Super puzzle, I enjoyed this very much. Thank you Gozo.
I particularly liked the anagrams in this puzzle, very appropriate for the surface readings.
Unusually for Gozo there doesn’t seem to be any theme to the answers, maybe I just can’t see it.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | SUN LAMP | Tanner wastes Palm Sunday taking 24 hours off (3,4) |
| anagram (wasted) of PALM SUNday missing DAY (24 hours) | ||
| 5 | ENSIGNS | Head off plans adopting new standards (7) |
| dESIGNS (plans, missing head) contains (adopting) N (new) – a standard is a flag | ||
| 9 | NINE WICKETS DOWN | Windies won – Kent gets caught out, when the last man is batting (4,7,4) |
| anagram (out) of WINDIES WON KENT with C (caught) | ||
| 10 | CHEMICAL ELEMENT | He or Al would appear in full as such (8,7) |
| cryptic definition – He is Helium and Al is Aluminium | ||
| 11 | RANGE DEFENDERS | Grenade exploded by fireside frames in 1937 B-movie (5,9) |
| anagram (exploded) of GRENADE then FENDERS (fireside frames) – pulp western of the Three Mesquiteers genre wherein the three heroes return for another cowboy adventure | ||
| 13 | WINSTON SPENCER | PM gains much with US vice- president. Right! (7,7) |
| WINS (gains) TONS (much) with PENCE (Mike Pence, US vice-president) and R (right) – Sir Winston Spencer-Churchill, British Prime Minister (commonly referred to as Winston Churchill). | ||
| 17 | TRANSMIGRATIONS | Giant rainstorms ruined such movements (15) |
| anagram (ruined) of GIANT RAINSTORMS | ||
| 18 | SCORED AN OWN GOAL | Good! Arsenal won with Chelsea first sadly having put the ball in their net! (6,2,3,4) |
| anagram (sadly) of GOOD ARSENAL WON with Chelsea (first letter of) | ||
| 19 | SIESTAS | Busiest assistants catch restful moments (7) |
| found inside (caught by) buSIEST ASsistants | ||
| 20 | ELECTRA | In real trouble, shock treatment for sort of complex (7) |
| anagram (trouble) of REAL contains (in…is…) ECT (treatment with electric shocks) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | SINECURE | At home in safe job requiring little work (8) |
| IN (at home) inside SECURE (safe) | ||
| 2 | NANKEEN | Material for grannie with damaged knee (7) |
| NAN (granny) with anagram (damaged) of KNEE | ||
| 3 | AS WHITE AS A SHEET | Deathly pale, he sweats – heat is a problem (2,5,2,1,5) |
| anagram (problem) of HE SWEATS HEAT IS A | ||
| 4 | PACKAGE HOLIDAYS | On which kids go cheaply, flying with two adults (7,8) |
| anagram (flying) of KIDS GO CHEAPLY with A A (adult, twice) – definition to be extended: definition to be read as: on which kids go cheaply… | ||
| 5 | EBENEZER SCROOGE | Geezer once sober, drunk with Christmas spirit? (8,7) |
| anagram (drunk) of GEEZER ONCE SOBER – in A Christmas Carol Ebenezer Scrooge accompanies the three spirits of Christmas | ||
| 6 | SUSPEND SENTENCE | Hanging phrase, it seems – or one that’s cancelled (7,8) |
| double cryptic definition – hung by the neck or let off with a warning. I would have expected suspended sentence, but no big deal. | ||
| 7 | GOOD EAR | Sticky mixture that’s costly for a musician’s ability (4,3) |
| GOO (sticky mixture) has DEAR (costly) | ||
| 8 | SENATE | Cook seen at assembly (6) |
| anagram (cook) of SEEN AT | ||
| 12 | BRASILIA | Supporters shortened epic in capital (8) |
| BRAS (supporters) then ILIAd (epic poem, shortened) | ||
| 14 | IN A HOLE | Needing help, Hanoi turns to the French (2,1,4) |
| anagram (turns) of HANOI then LE (the, French) | ||
| 15 | COOL OUT | Chillax and speak fondly with boorish fellow (4,3) |
| COO (speak fondly) with LOUT (boorish fellow) | ||
| 16 | STASIS | Lack of movement with thoroughfare in its present condition (6) |
| ST (street, thoroughfare) with AS IS (in its present condition) | ||
Good fun, especially the anagrams. 6d does seem wrong but will be happy if anybody corrects me on this.
Two small typos in blog. In 13a, it is TONS not LOTS and in 20a it is ECT not ETC.
Thanks to Gozo and PeeDee.
A nice post-work pre-dinner solve. Some good anagrams spanning the grid which were satisfying to fit in. I couldn’t quite get SUSPEND SENTENCE to work either – maybe ‘it seems’ has something to do with the missing expected ‘ed’, with ‘Hanging’ indicating that the phrase was unfinished.
‘He or Al’ was good though ‘He or I’ might have even been better.
Thanks to Gozo and PeeDee
Thanks for those corrections Hovis. Fixed now.
Not an entirely satisfying solve – 6dn jarred with us as the clue naturally led to ‘suspended sentence’ and if, as WordPlodder suggests, the missing ‘ed’ was meant to suggest something unfinished we think the setter was trying to be too clever.
The rest of it was pretty straightforward, a mixture of write-ins and head-scratchers. We’d never heard of the film in 11ac but it was easily got from the clue. Our favourite, though, was 10ac (well, one of us was a chemist!)
Thanks, Gozo and PeeDee.
Thanks to Gozo and PeeDee. Great fun. I usually find this setter very difficult – and the many long clues looked formidable, but except for being slowed down by suspend-suspended it was a very quick solve.
15d COOL OUT? Not a phrase I’ve ever heard used. CHILL OUT perhaps, or COOL OFF
Same comment as Aphid above – not familiar with the phrase COOL OUT. In fact, I wasn’t even familiar with the word CHILLAX.
Gozo always reminds me of a holiday we had in Malta 3 years ago. We went on a trip to Gozo to see the Azure Window, only to find it had collapsed the day before.
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/cool-out
Thanks GOZO and PeeDee – I very much enjoyed this puzzle but, as per Aphid @6 and NNI @7, COOL OUT also jarred with me, notwithstanding Nila Palin’s link @8. It would have been easy enough to substitute say COOKOUT (or COOK OUT) instead (obviously with a different clue/definition).
I knew I was in trouble when I parsed 20a as ERECTAL!
Generally I have difficulty with Gozo but this seemed more penetrable to me. FOI was 5d so getting 15 letters off the bat helped. Never heard of 11a so I used a reference for my LOI. Thanks to Gozo and PeeDee.
Thanks Gozo and PeeDee
Am far from a racer to finish puzzles, but this one was completed in a record 13 minutes (Gozo would have been one of the last setters that I would have expected that to happen). The long words just fell out pretty much straight away, even the RANGE DEFENDERS was the only possibility at 11a. Unfortunately I came here before re-checking my suspicious WINSLOT SPENCER at 13a – which spoiled the celebration somewhat !!!!
Was originally not comfortable with 6d and 15d – still not with 6d but did find the Caribbean term in the Collins dictionary. It’s the first time that I’ve seen Mr Churchill referred to by Spencer only as his surname.
Have seen the elemental trick 2 or 3 times in recent weeks.
Finished with BRASILIA as the last one in – was fixated on BRATISLAVA for some reason for way to long.
a day late again — anyway, don;’t think i’ve seen so many (15)s — ashamed to admist that I landed on wins,lot spencer (perhaps a distant relative and PM of a small commonwealth country>??)
Hi Ilan – I spoke to Gozo yesterday and he said his intention in this puzzle was to create a grid with as many log answers as possible. This grid has 9 fifteen-letter entries and 2 fourteen-letter entries. Not an easy thing to do!
PeeDee,
I meant to mention the unusual number of long entries.
Surprised so few people mentioned the long answers. Eight 15s and two 14s—is that a record?(Another way to put it is only 22 clues, and just 55 black squares.) Impressive however you measure it.
They keep statistics like this for the NYT crossword (such as stacks of entries spanning the whole grid) and constructors try to better those records. Might be an interesting idea for 15^2 to try.