A mostly amenable puzzle, but with a few tricky clues thrown in. Thank you Poins.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | SECURE |
Witness catches scoundrel in stable (6)
|
| SEE (witness) contains (catches) CUR (scoundrel) | ||
| 4 | HOT SPOTS |
New notices in areas of potential trouble (3,5)
|
| HOT (new, trendy) SPOTS (notices) | ||
| 9 | RUN-INS |
Arguments caused by knight sharing spoils (3-3)
|
| N (knight, chess) inside (sharing) RUINS (spoils) | ||
| 10 | ASSORTED |
Classified ad featuring exotic escorts about to be removed (8)
|
| AD contains (featuring) anagram (exotic) of EScORTS missing C (circa, about) | ||
| 12 | MARTINET |
Strict disciplinarian‘s right to set about wayward inmate? Just the opposite (8)
|
| anagram (wayward) of INMATE contains (about) RT (right) | ||
| 13 | ALLURE |
Appeal from injured guerilla American soldier ignored (6)
|
| anagram (injured) of gUERiLLA missing (with…ignored) GI (American soldier) | ||
| 15 | LONG |
Unlikely to happen as principal leaves hurriedly (4)
|
| headLONG (hurriedly) missing HEAD (principal) | ||
| 16 | BECAUSE |
Since coming from Belgium Hercule finally with grounds for action (7)
|
| B (Belgium) herculE (last letter, finally) and CAUSE (grounds for action) | ||
| 20 | PONIARD |
Weapon found in ditch brought back by petty officer (7)
|
| DRAIN (ditch) reversed (brought back) following (by) PO (petty officer) | ||
| 21 | BOZO |
Fool with Dickens over … (4)
|
| BOZ (Charles Dickens, nickname) and O (over) | ||
| 25 | AMOUNT |
… the full effect of Abbot’s debut on stage (6)
|
| Abbot (first letter, debut) on MOUNT (stage) | ||
| 26 | INSOLENT |
Suspect in stolen lippy (8)
|
| anagram (suspect) of IN STOLEN | ||
| 28 | GERMINAL |
Novel in the earliest stage of development (8)
|
| double definition – novel by Emil Zola | ||
| 29 | VIRAGO |
Success after Rushdie’s first to break through for UK publisher (6)
|
| GO (success) follows Rushdie (first letter of) inside (to break) VIA (through) | ||
| 30 | PRESENCE |
Republican VP hedging about the end of his political influence (8)
|
| PENCE (mike Pence, Republican VP) contains (hedging) RE (about) hiS (the end of) | ||
| 31 | HECKLE |
Outrageous cheek without unqualified driver getting to shout abusively (6)
|
| anagram (outrageous) of CHEEK with L (learner, unqualified driver) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | SCRAMBLE |
Jumble sale’s top stuff bringing little enthusiasm at first (8)
|
| Sale (first letter, top) CRAM (stuff) then first letters of Bringing Little Enthusiasm | ||
| 2 | CONFRONT |
Deal with vote against covering face (8)
|
| CON (vote against) and FRNOT (covering face) | ||
| 3 | RANCID |
Turned off (6)
|
| double definition | ||
| 5 | OUST |
Eject Jack from tournament (4)
|
| J (jack) missing from jOUST (tournament) | ||
| 6 | SPOTLESS |
Succeeded without drugs to become absolutely clean (8)
|
| S (succeeded) POT-LESS (without pot, drugs) | ||
| 7 | OPT OUT |
Choose not to get involved with solicitor after work (3,3)
|
| TOUT (solicitor) following OP (opus, work) | ||
| 8 | SEDGES |
Plants found in south facing borders (6)
|
| S (south) next to (facing) EDGES (borders) | ||
| 11 | BENEFIT |
Happen to get new suspect-tracing aid – it’s an advantage (7)
|
| BE (happen) with N (new) then E-FIT (suspect-tracing aid) | ||
| 14 | WARRANT |
Justify the rise of crude bombast (7)
|
| RAW (crude) reversed (the rise of) then RANT (bombast) | ||
| 17 | COINCIDE |
Agree to meet (8)
|
| double definition | ||
| 18 | COMEBACK |
Play the part of Obama spurning soldiers with quick reply (8)
|
| COME (play the part of) then BAraCK (Barack Obama) missing RA (royal Artillery, soldiers) | ||
| 19 | BOLTHOLE |
Reportedly uninjured after rush to find refuge from danger (8)
|
| HOLE sounds like (reportedly) “whole” (uninjured) following BOLT (rush) | ||
| 22 | BANG UP |
Barker, perhaps set up after denunciation, gets put in prison (4,2)
|
| PUG (barker perhaps, a dog) reversed (set up) follows BAN (denunciation) | ||
| 23 | SOURCE |
It provides excitement say in spring (6)
|
| sounds like (say) “sauce” (excitement) | ||
| 24 | NOVICE |
Faultless from rookie (6)
|
| having NO VICE so faultless | ||
| 27 | LAIC |
Involving amateurs rising within officialdom (4)
|
| found reversed (rising) within offiCIALdom |
well definitely not a quickie… some trickiness in a lot of clues like 6d, leading to obvious answers.. parsing mostly ok.. hadn’t heard of Boz for Dickens, and interesting spelling of Poignard… loved the simplicity of 8dn but had to laugh at myself trying to construct a plausible anagram from ROOKIE…
thanks Poins n PeeDee
This was a tricky one today. Nice nod to Dickens on his birthday though. I struggled with a couple of clues and had to resort to the letter reveal a couple of times but apart from that it was an enjoyable brain workout
Thanks Poins and PeeDee
We found this quite challenging – certainly not the gentle stroll that many IoS puzzles are. Last ones in were the crossing AMOUNT and SOURCE which took us ages to figure out. And we didn’t get BOZO – the best we could come up with was ‘hobo’ which sort of parsed – a hob can be a supernatural creature and dickens (lower case d) the devil.
Plenty to like, including WARRANT, COMEBACK and VIRAGO.
Thanks, Poins and PeeDee
I found this quite hard in the SW, where there are no helpful anagrams, and struggled with AMOUNT (and still don’t really understand the definition), SOURCE and COINCIDE. The rest of the puzzle I found much more accessible. Still, a good workout and everything was well clued.
Hi Alliacol, I don’t fully understand the definition of amount either. It is in the OED as a noun meaning “the full effect” but is marked as obsolete. I think a loose equivalence might be “What this amounts to is…” and “The full effect of this is …”
Thanks for that, Peedee @5 – I was struggling with AMOUNT, too, but that works for me.
I thought the definitions in 17dn were a bit close for comfort but, otherwise, a pleasant and enjoyable solve. I had ticks for ASSORTED and the stolen cosmetic in 26ac, which made me smile and, like allan_c, I liked WARRANT, COMEBACK and VIRAGO.
I did know Dickens’ pseudonym from seeing ‘Sketches by Boz’ on my grandparents’ bookshelf when I was a child but didn’t register that it was his 209th birthday – thanks, ScottieJan @2!
Thanks to Poins for the puzzle and PeeDee for the blog.
PS: I really liked the Christie reference in 16ac but the surface (and surfaces are important to me) made no sense. I’m sure this could have been a really good clue with a bit of polishing.