A straightforward and speedy Tuesday solve.
All solidly clued, done and dusted in two passes, and a stroll in the park compared with last Tuesday’s fiendish Hamilton. Thanks, Gurney.
| Across | ||
| 1 | SOFT SELL | Gentle persuasion very much associated with paper by group reportedly (4,4) |
| SO (‘very much’) + FT (this ‘paper’) + homophone of CELL (‘group’). | ||
| 5 | ATTIRE | Upper room briefly referring to dress (6) |
| ATTIc (‘upper room’, shortened) + RE[ferring to]. | ||
| 9 | ALICANTE | Girl hugs worker in Spanish port (8) |
| ALICE surrounds ANT. | ||
| 10 | GOATEE | Attempt at Estuary English originally – one hides one’s face a bit! (6) |
| GO (‘attempt’) + AT + 1st letters of Estuary English, innit? | ||
| 11 | GORGEOUS | Magnificent ravine not half famous (8) |
| GORGE (‘ravine’) + 1/2 of ‘famOUS’. | ||
| 12 | BAKERY | Where bloomer is made – banker forgetting New Year? (6) |
| BAnKER without N[ew] + Y[ear]. | ||
| 14 | UNFORESEEN | Surprise text for translation – passing around warning (10) |
| UNSEEN (in language studies, an unprepared passage for translation) surrounds the golf warning FORE. | ||
| 18 | EXUBERANCE | High spirits of last couples in Essex club after cancan – nice! (10) |
| Last 2 letters of last 5 words. | ||
| 22 | SHINER | It might polish quiet home connected with monarch (6) |
| SH (‘quiet!’) + IN (‘home’) + ER (‘monarch’). | ||
| 23 | ESCAPADE | Adventure, sad, peace transformed (8) |
| Anagram (‘transformed’) of SAD PEACE. | ||
| 24 | CHINTZ | Fabric given in couturier’s first tip having character after all (6) |
| 1st letter of ‘Couturier’ + HINT (‘tip’) + Z (last character of alphabet). | ||
| 25 | LONG SHOT | Has desire, torrid – its chances are remote (4,4) |
| LONGS (‘has desire’) + HOT (‘torrid’). | ||
| 26 | SCREEN | Conceal feature of TV set (6) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 27 | DERRIERE | Behind Democrat linked to slip before about island (8) |
| D[emocrat] + ERR (to ‘slip’) + ERE (‘before’), all around I[sland]. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | SHAGGY | With little confidence about a gang extremely unkempt (6) |
| SHY (‘with little confidence’) around A + GG (1st & last of ‘GanG’). | ||
| 2 | FRIARY | Religious house’s fair reformed line (6) |
| Anagram (‘reformed’) of FAIR + R[ailwa]Y ‘line’. | ||
| 3 | SEABED | Notice daughter welcoming sailor in ground invariably wet (6) |
| SEE (‘notice’) + D[aughter] around AB (‘sailor’). | ||
| 4 | LITHUANIAN | Language from aunt in hail – shocking! (10) |
| Anagram (‘shocking’) of AUNT IN HAIL. | ||
| 6 | TWO-FACED | Describing many coins as not to be trusted? (3-5) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 7 | IN THE RED | Some chain there, debt-laden, owing money (2,3,3) |
| Inclusion in ‘chaIN THERE Debt’. | ||
| 8 | EVERYONE | All extremely acceptable among Europeans (8) |
| VERY (‘extremely’) + ON (‘acceptable’, usually in the negative, as in ‘simply not on’) all inside 2x E[uropean]. | ||
| 13 | TOUCHSTONE | Time that was painful – intially sullen manner becomes standard (10) |
| T[ime] + OUCH (‘that was painful!’) + 1st letter of ‘Sullen’ + TONE (‘manner’). | ||
| 15 | BEDSOCKS | Gestures about poor sod’s nightwear (8) |
| BECKS (beckoning ‘gestures’) around anagram (‘poor’) of SOD. | ||
| 16 | FUSILIER | Old soldier’s revamped rifle is used at beginning (8) |
| Anagram (‘revamped’) of RIFLE IS U(sed). | ||
| 17 | NEPENTHE | Drug stashed in one pen there (8) |
| Hidden in ‘oNE PEN THEre’. | ||
| 19 | HANGAR | Aircraft facility worker failing to finish starts to get angry rollicking (6) |
| HANd (‘worker’, shortened) + 1st letters of ‘Angry Rollicking’). | ||
| 20 | DAPHNE | Girl sadly orphaned or abandoned (6) |
| Anagram (‘sadly’) of ‘orPHANED’ with OR omitted. | ||
| 21 | FETTLE | Condition of charge, covering total, observed only intermittently (6) |
| FEE (‘charge’) around alternate letters of ToTaL. ‘In fine fettle’. | ||
*anagram
Maybe not hard, but I still managed to mess up the now obvious SEABED for which I put in an unparsed ‘soaked’. BLOOMER as a loaf of bread was also new and I just managed to remember UNSEEN in the ‘translation’ sense from somewhere, sometime in crossword-land.
Sorry to be a pain, but v. minor addition needed to parsing of 19d.
I liked CHINTZ – an unusual crossword fabric – and the def. for GOATEE.
Thanks to Gurney and to Grant
To Wordplodder:
Quite right re 20d.
Be a pain, I don’t care. I don’t usually amend the blog when caught out because it seems a bit dishonest: I’m content for my mistakes to be seen & anyway it encourages others to read the thread before posting which is rather the point of all this. UNSEEN took me back 50 years to chalk-dusty classrooms. I’ve never heard it since.
Thanks to Gurney and Grant. I much enjoyed this puzzle. I did not know the translation term “unseen” but the parsing was clear and took a while figuring out FETTLE and SEABED (and the US versions of SOFT SELL would be sweet talk or soft soap) but the cluing was first-rate.
I was almost wrong-footed by 1ac as the answer as a whole is also a homophone of Soft Cell (just ‘group reportedly’).
Wondered whether Gurney considered it while setting. That said, the band’s name probably comes from ‘soft sell’ which then wouldn’t make the thing very cryptic.
Easy but nice (and sound) crossword.
Many thanks to Grant and Gurney.
Thanks Gurney and Grant
Altough it felt a quite straightforward solve, it still took my average time to finish it. Liked a couple of the tricks used, especially with EXUBERANCE that took longer than it should have to see. Also liked CHINTZ which was my last one in.
Hadn’t seen UNSEEN like that before !
Many thanks, Grant, for the excellent blog, and thanks also to those who commented.
Re #4, I did not think of the band, which I would have been only vaguely aware of at most, when setting.