A tough puzzle from Gaff, but one I enjoyed grappling with. Thank you Gaff.
T in the clues stands in for tree.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | JOY ADAMSON | Lion tamer was happiness to a T (3,7) |
| JOY (happiness) then (to) A DAMSON (T, tree) – author and naturalist, raised an orphaned lion cub | ||
| 6 | XMAS | Reduction for the present time (4) |
| cryptic definition – abbreviation (reduction) for Christmas (the present giving time) | ||
| 9 | COMBAT TEAM | American soldiers search cash machine containing T (6,4) |
| COMB (search) ATM (cash machine) contains TEA (tree) | ||
| 10, 21 | IDEALISTS | IT product is tiring sleepy heads and dreamers (9) |
| I then DEAL (wood, tree product) |
||
| 12 | WATERMARKING | Impressing with security feature of note (12) |
| cryptic definition – a mark impressed into a banknote | ||
| 15 | ADEMPTION | Will failure be made into last gasp turnaround? (9) |
| anagram (turnaround) of MADE INTO gasP (last letter of) | ||
| 17 | COLON | Stops dependency short (5) |
| COLONy (dependency, short) – : something made from two stops (periods for US solvers) | ||
| 18 | DYFAN | Welsh missionary sanctified in bloody fantasy (5) |
| found inside blooDY FANtasy – Saint Dyfan, Welsh martyr | ||
| 19 | LAST DREGS | Final remains for playing darts surrounded by supporters (4,5) |
| anagram (playing) of DARTS inside LEGS (supporters) | ||
| 20 | RAISE AN ALARM | Send emergency signal ordering first-rate animal areas (5,2,5) |
| anagram (ordering) of Rate (first letter of) and ANIMAL AREAS. I have read comments in the past that say “first …” for a first letter is not permissible. Personally I have never understood the objection, it seems fine to me. |
||
| 24 | ARMY | Like leggy men? (4) |
| ARM-Y is like leg-gy, two words similar coined from limbs | ||
| 25 | CRISPINESS | Quality of duck calls from across the water overwhelm T on board (10) |
| CRIS ( |
||
| 26 | HIDE | Skin from which spotted animal? (4) |
| double definition | ||
| 27 | EYE SIGNALS | Essential to give up friends who lose their heads seeing communications (3,7) |
| kEY (essential) rESIGN (to give up) pALS (friends) all losing first letters (heads) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | JACK | Woods’ target is Nicklaus (4) |
| double definition – in Crown Green Bowling the “woods” are rolled towards the “jack” | ||
| 2 | YOMP | Leading yesterday’s overland march proved an exhausting exercise (4) |
| leading letters of Yesterday Overland March Proved | ||
| 3 | DIANA SPENCER | Strictly, contestant should keep Gaff and T apart from princess (5,7) |
| DANCER (Strictly contestant) contains (should keep) I (Gaff) and ASPEN (T, tree) apart means contained in separate places – Lady Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales | ||
| 4 | MITRE | Could a reporter cover for a bishop? (5) |
| sounds like (reporter, something reported) “might a” (could a) | ||
| 5 | OPAL MINTS | Chews over T-junctions unopened outside (4,5) |
| PALM (T, tree) inside (with…outside) jOINTS (junctions, unopened) – a former name (over) of Pacers, a now discontinued confectionery (chew) by Mars | ||
| 7 | MIDFIELDER | Condition of dense backward T footballer (10) |
| IF (condition of) DIM (being dense) reversed (backward) then ELDER (T, tree) | ||
| 8 | SHAGGINESS | Degree to which trim needed adjusting in SS Gash for example (10) |
| anagram (adjusting) IN SS GASH EG (for example) – how much you need a haircut | ||
| 11 | GRACE DARLING | Maritime heroine with G&T eating crab hearts and fish (5,7) |
| G & CEDAR (T, tree) contains (eating) cRAb (middle letters, hearts) then LING (fish) | ||
| 13 | BALDERDASH | BT open day? T for twaddle! (10) |
| B ALDER (T, tree) D (day) ASH (T, tree) | ||
| 14 | REAFFIRMED | Repeated statement from paper about FT editor (10) |
| REAM (paper measure) contains (about) F FIR (T, tree) then ED (editor) | ||
| 16 | ISLAND ROY | Plomley in Donegal? (6,3) |
| ISLAND ROY might be a description of Roy Plomley, creator of Desert Island Disks – a place in Donegal | ||
| 21 | See 10 | |
| 22 | BETA | Chance a release during trial (4) |
| BET (chance) A – a product release during beta-testing | ||
| 23 | ISIS | Crew that wants to lead double existence (4) |
Thanks Gaff and PeeDee,
Definitely on the tricky side, but very satisfying.
25a: The water is the English Channel…
23d: The Oxford University second boat is called Isis. Seems a bit obscure though.
Thanks for that muffyword, fixed now.
A bit of a tough one today. I got there in the end but had to come here to check some of my workings. I parsed IDEALISTS as I then DEAL then IS followed by Tiring Sleepy (heads), but either solution seem to work just fine.
Thanks to Gaff & PeeDee
Following on from my previous post, I’ve just noticed that the parsing of 10,21 on the blog would give IDEALLISTS.
I parsed IDEALISTS as Nita @3. Failed to get the EYE part of EYE SIGNALS and never heard of ISLAND ROY so didn’t guess the ROY bit.
Thanks Nitac, too many Ls in my attempt. Fixed now.
Hard work though satisfying in the end. I did know the ISIS ‘Crew’ but I’d never heard of DYFAN, ADEMPTION or ISLAND ROY, the latter helped by dim memories of the host of “Desert Island Discs”.
Plenty of good clues. I especially liked XMAS and the ‘Degree to which trim needed’ definition for 8d.
Thanks to Gaff and PeeDee.
Crikey, this was hard, for me anyway, but got there in the end, Niltac’s “a bit of a tough one” not even beginning to cover it.
Glad I wasn’t blogging this because I clearly missed a few constructs. E.g., I had “A1” as “first-rate”, part of the anagram in 20, before coming here and being impliedly rebuked fo my idleness.
And I missed the “over” as part of the def for “Opal Mints”, mostly because my head was full of the T.V. jingle for Opal Fruits which posters of a certain age will remember was “Opal Fruits: made to make your mouth water”.
(Off-message but indulge me here. This was the subject of the best ad-lib parody I’ve ever heard. Stationary at traffic-lights, my Morris Traveller was rear-ended and driven into the rear of the Opel Kadett in front, nobody hurt, D.G.
My passenger got out to inspect the damage, looked at the crushed front of my poor old Moggy and sang, sotto voce, “Opel boots: made to make your car shorter”).
Thanks to both.
Thanks Gaff and PeeDee
This chewed up over 2 hours of solving time across a couple of days … so tough was an appropriate description for me. Really enjoyed just plugging away at it and eventually getting it all out and well understood. Even after entering the first two theme answers at 1a and 9a, was still not able to work out what the T was representing and it was only after spotting the tree in BALDERDASH that it started to make some sense. Wasn’t quite sure how DEAL made the cut as a ‘tree’, well it does make the cut from a tree, but it isn’t a tree itself, surely ! Notwithstanding, I thought that it, along with the BT and FT clues were the cleverest disguising of the theme prompt.
EYE SIGNALS was devilish in both the device and the definition, but was one of my favourites.
Finally finished in the SE corner with CRISPINESS (tough with the oblique definition and the somewhat beyond my schoolboy French word play piece) and ISLAND ROY (in which I knew neither the Irish island nor the English broadcaster and his show) as the last couple in.
Hi Bruce, in the explanation DEAL is a “tree product”, not a “tree”
Hi PeeDee … wasn’t commenting that it was wrong in the blog – was more that the instructions stated that “T has the same meaning throughout” which I took as T=tree rather than any product of a tree, just the same that for example ‘eucalyptus oil’ wouldn’t be clued with the T. No biggie, was just raising the point. As I alluded to, it was one of the clever clues.
Aggghh … just read the clue again … my bad !!!