Always good to see Julius’s name at the top. Thank you Julius.
A fruit and nut puzzle.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | POMEGRANATE | Fruit rock from England hawked in a Sydney market? (11) |
| sounds like “pommy granite”, as an Australian hawker might describe rock from England | ||
| 7 | SAD | Is mardy every now and again (miserable) (3) |
| every other letter (now and again) of iS mArDy | ||
| 9 | NORMA | Major operatic work (5) |
| double definition – Lady Norma Major, long-suffering wife of Prime Minister John Major and opera by Puccini | ||
| 10 | RASPBERRY | Spar roughly with Chuck, making an offensive noise (9) |
| anagram (roughly) of SPAR then BERRY (Chuck Berry, singer) | ||
| 11 | PINEAPPLE | Exploding Nepal pipe grenade (9) |
| anagram (exploding) of NEPAL PIPE | ||
| 12 | AMPLE | Liberal politician getting stuck into the beer (5) |
| MP (politician) inside (getting stuck into) ALE (beer) | ||
| 13 | NAUGHTY | Absolutely anything in the Big Apple is sinful (7) |
| AUGHT (absolutely anything) inside NY (the Big Apple) | ||
| 15 | SPUD | Murphy rejecting the Unionists’ shilling (4) |
| DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) with S (shilling) all reversed (rejecting) – slang for potato | ||
| 18 | PLUM | Suspect professor left university during the afternoon (4) |
| L (left) U (university) inside (during) PM (afternoon) – Professor Plum, one of the suspects in the board game Cluedo. | ||
| 20 | CHEKHOV | Anton’s to work on his to-do list, by the sound of it (7) |
| sounds like “check off” (work on to do list) – Russian writer Anton |
||
| 23 | ORANG | Chancellor Angela adopting vulnerable Indonesian resident (5) |
| found inside (adopted by) chancellOR ANGela | ||
| 24 | PERSIMMON | Sniper shot poor mom hiding in tree (9) |
| anagram (shot) of SNIPER contains (…hiding) of anagram (poor) of MOM | ||
| 26 | CASTOR OIL | Wind MP Nancy trapped? Here’s a laxative (6,3) |
| COIL (wind) contains (…trapped) ASTOR (Nancy Astor, the first female MP) | ||
| 27 | CUPPA | Drink scrumpy regularly, dad? (5) |
| every other letter (regularly) of sCrUmPy then PA (dad) | ||
| 28 | NUT | Head teachers (3) |
| double definition – National Union of Teachers | ||
| 29 | TUTTI FRUTTI | Hit by Little Richard (not Vanilla Ice) (5,6) |
| double definition – song title and ice cream flavour | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | PING PONG | Roast pork smell luring knight to be served at table? (4-4) |
| PIG (roast pork) PONG (smell) contains (luring) N (knight, chess notation) | ||
| 2 | MERINGUE | I urge men to reform; to become sweet (8) |
| anagram (to reform) of I URGE MEN | ||
| 3 | GUAVA | August: pruned climbing Virginia tree (5) |
| AUGust (pruned, cut short) reversed (climbing) then VA (Virginia) | ||
| 4 | ATROPHY | Waste away after American pot (7) |
| TROPHY (pot) following (after) A (American) | ||
| 5 | ABSCESS | Boil contents of Arab’s cesspit (7) |
| found inside (contents of) arAB’S CESSpit | ||
| 6 | EMBRASURE | A window of opportunity for the Gunners? (9) |
| cryptic definition – a window designed to fire a gun out of | ||
| 7 | SERAPH | Angel’s turn of phrase (6) |
| anagram (turn) of PHRASE | ||
| 8 | DRYDEN | English poet’s humourless study (6) |
| DRY (humourless) DEN (study) | ||
| 14 | HOLY GHOST | No longer in charge, ichthyologist gets drunk – losing it; that’s the spirit! (4,5) |
| anagram (gets drunk) of ICHTHYOLOGIST missing (no longer) IC (in charge) and missing (losing) IT | ||
| 16 | THUMBPOT | In which to plant little Tom’s weed? (8) |
| THUMB (Little Tom Thumb) then POT (weed) | ||
| 17 | SVENGALI | Nag Elvis about Col Tom Parker? (8) |
| anagram (about) of NAG ELVIS – “Colonel” Tom Parker was the manager of Elvis Presley | ||
| 19 | MAPS OUT | Plans to serve up Spam rejected (4,3) |
| SPAM reversed (to serve up) then OUT (rejected) | ||
| 20 | CORELLI | My, I’ll be getting upset about European composer (7) |
| COR (my) than anagram (getting upset) of I’LL containing E (European) | ||
| 21 | TOUCAN | Couple told to sack one presenting large bill (6) |
| TOU sounds like (told) “two” (couple) then CAN (sack, dismiss) | ||
| 22 | BASSET | Dog gamble sucking in idiot (6) |
| BET (gamble) contains (sucking in) ASS (idiot) | ||
| 25 | INCUR | Cop upsetting leaders of Royal Ulster Constabulary (Northern Ireland) (5) |
| first letters (leaders) of Royal Ulster Constabulary Northern Ireland all reversed (upsetting) | ||
Thanks Julius and PeeDee
The solution to 18 is PLUM – L & U inside PM. ‘Suspect’ refers to Professor Plum in Cluedo.
Thanks, PeeDee.
A most enjoyable puzzle. My particular favourites today were SPUD, PLUM, CHEKHOV, PERSIMMON, CASTOR OIL, INCUR [for the definition / surface] and the brilliant SVENGALI. I smiled at POMEGRANATE – there’s a greengrocer here who regularly spells it ‘pomegranite’ – and it was nice to see our local ‘mardy’ in 7ac.
[Peedee – I think 21dn is TOU [sounds like ‘two’ – couple].
Many thanks, as ever, to Julius.
I agree with PeeDee’s English vernacular spelling of ‘Checkov’ which unfortunately slowed me right down in the SE corner at the death because the ‘correct’ spelling wasn’t indicated in the wordplay. Grump.
Agree with Eileen about ‘two can’ and Simon re ‘PLUM’.
‘Lady Norma’, if you please. She’s worth the title at least after all she went through.
To PeeDee, btw…
I’ve pretty much adopted your house-style in my blogs because it’s more elegant than my old, parti-coloured schtick. But I will stick with caps at the start of parsing (unless there’s a word with changed or deleted 1st letters) because I just feel it looks more like English. I’m personally against formulaic-looking explanations because I’m not a maths/tech person although I’m perfectly aware that a majority of solvers and bloggers seem to be and are more comfortable than me with spread-sheets, nesting brackets and so forth. Each to his own.
Nice thematic puzzle. Thanks to PeeDee & Julius.
Hi Grant, for clarity I use lower case in the explanations wherever I can, except for letters included in the solution which are in upper case. I relax the rule a little for names, which can look disrespectful if written without the capital.
Thank you all for the corrections, fixed now.
Thanks to Julius and PeeDee. I always enjoy the challenge from this setter’s puzzles but rarely finish them, but this time I managed to parse everything though I had to look up THUMBPOT and Lady NORMA Major.
I always like the puzzles of Julius, mainly because they are a bit more ‘now’ than ‘yesterday’.
This one today, with its unmissable theme, I found pretty easy.
Yet I failed on (the proper parsing of) 1ac – I always pronounce POMEGRANATE the French way – and 6d’s EMBRASURE which I guessed but had never heard of.
Not so long ago, Julius (or Knut) mentioned that ‘double definition’ clues were not his strongest point.
Here he produced one in 28ac (NUT) which was almost a write-in.
Two distinct definitions which, seen as one, make sense too.
For me, a classic example of how a really good DD clue should be, regardless of the level of difficulty.
Lots to like today (2d, in particular)!
Many thanks to PeeDee & Julius.
Thanks Julius and PeeDee
Typically interesting crossword from this setter. Actually didn’t twig to the clue until near the very end and when I got TUTTI FRUTTI as my last one in … went d’oh!! Thought that even the cut off ORANGE at 23a just about fitted.
Although the clue at 25d was basically a write-in, the surface reading was more than worth its place in the line-up. Another write-in was 28a, reckon that I’ve seen that ‘head teachers’ chestNUT a dozen or so times.
Only vaguely remembered EMBRASURE and guessed THUMBPOT based on a supermarket campaign where they are giving out small ones with seeds of herbs and vegetables here at the moment – come in handy as trying to put together a herb garden !!