The puzzle is available here.
Hi all. I have found myself for the third time in a row blogging a Tees – only this time I knew it! Contrary to its surface I did smile at GROIN (25a), and found further amusement in some delightful anagrams: I liked the weird anoraks and loved the mutant terrapins. Perfect Sunday entertainment all round. Thanks Tees!
Definitions are underlined in the clues below. In the explanations, quoted indicators are in italics, explicit [deletions] are in square brackets, and I’ve capitalised and emboldened letters which appear in the ANSWER. Link words are generally omitted for clarity.
Across
9a & 6. Batteries not included in the provision of this food? (4-5,4)
FREE-RANGE EGGS
A cryptic definition – no battery hens involved
10a Board in grand public school (3,2)
GET ON
G (grand) + ETON (public school)
11a & 7. Weird anoraks in town to see amusing actor (5,8)
ROWAN ATKINSON
An anagram of (weird) ANORAKS IN TOWN
12a Mutant terrapins come to light (9)
TRANSPIRE
An anagram of (mutant) TERRAPINS
13a Written verses regularly seen in Spectator (7)
WITNESS
Alternate letters of (… regularly seen) WrItTeN vErSeSs
14a Layer one’s rolled back in storehouse (7)
DEPOSIT
Not the kind of layer to produce 1a: here we have I’S (one’s) reversed (rolled back) in DEPOT (storehouse)
16a Bulging content that wobbles in loincloth (5)
LUNGI
The inner letters of (… content) bULGINg is anagrammed (wobbles). I may well have seen this word before but needed the checkers. All well with those in place though: the answer was hardly going to be LGNUI, was it?
18a Oriental sauce from Dungeness oysters (3)
SOY
The sauce we want is taken from DungenesS OYsters
19a Old pawnbroker sheds pound in weight (5)
OUNCE
O (old) + UNC[l]E (pawnbroker) loses (sheds) L (pounds)
20a Catching rook, cat — the only one in Disney — makes start (7)
TRIGGER
With the insertion of (catching) R (rook), TIGGER (cat — the only one in Disney). Tigger is unique: as Disney puts it, “The wonderful thing about Tigger, is he’s the only one”. (If he wanted to essay a different genre he might say, “I’m the real Tigger, all you other Tiggers are just imitating“)
21a Completely self-obsessed Romeo breaks fast? (7)
ALLEGRO
ALL EGO (completely self-obsessed); R (Romeo) is inserted (breaks)
23a Almost stagger over Scotsman resembling legendary warrior (9)
AMAZONIAN
Almost AMAZe (stagger) + ON (over) + IAN (Scotsman)
25a Pull in this region nothing to smile about (5)
GROIN
O (nothing) with GRIN (to smile) around it (about)
26a Male beach crab seen occasionally in spiritual centre (5)
MECCA
M (male) + bEaCh CrAb, alternate letters (seen occasionally)
27a Nervous Shakespeare wife dismissed with some banter? (3,2,4)
ILL AT EASE
[w]ILL (Shakespeare) without W (wife dismissed) + A TEASE (some banter?)
Down
1d Novel in which Mostar destroyed with a distant Surrey town? (1,8,2,4)
A FAREWELL TO ARMS
MOSTAR is anagrammed (destroyed) following A (a), FAR (distant) and EWELL (Surrey town). I wanted to start this with A STORM…
2d Bird, small, in midden, upside-down (6)
PEEWIT
WEE (small) in TIP (midden) reversed (upside down)
3d Minor royal and pop star loiter — Queen not appearing (10)
PRINCELING
PRINCE (pop star) + LINGer without ER (Queen not appearing)
4d Tune is reworked and comes together (6)
UNITES
TUNE IS anagrammed (reworked)
5d Lyre hard to play — that business with the arms? (8)
HERALDRY
LYRE HARD anagrammed (to play)
6d See 9 Across
7d See 11 Across
8d Hidden from public scrutiny with summer over? (5-3-7)
UNDER-THE-COUNTER
If one is UNDER THE COUNTER then presumably the counter (summer) is over!
15d Dissolute academic losing it in dispute (10)
PROFLIGATE
PROF (academic), then we are losing IT in L[it]IGATE (dispute)
17d Bothersome type is lurking in shade (8)
NUISANCE
IS inside (lurking in) NUANCE (shade)
18d Island has endless fish, excellent seen from below (8)
SARDINIA
SARDINe (fish) without the last letter (endless) + AI (A1, excellent) reversed (seen from below)
21d Right to stop an ancient poet (6)
ARNOLD
R (right) inside (to stop) AN + OLD (ancient)
22d Miss transporting large old bishop everywhere (6)
GLOBAL
GAL (miss) around (transporting) L (large), O (old) and B (bishop)
24d Square here almost round? (4)
OVAL
The square (although it’s actually rectangular) is part of a cricket field, such as the one found at The OVAL. There’s also the shape (bringing us neatly back to clue one)
A very entertaining Sunday solve. Nothing too tricksy but a lot of fun.
Didn’t know LUNGI. Having the I at the end made me think of DHOTI at first but 1d soon put paid to that and then the clue made LUNGI the obvious guess.
This seemed to grow on me, getting easier as I worked through the clues. The only one that held me up was OVAL, which maybe shouldn’t have done, but I didn’t know this use of ‘square’ in cricket, having always heard it as ‘pitch’ (which is as shown on the plan here*). LUNGI made me think of the delightful Cherie (Lunghi), though I doubt she wears one. Thanks Tees and Kitty as always for the entertaining blog.
* https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cricketfieldmswd.png
I got 1D early from a few crossers without fully parsing it, and likewise UNDER THE (but took a while to get COUNTER) so I had a good head start and didn’t need much help after that. Agree with Kitty about the quality of the anagrams.
I was motoring very nicely through this until I reached 25a and UNDER THE … which refused to yield its secrets for what seemed like ages. Only then could I see that GROIN was a cryptic def, having unsuccessfully looked for ways to make the wordplay fit ‘Pull’ or ‘nothing to smile about’. A bit of head scratching then and I felt that I’d earned my Sunday solve. Yes, the anagrams did provide something ‘to smile about’ along the way.
Thanks to Tees and to Kitty
As Hovis says, a very entertaining Sunday solve with nothing too tricksy but a lot of fun. We liked 9/6 for the alternative meaning of ‘batteries’ and 16ac for the image suggested by the surface. Others we liked were PEEWIT and PROFLIGATE.
Thanks to Tees, for the entertainment and to Kitty for the blog and pictures.
I often muse that puzzles from this setter vary tremendously, this one I thoroughly enjoyed despite having to do a bit of homework where the Surrey town was concerned.
Top three for me were the 9/6 combo plus 21&25a.
The mention of Shakespeare in 27a prompts me to say – if any of you haven’t read Hamnet by Maggie O’Farell then please do, it’s a real treat.
Thanks to Tees for the puzzle and to our favourite feline for the review.
Tatrasman @ 2
That is a fairly simplified diagram.
On a cricket ground, there is a squarish section in the middle. For any given game, a strip of that will be mown shorter: that is the pitch for the game, ie the pitch is a subsection of the square.
As an aside, because of the amount of special preparation the square gets, it is generally slightly higher than the field around it
As a longtime fan of Neo I visit the Indy when Tees is the setter. I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle — the surface for LUNGI was hysterical and I also enjoyed GROIN, TRANSPIRE (great anagram), and NUISANCE. Thanks Neo and to Kitty for the illustrated blog. The photo with FREE-RANGE EGGS has me mystified.
Picking a couple of older ones – we struggled to get going but once we got FREE RANGE EGGS it got easier! LUNGI and ARNOLD were new to us and summer=counter we don’t understand!
Thanks a lot to Tees we enjoyed this and Kitty for making sense of it all!
Just worked out summer=counter!!