I found this tricky with one I still can’t parse. Thank you Chalmie.
| Across | ||
| 1 | ARIANE | Rocket for American singer who loses a grand (6) |
| 4 | PRODUCER | Broccoli, possibly for the German copper coming back inside (8) |
| PRO (for) DER (the, in German) contains (with…inside) CU (copper) reversed (coming back) – Albert Broccoli or his daughter Barbara Broccoli, producers of the James Bond films | ||
| 10 | VICTUAL | Supply food cut up in small bottle (7) |
| anagram (up) of CUT inside VIAL (small bottle) | ||
| 11 | GRANULE | Tiny particle found in surgery on ear and lung (7) |
| anagram (surgery on – ?) of EAR and LUNG – I would be upset if a surgeon rearranged my body parts in an operation | ||
| 12 | CANS | Preserves sacks (4) |
| double definition – tinned food and rejecting something | ||
| 13 | BEAR WITH ME | I’ll soon explain strange white amber (4,4,2) |
| anagram (strange) of WHITE AMBER | ||
| 15 | TRIBAL | Ethnic group’s test going around Belgium (6) |
| TRIAL (test) contains (going round) B (Belgium) | ||
| 16 | BURGEON | Mushroom good in Bordeaux when filled with egg (7) |
| BON, (good, as said in Bordeaux) containing URGE (egg) | ||
| 20 | REREDOS | Screen some episode reruns backwards (7) |
| found inside (some of) epiSODE RERuns reversed (backwards) | ||
| 21 | RIFFLE | Mix cards with extra-loud gun? (6) |
| RIFLE (gun) with an extra F (forte, loud) | ||
| 24 | CHARLOTTES | Potatoes Dickens for one ate excessively (10) |
| CHARLES (Dickens, for one) contains (ate) OTT (excessively) | ||
| 26 | BUDS | People-carrier holds 500 sprouts (4) |
| BUS (people carrier) contains D (500, Roman numeral) | ||
| 28 | ICEBERG | Kill composer with lettuce (7) |
| ICE (kill) and BERG (composer) | ||
| 29 | TIBETAN | Live in giant Dalai Lama? (7) |
| BE (live) in TITAN (giant) | ||
| 30 | SPRINKLE | Pepper season, when moose comes back for good (8) |
| SPRINg (season) with ELK (moose) reversed (comes back) replacing (for) G (good) | ||
| 31 | WALRUS | Carpenter’s mate was holding hands for all to see (6) |
| WAS contains (holding) RL (right and left, hands) U (for all to see, at the cinema) – from the Lewis Carroll verse | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | ADVOCATE | Scottish lawyer Five-O caught in a meeting (8) |
| V (five) O and C (caught) inside (in) DATE (a meeting) | ||
| 2 | INCENTIVE | Pinch 17 drivers, essentially, to get carrot (9) |
| some middle parts (essentially) of pINCh sevENTeen drIVErs | ||
| 3 | NOUS | Lacking American good sense (4) |
| NO US (lacking American) | ||
| 5 | RIGOROUS | Very strict set-up or, occasionally, roguish (8) |
| RIG (set-up) OR rOgUiSh (every other letter, occasionally) | ||
| 6 | DRAWING PIN | Pulling leg, which holds up paper? (7,3) |
| DRAWING (pulling) PIN (leg) – nice! | ||
| 7 | CRUSH | Squash resistance in such difficulties (5) |
| R (resistance) in anagram (difficulties) of SUCH | ||
| 8 | REEKED | Smelt bad and stretched again! (6) |
| RE-EKED (stretched again) | ||
| 9 | SLEEK | Small vegetable is glossy (5) |
| S (small) and LEEK (vegetable) | ||
| 14 | HAVE A LIE-IN | Conduct group perjury session or stay in bed (4,1,3-2) |
| definition and cryptic definition – could also be TAKE A LIE-IN | ||
| 17 | OFF-CUTTER | Delivery leaving on small sailing vessel (3-6) |
| OFF (leaving) on CUTTER (small sailing vessel) – a delivery in cricket | ||
| 18 | PORTUGAL | Country left judgeable after odd losses (8) |
| PORT (left) then jUdGeAbLe missing every other letter (after odd losses) | ||
| 19 | PEASANTS | Land workers have way up to vegetable hospital (8) |
| ST (street, a way) reversed (up) following (to) PEA (vegetable) SAN (sanatorium, hospital) | ||
| 22 | SCRIPS | Films usually use these timeless certificates (6) |
| SCRIPtS (films usually use these) missing T (time) | ||
| 23 | KEATS | Poet seen in stake-out (5) |
| anagram (out) of STAKE | ||
| 25 | A YEAR | Vote for one Republican per annum (1,4) |
| AYE (a vote in favour) A (one) R (republican) | ||
| 27 | ABBA | Swedes and a bit of cabbage (4) |
| found inside cABBAge | ||
*anagram
1a is ARIANA GRANDE minus A GRAND.
I was pleased to eventually spot the parsing of 1a after being mystified at first. Otherwise everything went in pretty smoothly, though I didn’t know what the ‘Carpenter’s mate’ was doing in 31a.
Maybe not very hard, but the surface of 27d still brought a smile.
Thanks to Chalmie and PeeDee.
1a was my LOI as well. Not my music & wouldn’t have known of her if not for the MEN stadium bombing from which insanity she does in fairness come out very well indeed.
Agree that ‘pulling leg’ is neat and liked BEAR WITH ME (def. underline the wrong way round btw, PeeDee, dammit, I do it myself all the time).
Favourite was SPRINKLE, I think, but a solid and enjoyable puzzle altogether.
Thanks to both.
Thanks Grant, fixed now. I did guess how 1 across was supposed to work but I had never heard of Ariana Grande. A quick glance over Wikipedia and Youtube shows she is talented young lady but sadly not my sort of music.
A lot of vegetables in the clues (8 of them) but not a theme in the answers.
Thanks PD.
john @5: I make it 10 vegetables in the clues, plus two “vegetables” which lead to vegetables in the answers.
All: I can’t say I’m an admirer of Ms Grande’s work as a singer, but as Grant Baynham said, she’s additionally become famous for her reaction to the MEN bombing, so I reckoned she was well-enough known as a news item as well as pop singer for it to be quite fair to use her.
Thanks to Chalmie, PeeDee, and Hovis. I did know the singer for 1ac but still needed help parsing it. For some reason I took a long time getting BURGEON.
Got all bar 1a.
Thanks Chalmie and PeeDee
Found this very hard taking 3-4 times as long as usual. A or of my problem stemmed by writing in LEG CUTTER at 17 after seeing ‘on’ = LEG and with that type of ball ‘leaving’ the batsman ! That fairly beggared both 16 and 21 which were probably two of the trickiest clues in their own right anyway – both uncommon words. Can’t recall coming across CHARLOTTE potatoes before although the word play was clear.
Was happy to see a definition of PRODUCER being a type of green vegetable that ‘broccoli’ could be classified under – didn’t know the film producers … and smiled when I had justified it ‘wto gly’!
Knew Ariana Grande through my daughter watching her in a TV series way before she made a name for herself singing and being in Manchester at the wrong time.
Overall it was a tough but very satisfying solve.