PeeDee has had to go out unexpectedly so I am a late stand-in for this enjoyable puzzle from Julius.
Unfortunately there is one clue (25ac) that I cannot fully explain so I hope that someone else will be able to do so.
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Across
1 Jack Newton leaving Bridget Jones wandering in desolate landscape (4,6)
GOBI DESERT – an anagram (wandering) of BRIDGET [j]O[n]ES
6,10 Spooner’s suggestion to replace Eurovision’s Ms Rodgers is tasteless American pop (4,4)
CLUB SODA – the Spoonerism would be ‘sub Clodagh’ (replace Eurovision’s Ms Rodgers)
9 That’s funny; pork fat is beginning to mar Mr Wycliffe’s movement (10)
LOLLARDISM – LOL (that’s funny) LARD (pork fat) IS M[ar] (beginning to mar)
12 Englishman locally nags Gibson to get invested in gym equipment (6,6)
POMMEL HORSES – POM (Englishman locally) MEL (Gibson) HORSES (nags)
15 Former East German old sister’s bony growth (9)
EXOSTOSIS – EX (former) OST (East German) O (old) SIS (sister)
17 Nothing, 0 to Bury; Hearts 1 (5)
NIHIL – NIL (0) around (to bury) H (hearts) I (1)
18 Boy king eviscerated our teacher (5)
TUTOR – TUT (boy king) O[u]R (eviscerated our)
19 Infuriatingly, he served first-rate rodent (9)
SUPERBRAT – SUPERB (first-rate) RAT (rodent) – a reference to John McEnroe
20 Ikea endlessly worked with merchants in specialist product areas (5,7)
NICHE MARKETS – an anagram (worked) of IKE[a] MERCHANTS
24,26 Firm director collects court material for the bench (8)
HARDWOOD – HARD (firm) D (director) around (collects) WOO (court)
25 Extremely valuable musical – Strand production of a young Tim Rice? (6,4)
GOLDEN HAIR – GOLDEN (extremely valuable) HAIR (musical) – sorry but I can’t give you an explanation of the definition (Google has not been of any use for this one), so I’m hoping that someone with a greater knowledge of the subject will be able to enlighten me in a comment. PS or is it just a reference to the colour of his hair in days gone by?
27 Not being au fait, I turned away from cosmos row (8,2)
UNVERSED IN – UN[i]VERSE (I turned away from cosmos) DIN (row)
Down
1,2 Cry heard after VW driver hits it with great force (4,4)
GOLF BALL – BALL sounds like (heard) ‘bawl’ (cry) after GOLF (VW)
3 Garotted and shot imprisoned Earl with pinpoint accuracy (4,2,6)
DEAD ON TARGET – an anagram (shot) of GAROTTED AND around (imprisoned) E (Earl)
4 Old mods turn up outside place of utter depravity (5)
SODOM – MODS reversed (turn up) around (outside) O (old)
5 I hear Bertrand’s out of bed – puts on something quickly! (7,2)
RUSTLES UP – sounds like (I hear) ‘Russell’s’ (Bertrand’s) UP (out of bed)
7 Doctor No, hairless for the most part (5,5)
LION’S SHARE – an anagram (doctor) of NO HAIRLESS
8 Northern money Priest raised – with others – for commemorative plaque (5,5)
BRASS PLATE – BRASS (northern money) P (Priest) ET AL (with others) reversed (raised)
11 My new Queen’s colours are part of the fabric of the palace (12)
CORNERSTONES – COR (my) N (new) ER’S (queen’s) TONES (colours)
13 George turns up; Northern Ireland drunk who’s top dog (4,2,4)
BEST IN SHOW – BEST (George) NI (Northern Ireland) reversed (turns up) plus an anagram (drunk) of WHO’S
14 Swanky part of France in which my claret gets knocked over? (5,5)
MONTE CARLO – MON (my {in French}) plus an anagram (gets knocked) of CLARET followed by O (over)
16 Canadian city where Siegfried, losing heart, takes African drug (9)
SASKATOON – SAS[s]OON (Seigfried, losing heart) around (takes) KAT (African drug)
21 Ken now left out the anchor! (5)
KEDGE – K[nowl]EDGE (ken now left out)
22,23 Ramos and I, Ronaldo, bestride this club (4,4)
SAND IRON – contained in (bestride this) ‘ramoS AND I, RONaldo’
Think you are correct with your PS on 25a.
Thanks for parsing 16d. Lots of unknowns for me here.
Minor error in blog for 14d. Final O is ‘over’ not ‘old’.
Thanks to all.
Hovis
Thanks for the heads-up. Error now corrected.
Took me a while to get on the Julius wavelength this morning. Not quite a battle and certain not as stormy as Gareth – but it did take quite a bit of work.
Thanks to Julius and Gaufrid – I agree with your 25a PS too
A bit of a golf theme in this one with GOLF BALL, CLUB (SODA), (HARD)WOOD, SAND IRON and BRASS PLATE (from which a ‘brassie’ gets its name I see when I just looked this up). There’s also ‘Jack Newton’, an Aussie golfer who lost a play-off in The British Open (as it was then) in 1970-something to Tom Watson, in the clue for 1a and at a very, very great stretch, ‘Spooner’ in the clue for 2a.
Not too difficult, but I completely missed the parsing for 16d, thinking only of the Wagnerian ‘Siegfried’ and I’m afraid I can’t help with 25a, assuming the answer was an early Tim Rice work, even if ‘Strand’ seemed to be surplus to requirements.
I really enjoyed the clues referencing George Best (sad though it was) and John McEnroe.
Thanks to Julius and to Gaufrid for standing in.
25ac. I think ‘strand’ refers to a ‘strand of hair’. The ‘golden’ bit could refer to the fact that Tim Rice won a number of Golden Globe Awards. Not sure, but this was my working.
Thanks for the blog, dear Gaufrid, and thanks to those who have commented.
My intention with the GOLDEN HAIR idea was indeed a whimsical nod towards the flowing locks of Sir Tim’s younger days and to riff on the “strand” of hair + “The Strand” at the heart of London’s musical theatre area. As this appears not to have been grasped, looks like I laid a bit of an egg with that one.
@WordPlodder – imaginative as always with the golf theme idea, but purely coincidental this time!
warmest regards to all, Rob/Julius
OUCH for CLUB SODA and praise too.
I liked Johnny Mack too.
Nay I liked it all. This and Brendan made my day.
Thanks all.
But TS Eliot is still Weber’s best lyricist. What would he have spent the proceeds on?
A great puzzle but I agree with the confusion re GOLDEN HAIR. Is it even a legitimate definition?
Many fine cryptic defs – ‘superbrat’ a Favourite – and the clever ‘mon/my’ in ‘Monte Carlo’.
‘rusTles’ I think in 5, Gaufrid, sorry to mention it.
Enjoyed this very much indeed. Thanks to both
I got 14d but Monte Carlo is not part of France.
Grant @8
Thanks for pointing out the typo, now corrected. My completed grid has it correctly so I can only blame inadequate proofreading 🙁
And to Copmus@7:
(Off-topic, soz, Geoff, but I do this for a living)
In fact, I consider TSE to be Lloyd-Webber’s 3rd-best lyricist. I’m not a fan of the music, but Sir Tim is a brilliant technical post-facto writer and Sir Richard the same (all his proceeds go to his estimable Orpheus charity). And, speaking of proceeds, the widow Eliot had a wonderful surprise when ‘Cats’ went doolally. Good for her.
Thanks Julius and Gaufrid
I for one liked Golden Hair, not least because it is the title of a song on Syd Barrett’s wonderful Madcap Laughs, based on a poem by James Joyce.
Thanks Julius and Gaufrid
Took longer than usual to get this one finished – was able to get the grid completed but had no idea with the parsing of SASKATOON (could be no other city, but the word play using two seriously obscure parts made things very tough) nor GOLDEN HAIR (which bordered on the unfair, which I don’t normally grumble about – the word play certainly nailed it as the answer).
Elsewhere there were many clues that were just gems – the construction of POMMEL HORSES, SUPERBRAT, UNVERSED IN, BRASS PLATE and BEST IN SHOW were excellent.
Was stunned to see that the four corners weren’t purposely put their as golfing terms – this thought helped get CLUB SODA in the end as I had no idea of Clodagh Rodgers before today.
@BruceW and @WordPlodder…
sorry I’ve just remembered that I did in fact intend to introduce a few golfing terms in the corner paired 4-letter lights (I quite like this grid for that sort of thing). I set this puzzle last spring – back when Ronaldo was still a team-mate of Sergio Ramos at Real Madrid – and had forgotten about it