden in GlasgOW LETterbox — a parliament of owls | ||
| 24 | SEWN | Needled by 28 after swapping sides (4) |
| 28 being TIDINGS, = news, you swap the end letters of news | ||
*anagram
Found this easier than normal for a Wiglaf. Managed to complete without any aids. LOI was BALANCED, taking me a little while to realise Auntie was the Beeb, but got there in the end. I also wasn’t keen on ‘provoking’ in 22a, but just about works as a link word. Don’t think the surface needs it but does read a little better with.
Thanks to Wiglaf and John.
DICK CHENEY alone made this worth doing and there were other good clues such as OWLET (OK, a bit of a chestnut but I still liked it) and BALANCED. My only suggestion about the use of ‘provoking’ in 22a is that it may be meant to refer to the STRONG HOLD, figuratively speaking, between the dying Nelson and Hardy, as evidenced by ‘Kiss me, Hardy’.
I don’t know if it’s just me, but Wiglaf seems to be getting a bit gentler. I’m not complaining!
Thanks to Wiglaf and John.
Loved this. Agree it’s not as hard as previous ones, but now very smooth and just as clever.
DICK CHENEY, ULTRAMODERN, AGENDA, BALANCED, STRONGHOLD, NOGGIN (my m-in-law is gill, made me laugh and want to throw up), TIDINGS all enjoyed.
Maybe provoking is just (as given in Chambers) calling up, summoning, as in suggesting.
Thanks Wiglaf, John
Yes, maybe not quite as tough as the usual Wiglaf, but I still found this pretty tricky. Didn’t quite finish unaided, but the one I wordfindered was EXACTING – hardly a hard one, so a real self-kick. (I do have a habit of failing to get chestnuts; my memory is almost as bad as my anagram-solving ability, so I frequently have to reinvent the wheel.) Once that went in, UNIT followed (liked it) and finally BALANCED (not quite sold on this way of defining).
Had to verify the other meaning of NOGGIN but it raised a laugh as well as at least one eyebrow.
Other likes include RELENTS, TIDINGS, ODIOUS and OWLET.
Thanks Wiglaf and John.
Didn’t like the ‘humour’ in 11a but enjoyed both SCINTILLA and EXACTING.
Thanks to Wiglaf and to John for the review.
We got there in the end after struggling with the NE corner. We guessed 5dn had to contain the sequence -MEW- but took ages to see it as CRIME WAVE, which the helped us see ULTRAMODERN (strangely, not in Chambers though it is in Collins) and then the rest followed. Last in, though, were in the SW corner, SEWN and RELENTS.
OWLET may be a bit of a chestnut but it was our CoD for the mental image of an MP stuck in a letterbox!
We always thought the keyboard instrument was ‘virginals’ (plural) but on checking in the Oxford Dictionary of Music we se it can be simply VIRGINAL.
Thanks, Wiglaf and John.
Not too many problems. so easy – for a Thursday. Took me ages to see 27ac, though, my LOI.
Worth printing out for DICK CHENEY alone!
Thanks John and Wiglaf