Not all that easy today; after all it is Wednesday. Perhaps Eimi is changing things a bit. Or perhaps it was in fact easy, but I was just incompetent.
Definitions in tomato, underlined. Anagram indicators in italics.
In fact I found it so hard that by the end of it I breathed a sigh of relief and hardly looked for a Nina.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | MOTHBALL | Postpone work on missile attached to plane (8) |
| moth [as in ‘Tiger Moth’] ball | ||
| 5 | CANCEL | Suppress evil influence after changing sides (6) |
| canceR with its R becoming L — I’m not all that comfortable with cancel = suppress, but ‘suppression’ is one of the additional synonyms for ‘cancellation’ in Collins here, so Poins just about gets away with it | ||
| 10 | SMIDGEN | Small amount of marble initially included in exotic design (7) |
| m{arble} in *(design) | ||
| 11 | RIGHT-ON | Just concerned with being trendy (5-2) |
| right [just] on [concerned with] | ||
| 12 | ALLOT | Distribute key tax returns (5) |
| A (toll)rev. | ||
| 13 | INNERMOST | Parking out of town? Nearly all is private (9) |
| {P}inner most [nearly all] | ||
| 14 | BLATHERSKITE | Earl seen by lake in swimming togs? Nonsense (12) |
| The swimming togs are bather’s kit; it’s b(L)ather’s kit E — a word I only knew from Frazer in Dad’s Army, although in the sense he uses it it applies to a person; it also refers to what the person spouts | ||
| 18 | CAUSE CÉLÈBRE | Sue cereal company’s head and be ruined in famous trial (5,7) |
| (sue cereal c{ompany) be)* | ||
| 21 | RIGMAROLE | Confused American girl with more garbled nonsense (9) |
| *(A girl more) — garbled isn’t the anagram indicator although at first it seems to be | ||
| 23 | ERASE | Remove cover as expert shows (5) |
| Hidden in covER AS Expert — a good, pithy and less than obvious hidden | ||
| 24 | DISSENT | Girl’s perfume reportedly causing a difference of opinion (7) |
| Di’s “scent” | ||
| 25 | IN-DEPTH | Detailed plans originally kept in tin he’d tampered with (2-5) |
| p{lans} in (tin he’d)* | ||
| 26 | TESTER | Right about catching Illyrian fool heading off with old sixpenny piece (6) |
| (r({F}este)t)rev. — Feste is the Illyrian fool (he is a fool in Twelfth Night), and a tester is an old coin worth about sixpence (not a tanner, as I and probably many others, having ‘….E.’, initially thought): see here; ‘with’ is a link-word | ||
| 27 | ESTRANGE | Cut off from rum cove’s back earlier (8) |
| strange [rum] with {cov}e earlier | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | MISLAY | Lose in place covered with endless thin fog (6) |
| mis{t} lay [place] | ||
| 2 | TRIFLE | Amuse oneself for a bit (6) |
| 2 defs — I thought we had another coin after 26ac, but no | ||
| 3 | BAGATELLE | A game is something of little importance (9) |
| 2 defs | ||
| 4 | LONG IN THE TOOTH | Old desire curtailed by article on taste (4,2,3,5) |
| longin{g} the [article] tooth [taste — as in ‘sweet tooth’] | ||
| 6 | ANGER | Risk ignoring daughter’s rage (5) |
| {d}anger | ||
| 7 | CATHOLIC | All-embracing need to leave brothel to ladies primarily in charge (8) |
| catho{use} l{adies} i/c | ||
| 8 | LENGTHEN | Make longer part of journey around Norway next (8) |
| le(N)g then | ||
| 9 | FRINGE BENEFITS | Female calls about European charity’s money raiser creating additional advantages (6,8) |
| f ring(E benefit)s — rings = calls, benefit = charity’s money raiser | ||
| 15 | SURRENDER | Give up in Split during inevitable outbreak of revolution (9) |
| sur(rend)e r{evolution} | ||
| 16 | ACCREDIT | Sanction law to maintain production of cider (8) |
| *(cider) in act — the difficulty with ‘sanction’, as with ‘cleave’, is that the words mean two almost opposite things | ||
| 17 | SUGGESTS | Gives an impression of American mounting horse on street in the centre of Fresno (8) |
| (US)rev. GG [gee-gee] e(st.)s, the es being {Fr}es{no} — the clue is a bit long for my tastes, but don’t ask me for a shorter one! | ||
| 19 | HAPPEN | Fellow Conservative avoids prison by chance (6) |
| {C}hap pen — I think this is the definition, in which case ‘by’? Or is the definition ‘by chance’, in which case I can’t understand it | ||
| 20 | TECHIE | Computer expert‘s support received by letter? Just the opposite (6) |
| It’s not ch(tee)i but the opposite: te(chi)e | ||
| 22 | ADELE | Part of sad elegy for English singer (5) |
| Hidden in sAD ELEgy | ||
Like Andrew, I found this quite difficult. I failed to solve 26a TESTER – could not make heads or tails of it!
New for me were Pinner (town) and Blatherskite.
My favourites were LENGTHEN, MOTHBALL.
Thanks Andrew and Poins.
Another failure on 26a. A double dose of SK I thought, both the answer and the Shakespearean character. Didn’t care for 1a either. Wasn’t sure about tooth = taste (and still not convinced). Up north, people are known to say “Happen” or, more likely, “‘Appen” for “Perhaps” but I wouldn’t equate this to “By chance”. Close enough, I suppose.
Since posting above, I did look up “tooth” in Chambers and “taste” was the third definition. Who knew? Possibly lots but not me.
I really like a lot of Elton John’s stuff but (P) inner is more like the sort of suburb you may go through if you miss `the start of the M1.
It wasnt so much difficult, just not that great but I’m not too fussed as the Indy is the only available puzzle at 8am Queensland time.
Nice blog, John
Couldn’t see Tester at all, but knew it wasn’t Tanner. Couldn’t parse Catholic either as cathouse was totally unknown to me – i lead a sheltered life! And had to wordsearch Blatherskite. But it’s good to learn new words, isn’t it? Thanks Poins and John.
We finished this reasonably quickly but then had to go out so didn’t get opportunity to comment yesterday. Not terribly easy, though, and BLATHERSKITE was new to us. We did know the Illyrian fool as we’re familiar with Twelfth Night (trust Poins to come up with a Shakespearean reference) and vaguely remembered TESTER so we didn’t fall into the ‘tanner’ trap.
Plenty to enjoy, particularly CAUSE CÉLÈBRE and RIGMAROLE.
Thanks, Poins and John. Now to tackle today’s Serpent.