Morning all. And good morning to Hamilton, quirky as ever.
Some devious stuff in here, with a little of Hamilton’s trademark playfulness, not to say laxity on occasion. Never mind. Enjoyable as always, so thanks to him.
| Across | ||
| 1 | ADVENTURER | Opportunist coming upon two rivers (10) |
| ADVENT (‘coming’) + river URE + R[iver]. | ||
| 7 | SIRE | Longing, to some extent, for father (4) |
| deSIRE, rather severely decapitated. | ||
| 9 | INCH | Move slowly on island (4) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 10 | NECROPOLIS | Alas, procession not as twice ordered at final stop (10) |
| Anagram (‘ordered’) of ‘aLas PROCESsION’ with 2x AS removed. | ||
| 11 | AMORAL | A lesson that’s unprincipled (6) |
| A + MORAL (a ‘lesson’). | ||
| 12 | NEEDLESS | Points to one direction, which is uncalled-for (8) |
| NEEDLES (‘points’) + S[outh]. Many distracting ‘points’, none relevant to the solution. | ||
| 13 | ACOUSTIC | A bird calls for a moment, heard without amplification (8) |
| A + homophone (near enough) of ‘coos’ (‘bird-calls’) + another of ‘tick’ (a ‘moment’). | ||
| 15 | PEEK | Catch sight of wee Kelvin (4) |
| PEE (to ‘wee’) + K[elvin]. Slight transitive/intransitive issue: Chambers gives ‘peek’ as transitive only in computing. A chap might ‘catch sight of’ a neat ankle. If he ‘peeks’ for it, he’s rather a cad. | ||
| 17 | TIFF | Argument about lunch is not popular (4) |
| TIFFin (‘lunch’) without IN (‘popular’). | ||
| 19 | RAINDROP | Artist going down for a little water (8) |
| RA (‘artist’) ‘IN DROP’ (= ‘going down’). | ||
| 22 | BASILICA | Unsophisticated trainee one’s taken into a church (8) |
| BAS.IC (‘unsophisticated’) includes L[eft] + 1, then A. | ||
| 23 | DIGS IN | Works hard to be into crime! (4,2) |
| I.e., to ‘dig sin’. | ||
| 25 | GIANT PANDA | Adapting an eccentric animal (5,5) |
| Anagram (‘eccentric’) of ADAPTING AN. Hands up who tried the other-way-round anagram first. | ||
| 26 | VEIL | Cover very expensive in lace originally (4) |
| 1st letters of words 2-5. | ||
| 27 | USED | Exploited after having ushered the lady out (4) |
| USherED without HER. | ||
| 28 | SEYCHELLES | Report to tell of missiles found on island group (10) |
| Homophone of ‘say shells’. | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | DYNAMIC | Forceful detectives arrested a lot on their return (7) |
| MANY in CID, all reversed. | ||
| 3 | ETHER | Number of the chalet herewith (5) |
| Hidden in ‘chalET HERewith’. ‘Numb-er’, of course. | ||
| 4 | TINPLATE | Can metal be left in patient post-surgery? (8) |
| L[eft] in anagram (i.e., ‘post-surgery’) of PATIENT. | ||
| 5 | RACING CERTAINTY | Tracy and I creating new production; one of us is a shoo- in (6,9) |
| Tricksy anagram (‘production’) of TRACY + I + CREATING + N[ew] + I (‘one of us’) and I’m not sure it works. I keep coming out with either a spare ‘I’ or and ‘N’ over. I’ve confused myself enough. Help welcome. | ||
| 6 | RIOTER | Insurrectionist in city about to start uprising (6) |
| RIO (‘city’) + reversal of RE (‘about’) + start of ‘To’. | ||
| 7 | SCOLLOPED | Got an exclusive about two students that searched for molluscs (9) |
| SCOOPED (‘got an exclusive’) about 2xL[earners]. Unusual spelling which Chambers confirms. | ||
| 8 | REISSUE | Children on first make second edition (7) |
| RE (‘on’) + ISSUE. | ||
| 14 | UNFEIGNED | Real fungi need to be cultivated (9) |
| Anagram of FUNGI NEED. | ||
| 16 | BIRDBATH | Where Robin and Martin get clean away with it? (8) |
| Cryptic def, robin & martin being birds, of course. | ||
| 18 | ITALICS | Type to emphasise it’s about the girl, mainly (7) |
| ITS around ALICe. | ||
| 20 | ORIFICE | Opening scripture lesson in workplace after first fellow’s gone (7) |
| RI in OfFICE. | ||
| 21 | HIPPOS | Old physician loses container of animals (6) |
| HIPPOcrateS being your old doctor. | ||
| 24 | GAVEL | Court attention-seeker (5) |
| Cryptic def. Gavels have never been used in British courts, btw. | ||
*anagram
Not a Hamilton fan but enjoyed this for the most part. Didn’t care for 7a though. Nice info on gavels which was new to me.
For 5d, I took it as an anagram of TRACY I CREATING N with everything after the semicolon as a (Hamiltonesque) definition.
Thanks both.
I wondered what SIRE was all about, and now I do know, I can’t say I’m convinced. I was also put off by the unusual SCOLLOPED spelling. I’ve been through the 5d anagram again, à la Hovis @1 and it seems to work for me.
Enjoyable puzzle with a few such as the misleading BIRDBATH holding me up at the end. I liked the ‘final stop’ anagram at 10a, the surface for DIGS IN and the ‘Old physician’ without his container.
Thanks to Grant and Hamilton.
Thanks Hamilton and Grant
I actually don’t mind the quirkiness of this setter and think of the stretches that he goes just an additional challenge. For example, with SIRE – was quite obvious what the answer was going to be … then you just go ‘cheeky bugger’ ! Parsed 5d as did Hovis.
Lost my scribbles to see what my attempt with the anagrist was in 25a – am pretty sure that it was the intended one though.
INCH was the first in and ended up with GAVEL and HIPPOS.
Didn’t like PEEK for to catch sight of, but it reminded me of BBC Basic programming back in the very early 1980’s. It was used to obtain the contents of a byte of storage. If you wanted to amend the contents you used the POKE instruction.
Can’t vouch for the spelling of 4d but that’s how they say it in Nantucket.