Decent Tuesday fare with some pleasing surfaces.
A speed-solve this morning. All above board and accurately clued and with some very 'readable' clues. Thanks to Gurney.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | GULF STATES | Significant difference, says political grouping (4,6) |
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GULF ('significant difference') + STATES ('says'). |
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| 6 | ITEM | Couple I encountered on return (4) |
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I + MET ('encountered'), reversed. |
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| 9 | ULTRASONIC | Work on rail cuts – of high frequency (10) |
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Anagram ('work') of ON RAIL CUTS. |
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| 10 | PASS | Go by mountain route (4) |
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Double definition. |
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| 12 | WEIGHT LIFTER | Stay, we hear, with long-serving guy reserving time for athlete (6,6) |
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Homophone of WAIT ('stay') + LIF.ER ('long-serving' prisoner) around T[ime]. |
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| 15 | ELEVATION | Height of joy welcoming European Quintet (9) |
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EL.ATION ('joy') includes E[uropean] + V (5, a 'quintet'). |
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| 17 | CARGO | Freight vehicle journey (5) |
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CAR + GO. |
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| 18 | ELITE | Exclusive cartel, it endures to some extent (5) |
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Included in 'cartEL IT Endures'. |
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| 19 | PLENITUDE | Wealth from introducing Premier League, English, with United playing (9) |
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1st letters of Premier, League & English + anagram ('playing') of UNITED. |
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| 20 | OVERLORDSHIP | Position of power of Polish Order, very odd (12) |
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Anagram ('odd') of POLISH ORDER V[ery]. |
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| 24 | EXAM | No longer associated with American test (4) |
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EX + AM[erican]. |
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| 25 | LIBERALISM | Misrepresentation about artist is mass belief (10) |
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LIBE.L ('misrepresentation') around RA ('artist') + IS + M[ass]. |
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| 26 | THEO | Fellow’s article coming to nought (4) |
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THE ('article') + 0 (zero, 'nought'). |
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| 27 | FLATTERING | Apartment group welcoming note using sweet talk (10) |
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FLAT ('apartment') + RING ('group') includes TE (sol-fa 'note'). |
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| DOWN | ||
| 1 | GLUE | Unhappy as book’s swapped for good adhesive (4) |
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bLUE ('unhappy'), its B[ook] replaced by G[ood]. |
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| 2 | LUTE | Instrument in sack, you say? (4) |
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Homophone of 'loot' (to 'sack'). |
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| 3 | SHAMEFACEDLY | Chef with day’s meal in mess showing embarrassment (12) |
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Anagram ('in mess') of CHEF + DAYS + MEAL. |
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| 4 | AMONG | Included in team on green missing some (5) |
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Hidden ('missing some') in 'teAM ON Green'. |
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| 5 | EXISTENCE | Being ordered – exit scene (9) |
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Anagram ('ordered') of EXIT SCENE. |
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| 7 | TRAITOROUS | Disloyal characteristic, indecorous? Not half! (10) |
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TRAIT ('characteristic') + back half of 'indecOROUS'. |
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| 8 | MUSHROOMED | Thought about hotel space – building grew rapidly (10) |
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MUS.ED ('thought') around H[otel] + ROOM ('space'). |
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| 11 | DISCRIMINATE | Discern subtle indirect aims (12) |
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Anagram ('subtle') of INDIRECT AIMS. |
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| 13 | BENEVOLENT | Inclination to pack eastern novel, after review, friendly (10) |
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BENT ('inclination') includes anagram ('after review') of E[astern] + NOVEL |
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| 14 | DELIBERATE | Reverse move to freedom being planned? (10) |
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I.e. to 'unliberate', 'de-liberate', reversing a move to freedom. |
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| 16 | IMPARTIAL | Just communicate – finally on regular basis (9) |
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IMPART ('communicate') + I,A,L (alternate letters of 'FINALLY'). |
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| 21 | SLEET | Determined to describe the foreign snow, partly melted (5) |
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S.ET ('determined') around LE (foreign, French 'the'). |
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| 22 | KIWI | By sound of it, important small fruit (4) |
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Homophones of KEY and WEE. |
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| 23 | SMUG | Seem vacuous, posh, grand, complacent (4) |
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SeeM, emptied, ('vacuous') + U (Mitfordian 'posh') + G[rand]. |
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Measly results on my initial pass – CARGO being first in – made me fear a tough slog today.
Such was not the case, happily, as once the first of the long clues fell, I skipped through most of the rest…until landing in the SE corner where 25a proved stubborn. 14d set off a light bulb here.
Unravelling clues such as WEIGHT LIFTER and GULF STATES was a joy with a few welcome anagrams to make light work of the rest. MUSHROOMED was a particular favourite.
But, as suspected, it was the four-letter words which caused most vexation: ‘glum’ or ‘glue’ and 24a – my LOI – took a right royal age to dawn. I did like ITEM for ‘couple’.
Hats off to Gurney for such sound cluing and thanks to Grant for an equally sound blog.
Nothing to add to Diane — except that my LOI was WEIGHT LIFTER, which needed me to spot AMONG first. Thanks to Gurney for a good Tuesday, and GB for his effort.
Not sure why, but I’m going to shamefacedly admit that I thought wealth was “plentitude” and had to check that the first T should be removed. No SMUGness from me today.
Thanks Gurney and Grant
Didn’t have that much trouble getting started after unscrambling ULTRASONIC as the first clue in – still it was a step by step process to get to the end of the solve. Had the LUE part of 1d straight after 9a but it had to wait until my penultimate answer at 1a to determine whether it was the B or the G that was to stay. Think that I enjoyed the working through the anagrammatic clues the most today. Took a while to see the word play for both IMPARTIAL and LIBERALISM.
Haven’t heard of the Chinese gooseberry being referred to as just a KIWI, has always been known as a kiwifruit here – delicious, particularly the gold ones.
A nice Tuesday tussle indeed.
Bruce @4,
The gold ones are indeed delicious, more honeyed than the green ones. Yum!
A slow but enjoyable solve with many answers derived mostly from the definition with the full parsing coming later. SLEET really isn’t partially melted snow; technically it’s frozen rain. Sometimes snow mixed with rain can also be called sleet. I would call partially melted snow slush. A minor nit to pick in a solid crossword. GULF STATES was my favourite. Thanks to both.
Hovis, I also initially thought that it should be plentitude.
Many thanks, Grant, for the excellent blog and thanks also to all who commented. Re #6, Collins gives “partly melted snow” for SLEET: it may be mainly a UK usage.