Armonie eases us into the week…
A fairly gentle Monday morning puzzle, though I’d never heard of 1d, and the pet = huff synonym in 4a was news to me.
Also, the combination of 5d and 16d is maybe a bit odd.
Anyway, overall a pleasurable solve.
Thanks ARMONIE!
Across
1 Head eats a new type of savoury (6)
CANAPE
CAPE (head) eats (A + N (new))
4 Small pet escorted and walked with a hesitant motion (8)
SHUFFLED
S (small) + HUFF (pet) + LED (escorted)
9 Old man cultivated tree (6)
ALMOND
(OLD MAN)* (*cultivated)
10 Hear a gun going off in lecture (8)
HARANGUE
(HEAR A GUN)* (*going off)
12 Spoil a schedule (4)
ROTA
ROT (spoil) + A
13 Left the last word to musician’s sliding scale (10)
PORTAMENTO
PORT (left) + AMEN (the last word) + TO
15 Italic screen breaks down? Sparks appear! (12)
ELECTRICIANS
(ITALICS SCREEN)* (*breaks down)
18 Thought of French freedom (12)
DELIBERATION
DE (of, French) + LIBERATION (freedom)
21 Obtain applause for review, again (10)
REAPPRAISE
REAP (obtain) + PRAISE (applause)
22 Last train (4)
REAR
Double definition
24 It’s understood one representative’s allowed (8)
IMPLICIT
I (one) + MP (representative) + LICIT (allowed)
25 Prevents Bill making wine (6)
BARSAC
BARS (prevents) + AC (bill)
26 Team up in hospital department? That’s developing! (8)
EMERGENT
MERGE (team up) in ENT (hospital department)
27 Guarantee Poland’s border (6)
PLEDGE
PL (Poland) + EDGE (border)
Down
1 Tea rose for composer (8)
CHABRIER
CHA (tea) + BRIER (rose)
2 Rattle on about award? That’s insignificant! (2,6)
NO MATTER
NATTER (rattle on) about OM (award)
3 Wheeze like a man in gym (4)
PANT
(A + N (man, knight in chess)) in PT (gym)
5 Listen to Pluto in torment from illness (5,7)
HEART DISEASE
HEAR (listen) + DIS (Pluto) in TEASE (torment)
6 Fellow to tease lunatic, ending in bits (10)
FRAGMENTAL
F (fellow) + RAG (to tease) + MENTAL (lunatic)
7 Member to finish folk-tale (6)
LEGEND
LEG (member) + END (to finish)
8 Father gets Quarter Day for Greek divinity (6)
DAEMON
DA (father) + E (quarter, East) + MON (day)
11 Abolitionism provoked preparation for war (12)
MOBILISATION
(ABOLITIONISM)* (*provoked)
14 A tenor is showing appeal and is trying (10)
ATTEMPTING
A + T (tenor) + TEMPTING (is showing appeal)
16 Sickly little girl’s made comfortable (8)
DISEASED
DIS (little girl’s) + EASED (made comfortable)
17 Ten cater for assembly in the interval (8)
ENTRACTE
(TEN CATER)* (*for assembly)
19 Head of bakery to promote cook (6)
BRAISE
B[akery] (head of) + RAISE (to promote)
20 Old Bob’s big test (6)
SAMPLE
S (old bob, shilling) + AMPLE (big)
23 Drag prince round university (4)
HAUL
HAL (prince) round U (university)
I found this ok but had a few niggles. The 5d, 16d combination seems very clumsy and the inclusion of “like” in 3d seems to be just a poor link word. The double definition at 22a was entered after some thought but I didn’t feel it quite worked. Rear = back but “last” at a push and rear = raise but “train” at a push. I guess I can accept it though – I’ve seen worse.
Took a while to guess 1d. Didn’t know the composer and have always used the “briar” spelling. Didn’t know PORTAMENTO either but was ok with the huff in 4a.
So a reserved thanks to Armonie and a thanks to Teacow.
To add to Hovis’s niggles, the “is” is 14d seems glaringly out of place to me in the cryptic reading. The clue could easily be fixed by changing to “A tenor’s changing…”, with the ‘s meaning “has”. There’s also “tease” in 16d immediately after its appearance in the wordplay of 15d.
I know a lot of composers but not 1d. Just listened to excerpts and they sounded fine if derivative.
Below the belt in my ruling. Portamento fine though. Thanks for blog I was dying to find out. (I cant find my Penguin music book)
Thanks to Armonie and Teacow. I managed to parse PORTAMENTO but I did not spot the N = man for PANT. The double use of “disease” threw me off (I thought one of my solutions might have been wrong).
Thanks Armonie and Teacow
Thought that this was at the harder end of the scale for this setter which may have been a wavelength thing but had particular troubles with 3d, 6d, 8d and 22a. Still completed the grid under the average time for an FT solve though.
A few terms in FRAGMENTAL, PORTAMENTO and ENTR’ACTE (which I assume is a contraction of two French words).
Finished by finally piecing together DAEMON (with it’s tricky word for ‘father’), ALMOND (a simple anagram but didn’t think of it as a tree for a while) and PANT (after 9a disproved my unparsed P-HE-E and remembering at last the setter’s penchant for using N=knight=’man’)
Late to the party as this was one we downloaded to keep for a couple of days and then tackle it to while away waiting time during taxi duty for grandchildren. Have to say we found it quite easy, the only difficulty was REAR which we took ages to get and was our LOI. We knew it must be a double definition but it was only a couple of hours later that the answer suddenly came to mind.
Thanks to setter and blogger.