I found this hard. Today I struggled to get onto the setter’s wavelength and found it tough-going all the way through. Thanks Gaff.
| Across | ||
| 1 | CAMPING | Utterly intense outdoor activity (7) |
| “in tents” (camping) sounds like (utterly, as uttered) “intense” | ||
| 5 | BICYCLE | Tour transport (7) |
| possibly a cryptic definition? | ||
| 9 | WITHE | Bent white stick (5) |
| anagram (bent) of WHITE | ||
| 10 | ILL REPUTE | Time to leave – little pure activity in house with this property (3,6) |
| anagram (activity) of LITtLE PURE missing T (with…to leave) | ||
| 11 | OROYA FEVER | Carrion’s condition from over year of decomposing (5,5) |
| anagram (decomposing) of OVER YEAR OF – also known as Carrion’s Disease | ||
| 12 | ESAU | First-born of Charlie’s aunts (4) |
| found inside charliE’S AUnts- first born of the twins Esau and Jacob? | ||
| 14 | CONVENIENCE | Assemble to restrict nice work in facility (11) |
| CONVENE (assemble) contains (to restrict) anagram (work) of NICE | ||
| 18 | EMMANNUELLE | 21’s new Greek character in novel magazine (11) |
| N (new) NU (Greek character) inside EMMA (a novel) ELLE (a magazine) – I have never seen the girl’s name spelled this way | ||
| 21, 4 | GIRL GUIDE | Rigid glue interfered with one in movement (4,5) |
| anagram (interfered with) of RIGD GLUE | ||
| 22 | THE HOLY SEE | Church leaders claim saints have vision (3,4,3) |
| a claim that “the holy see” (saints have vision) – The Vatican | ||
| 25 | ASSERTION | Drunken sots are in contention (9) |
| anagram (drunken) of SOTS ARE IN | ||
| 26 | NURSE | Tend to dash back to Kent maybe (5) |
| RUN (to dash) reversed (back) then SE (the South East, Kent maybe) | ||
| 27 | TEACHER | One may be content to educate a cherub (7) |
| found inside (one may be may be content to…) educaTE A CHERub | ||
| 28 | YIELDED | Handed over bore (7) |
| double definition | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | COWBOY | Irresponsible stock controller? (6) |
| definition/cryptic definition | ||
| 2 | MATRON | Head in wards once minor tampering shows up (6) |
| found inside (…shows) miNOR TAMpering reversed (up) | ||
| 3 | ICE DANCING | Wherein couples slide towards point-scoring (3,7) |
| cryptic definition | ||
| 4 | See 21 | |
| 5 | BILGE KEEL | Hull constituent, retired general, could be bitter Liberal (5,4) |
| LEE (General Lee) KEG (beer, could be bitter) and LIB (Liberal) all reversed (retired) | ||
| 6 | CLEO | Regularly called on queen, briefly (4) |
| every other letter of ClLlEd On – Cleopatra briefly | ||
| 7 | CRUISING | Heard sailors confess to motoring slowly while on lookout (8) |
| sounds like (heard) “crew sing” (sailors confess) | ||
| 8 | EXECUTES | Pretty stupid to start following river discharges (8) |
| CUTE (pretty) Stupid (first letter. to start) follows EXE (River in Devon) | ||
| 13 | SIDE-GLANCE | Rogue dealing aces without a suspicious look (4-6) |
| anagram (rogue) of DEALING aCES missing A | ||
| 15 | NAUGHTIER | In Erin perhaps anything is more mischievous (9) |
| anagram (perhaps) of ERIN contains (in…) AUGHT (anything) | ||
| 16 | SERGEANT | Rank bad gear shipped out (8) |
| anagram (bad) of GEAR inside (with…out) SENT (shipped) | ||
| 17 | AMBROSIA | Fare better than most (8) |
| cryptic definition? | ||
| 19 | ASTRID | Girl nearly mounted (6) |
| ASTRIDe (mounted, nearly) | ||
| 20 | BEHEAD | Top diplomat wears decoration (6) |
| HE (His Excellency, diplomat) inside (wears) BEAD (decoration) | ||
| 23 | HENRY | King from female line (5) |
| HEN (female) RY (railway, line) | ||
| 24 | ARCH | Knowing hard-hearted cheer- leaders (4) |
| hARd (heart of) then CHeer (leaders of) | ||
definitions are underlined
I write these posts to help people get started with cryptic crosswords. If there is something here you do not understand ask a question; there are probably others wondering the same thing.
A DNF for me courtesy of OROYA FEVER. For BICYCLE @ 5a I took the definition to be a reference to the Tour de France?
Thanks to Gaff and PeeDee.
It should be added that Gaff wrote “Keep going” before the puzzle to hint at the “Carry On” theme.
Took a bit of work to find OROYA FEVER but the rest wasn’t too hard.
Thanks to Gaff and PeeDee.
The Carry On theme explains the unusual spelling of EMMANNUELLE. It was supposedly spelled that way for the film to avoid copyright problems with the soft-porn series it was spoofing.
Thanks Hovis. I noticed that EMMANNUELLE was the title of a Carry On film but didn’t see the “keep going” tucked in above the across clues. That makes more sense now. I think that might go some way to explaining why I wasn’t getting along with the puzzle very well.
Keep going = Carry On. Many of the answers were Carry On films – Camping, Sergeant, Nurse, Emmanuelle, Cruising
Would have been nice to have spotted the theme but I was happy enough just to have finished this toughie. Not exactly the easy solve I’d been hoping for and that ‘Keep going’ made me (correctly!) feel I was missing something.
Still, I learnt a few new words/terms in WITHE and OROYA FEVER and I did like THE HOLY SEE.
I think Hattie Jacques was the MATRON wasn’t she? Sophisticated comedy indeed.
Thanks to Gaff and PeeDee
Only just realised 11a also hints at the “Carrión” theme.
Thanks for the blog PeeDee. Well done for completing it.
This crossword has made me grumpier than usual.
A pain Up The Khyber….
Hard hard hard. Failed on Oroya Fever – even though I figured out it was an anagram and probably a fever. And put in Bicycle, but wasn’t sure, and missed the easy Cleo. Humph.
Thanks Gaff and PeeDee
Needed to come back to this one numerous times in order to get it finished across a couple of days – so was happy to see that others had struggled with it as well. Didn’t help matters by writing in ICE SKATING at 3 and ILL TEMPER at 10 without due diligence and had to repair the damage later.
Didn’t see the ghost theme, even though I’ve seen puzzles with that theme before and that it was heavily hinted at the top. OROYA FEVER, BRIDGE KEEL and ICE DANCING were all new terms.
That OROYA FEVER, fixing up ILL REPUTE and EXECUTES were the last few in.