A few nicely disguised definitions in here… Thank you Aardvark
Looks like a pangram but I haven’t checked.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | MICRONESIA | Nomadic Romanies overwhelming outwardly idyllic archipelago (10) |
| anagram (nomadic) of ROMANIES contains IdylliC (outer letters) | ||
| 7 | COPY | Impersonate policeman and end in custody (4) |
| COP (policeman) and custodY (end letter) | ||
| 9 | AVON | Recalled star GB runner (4) |
| NOVA (star) reversed (recalled) – the River Avon, something that runs in Great Britain | ||
| 10 | LIVESTREAM | Irishman describes underwear on broadcast online (10) |
| LIAM (an Irishman, name) contains (describes) VEST (underwear) RE (on, regarding) | ||
| 11 | ADVERB | A level of noise inhibits vicar going over part of speech (6) |
| A DB (Db, decibel, level of noise) contains (inhibits) REV (vicar) reversed (going over) | ||
| 12 | BACCARAT | Current coach seen in club’s card game (8) |
| AC (alternating current) CAR (coach) inside BAT (club) | ||
| 13 | TRANQUIL | Composed new design to reflect trimmed bedcover (8) |
| N (new) ART (design) reversed (to reflect) then QUILt (bedcover, trimmed) | ||
| 15 | DOTH | Spot first of hinds and does earlier (4) |
| DOT (spot) and Hinds (first letter of) – earlier indicates an archaic word | ||
| 17 | ZINC | Element of jazz in composition (4) |
| found inside jazZ IN Composition | ||
| 19 | EXTERIOR | Cattle, leaderless between nine and eleven, run outside (8) |
| dEXTER (breed of cattle, leaderless) IO (ten, between 9 and 11) and R (run) | ||
| 22 | MERCHANT | Dealer paid to maintain ranch building (8) |
| MET (paid) contains (to maintain) anagram (building) of RANCH | ||
| 23 | ALWAYS | Maybe Pacino’s absorbing passage continually (6) |
| AL’S (Pacino maybe is) contains (absorbing) WAY (passage) | ||
| 25 | STREET CRED | Cryptic setter embarrassed by constant approval by modish urbanites? (6,4) |
| anagram (cryptic) of SETTER then RED following C (constant, maths) | ||
| 26 | I-SPY | Observing game is pretty draining (1-3) |
| IS then PrettY (draining, emptied) | ||
| 27 | FANG | Work hard to arrest northern poisoner (4) |
| FAG (work hard) contains N (northern) – a snake’s fang, something that poisons | ||
| 28 | COS LETTUCE | Leaves company’s rental property with Charlie during Tuesday (3,7) |
| CO (company) LET (rental property) then C (charlie, phonetic alphabet) inside (during) TUE (Tuesday) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | INVADER | One encroaches upon rocky ravine when touring Germany (7) |
| anagram (rocky) of RAVINE contains (when touring) D (Deutschland, Germany) | ||
| 3 | RENEE | Frenchwoman born alongside banks of Rhone (5) |
| NEE (born) with (alongside) RhonE (outer letters, banks of) | ||
| 4 | NILE BLUE | Flower sad in shade (4,4) |
| NILE (river, something that flows) BLUE (sad) | ||
| 5 | SEVE BALLESTEROS | Old golfer assimilated bestseller with Soave (4,11) |
| anagram (assimilated) of BESTSELLER with SOAVE | ||
| 6 | AS SUCH | Donkey starts to untie cheap harness by itself (2,4) |
| ASS (donkey) then first letters (starts to) of Untie Cheap Harness | ||
| 7 | CORIANDER | Herb, fellow jockey, pens article (9) |
| CO-RIDER (fellow jockey) contains (pens) AN (indefinite article) | ||
| 8 | PEASANT | Rustic game-bird husband picked off (7) |
| PhEASANT missing H (husband) | ||
| 14 | NICK CLEGG | Former politician Rob – Conservative member, note (4,5) |
| NICK (rob) C (conservative) LEG (member) G (note, music) – former leader of the Lib-Dems | ||
| 16 | STRADDLE | Small daughters inside ground later sit on the fence (8) |
| S (small) then DD (daughter, twice) inside anagram (ground) of LATER | ||
| 18 | INERTIA | In Royal Crown, artist’s drawn still life? (7) |
| IN ER (a royal) TIAra (crown) missing (that has…drawn) RA (royal Academician, artist) – a “still life” is a lazy life | ||
| 20 | OLYMPIC | Kind of top athlete to change policy about entrant in Marathon (7) |
| anagram (to change) of POLICY contains Marathon (first letter, entrant in) | ||
| 21 | MASTIC | Bubbly resident in middle of romcom that provides tackiness (6) |
| ASTI (bubbly, a wine) inside roMCom (middle of) | ||
| 24 | WAIST | Body part rejected, we hear (5) |
| sounds like (we hear) “waste” (rejected) | ||
Phew! – i found this quite a challenge but very rewarding.
As well as nicely disguised definitions, there was some pretty intricate wordplay, which I really enjoyed teasing out.
I have a lot of ticks and today I am going to list them all: 1ac MELANESIA, 19ac EXTERIOR, 28ac COS LETTUCE, 14dn NICK CLEGG and 29dn OLYMPIC, for their construction / ingenuity; 15ac DOTH and 18dn INERTIA for their construction and definitions; 7ac COPY, because it made me laugh – and the lovely (in both senses 😉 ) 5dn SEVE BALLESTEROS.
In 12ac, coach = CAR, not CART.
Many thanks for a most enjoyable work-out, Aardvark and to PeeDee for a fine blog.
The pick of the day for me. Beautifully confusing clues. Also thought a pangram was on the cards but don’t see a J. Used a word fit cheat on TRANQUIL. I was so blinded by the idea that it would be some type of cover for a garden bed that I missed the obvious. Didn’t know DEXTER as a breed of cattle but it was my first guess and quickly checked.
Thanks Aardvark and PeeDee.
I think the coach is CAR in 12.
Loved the puzzle.
Thanks PeeDee and Aardvark
I gave a big tick to DOTH, for the misleading surface and the original def and learnt a new breed of cattle to explain the unparsed EXTERIOR. Just right for a leisurely post-dinner solve.
Thanks to Aardvark and PeeDee
Thanks Eileen and Adriana, my CART has been replaced by a CAR now.
In common with Eileen and Wordplodder, DOTH and COPY were favourites today in a super puzzle overall. Just got stuck on MASTIC as I kept thinking of ‘sticky’ and ‘kitsch’ both involving a ‘skit’, even though ‘m’ and ‘c’ were clearly indicated.
Thanks to Aardvark and PeeDee.
Thanks to Aardvark and PeeDee. I could not parse EXTERIOR and struggled with NICK CLEGG, MASTIC, FANG and my LOI TRANQUIL, but I did finish and much enjoyed the process.
It’s a funny old game, solving crosswords, isn’t it?. I flew through this as quickly as I’ve ever solved a puzzle, hardly missing a beat, enjoying some lovely clues. By contrast, yesterday’s I found dreadful. And yet in the comments, I don’t judge that there’s much difference between the two. Some of this must be to do with “being on the right wavelength “, but one’s state of mind also makes a huge difference. Yesterday, I quickly got frustrated and no amount of thinking was going to help me. Today, I sailed along serenely, happy that I would know the answers, and I did.
How weird is this?
My last three in were 13,19 and 22 across. Missing J, Q and X for a pangram enabled me to get “tranQuil” and “eXterior” and being convinced it had to have a J, failed to get MERCHANT. Thanks to Aardvark and PeeDee.
As usual Aardvark provides a well-crafted, challenging but reasonable crossword — COPY (great surface), AVON, DOTH (wonderful misdirection), AS SUCH, and STRADDLE were favourites. Failed in the SW corner missing NICK CLEGG (unknown to me) and FANG. Thanks PeeDee for parsing and untangling EXTERIOR.
A steady solve, if challenging in places. LIVESTREAM and TRANQUIL took some teasing out, but ended up as our favourites. But we failed to get FANG – we were too fixated on trying to find the name of an infamour poisoner (without success, of course).
Thanks, Aardvark and PeeDee.
Thank you PeeDee, I needed your explanations today as I had couple unparsed when I finished. Thanks Aardvark for a very pleasant afternoon solve – I really enjoyed this.
Thanks Aardvark and PeeDee
Was able to fill the grid quite quickly, which is surprising for this setter – still it was filled with his usual high standard clues. Couldn’t account for the TIA part of INERTIA and head-slapped myself when I saw what it was here. Didn’t know the [D]EXTER breed of cattle, so although confident of the right answer, it was unparsed as well.
Was on the lookout for the as-it-turns out non-existent pangram to finish off in the SW corner – it helped get FANG, but MERCHANT and MASTIC had to be just worked out on their merits with no J in sight.
An enjoyable, albeit quick, solve.
bruce. Like me, you couldn’t help but feel DEXTER was right 🙂
Aha, Hovis … skipped over your comment too quickly to see that I had left the same ambiguity – knowing EXTERIOR as the right answer purely as a biff – and having no clue about DEXTER.