A super puzzle, recommended for those who appreciate puzzles in a traditional style. Thank you Tees.
| ACROSS | ||
| 9 | APOLOGISE |
Brute concealing old record is to put things straight (9)
|
| APE (brute) contains (concealing) O (old) LOG (record) IS | ||
| 10 | VILLA |
Football team in very unfortunate article (5)
|
| V (very) ILL (unfortunate) and A (indefinite article) | ||
| 11 | IRAQI |
Arab or Irish-American taking first question? (5)
|
| IR (Irish) A (American) with QI (Q1, the first question) | ||
| 12 | BLIND SPOT |
Shades grass area where vision obscured (5,4)
|
| BLINDS (shades) and POT (grass) | ||
| 13 | HOSTAGE |
Kidnapped person and entertainer get on (7)
|
| HOST (entertainer) and AGE (get on) | ||
| 14/1 | THE LADY VANISHES |
Women’s magazine goes for Hitchcock film (3,4,8)
|
| THE LADY (Women’s magazine) VANISHES (goes) | ||
| 16 | SUSHI |
Posh sons in boat cut fare from Japan (5)
|
| U (posh) S (sons) inside SHIp (boat, cut short) | ||
| 18 | OWE |
I felt that initially extravagant need to pay (3)
|
| OW (I felt that!) and Extravagant (first letter, initially) | ||
| 19 | PETER |
Saintly gatekeeper‘s famous rabbit (5)
|
| double definition – St Peter and Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit | ||
| 21/23 | BROWNIE POINTS |
Helpful creature shows way to get good marks (7,6)
|
| BROWNIE (fairy, helpful creature) and POINTS (shows the way) | ||
| 22 | FUSSPOT |
Perfectionist‘s fine American pickle (7)
|
| F (fine) US (American) SPOT (pickle, difficult situation) | ||
| 24 | GREAT BEAR |
Substantial support for stars here? (5,4)
|
| GREAT (substantial) and BEAR (support) | ||
| 26 | TWINE |
One in dancing went to twist together (5)
|
| I (one) inside anagram (dancing) of WENT | ||
| 27/7 | ROGUE ELEPHANT |
Trumpeter leaving band needs help with entourage assembled (5,8)
|
| anagram (assembled) of HELP with ENTOURAGE | ||
| 28 | TEA FOR TWO |
Devastate a fort wounding number inside! (3,3,3)
|
| found inside devastaTE A FORTWOunding – a number is a song | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 |
See 14 Across
|
|
| 2 | MORASS |
Crowd surrounding soldiers in swampy region (6)
|
| MASS (crowd) contains (surrounding) OR (other ranks, soldiers) | ||
| 3 | DOMINATION |
Frenchman, one stopping gift, shows total control (10)
|
| M (monsieur, a Frenchman) I (one) inside (stopping, like a cork) DONATION (gift) | ||
| 4 | VIABLE |
Sailor trapped in offensive likely to survive (6)
|
| AB (able seaman) inside VILE (offensive) | ||
| 5 | BELITTLE |
Make small dish to hold one tart without filling (8)
|
| BELLE (dish, good looking woman) contains I (one) TarT missing middle letters (without filling) | ||
| 6 | AVID |
Really enthusiastic, great female singer turned up (4)
|
| DIVA (great female singer) reversed (turned up) | ||
| 7 |
See 27 Across
|
|
| 8 | PALTRY |
China with crack not worth considering (6)
|
| PAL (china, rhyming slang for China Plate, mate) and TRY (crack, have a crack at…) | ||
| 15 | EXPOSITION |
Display attitude that’s no longer relevant? (10)
|
| an EX (no longer relevant) POSTION (attitude) | ||
| 17 | STONE-AGE |
Very old and wise person circling pitch (5-3)
|
| SAGE (wise person) contains (circling) TONE (pitch) | ||
| 18 | OPERETTA |
Silly to repeat work by Gilbert and Sullivan? (8)
|
| anagram (silly) of TO REPEAT | ||
| 20 | RATTED ON |
Kept talking though disheartened and betrayed (6,2)
|
| RATTLED ON (kept talking) missing L (the middle letter, dis-heartened) | ||
| 21 | BOGART |
Smallest room with pictures showing film star (6)
|
| BOG (euphemisms for toilet, “the smallest room”) with ART (pictures) | ||
| 22 | FORMAT |
Presentation intended to reach Hancock shortly? (6)
|
| FOR (intended to reach, for the chosen audience) and MATt (Matt Hancock, UK Politician and/or character from Aussie soap Neighbours) | ||
| 23 |
See 21 Across
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|
| 25 | TREE |
Actor Herbert leaves home? (4)
|
| a TREE is the natural home for leaves – actor Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree |
2d, I had OR (other ranks) inside mass for crowd.
Although 27/7 had me listing old Jazz men for a while.
Thanks Falkirkdouglas, I have gotten my MASS and MOSS confused there. I will fix the blog in a minute or two.
20d – the letter removed is the “L” not one of the “T”s. I failed to find a word to dishearten that left RATTED though, so I’ve no helpful suggestion 🙁
A perfect one line summing up by our blogger. And no less a pleasure for that. Being a Brummie of sorts, VILLA was my way in and the adjacent APOLOGISE resisted, for some reason, until the very end. Penultimate was THE LADY VANISHES with the magazine so obvious in hindsight but I was racking my brains for some time to think of titles.
I loved the definition for ROGUE ELEPHANT, the image conjured up by the surface for PETER, the clever containment of TEA FOR TWO – albeit with a slightly less smooth surface resulting. BOGART made me harrumph – but then it’s never been my favourite WC euphemism – and I was chuffed to discover there actually was an actor called TREE when it seemed a possible solution. I parsed MORASS like Falkirkdouglas.
[PeeDee – you’ve had a hard-working weekend and this is the only day in the last three that I’ve been able to complete and parse without your assistance! I’m sorry to read yesterday evening that you’re standing down from Saturday duties but hope we still see you here and in other slots in the future.]
Thanks Tees and PeeDee
postmortes @3: I might be misunderstanding your point and I think PeeDee might have meant to highlight the ‘L’ but I think it’s the whole phrase ‘RATTLED ON’ that loses its central letter – is disheartened.
Re 20D, I agree with PostMark @ 5. At 22D, my first thoughts were Tony and Herbie (especially as 25D includes a Herbert), but eventually I dragged Matt from my little grey cells. Much enjoyed, so thanks Tees and PeeDee.
postmortes – you are right, I have removed the wrong letter in RATTLED ON. The L is in the middle of RATT-L-EDON. The blog is fixed now.
The letter L is problematic to highlight in the blog in my usual way. If I reduce the letter L to lower case it looks like an upper case I and often causes more confusion than elucidation.
[PostMark – no, I have not given up blogging entirely, just the Guardian Prize blog, which was only once every 4 weeks anyway. I no longer solve the Guardian regularly and am getting a bit out of touch with the setters and the community there in general. I solved the Guardian every day for 30 years, but a few years ago the newsagents stopped delivering the papers to our rural address and I had find puzzles online instead. Once I no longer had a physical newspaper there was less incentive to solve a particular puzzle. Now I do a variety of puzzles, but mostly the advanced (barred) cryptics rather than the standard grids].
[PeeDee: thanks for replying and will look forward to seeing you in future, then. 😀 It’s interesting to pick up, from all sorts of places on this site, the differing individual relationships so many of us solvers have with either paper or online versions, or both. As with the recurrent “is what I’m doing cheating?” discussions, it really is every one to their own.]
Lovely easygoing puzzle today. Only one unparsed – we’ve never come across Sir Tree and couldn’t see him on the first page of google results for ‘actor Herbert’, but we got the answer and had a giggle at the wordplay. Thanks to Tees and PeeDee for the blog.
Maybe it’s just me but leaves home suggests caddy or bag …
… or maybe a spliff.
Yeah that too hovis. Been many a year for me though.
Exactly what PeeDee says in his introduction
Thanks to Tees for another fine crossword and to PeeDee for the blog
I probably do prefer puzzles in a traditional style which would explain why I enjoyed this one. I was very relieved to discover that Mr Tree exists and was interested to read what Mr Google had to say about the trumpeter in 27/7.
Like PostMark, the image conjured up by 19a rather amused me and I also liked the fine American pickle and the helpful creature.
Thanks to Tees and to PeeDee for the review.
A thoroughly enjoyable Sunday afternoon solve. TREE defeated me, only acting Herbert I could think of was Lom, and although I parsed 9A correctly I didn’t think of ape as the specific brute I was looking for.
Loved the wordplay for TWINE.
For me too a fixation with Herbert Lom prevented me from seeing the tree for the leaves, which is just a more detailed way of not seeing the wood for the trees, a common failing on my part.
Not too surprising that some solvers hadn’t heard of Herbert Beerbohm Tree, since he died over 100 years ago – in 1917, coincidentally the year Herbert Lom was born. But he was a notable actor in his time – see the link below.
As for the puzzle, we found it an enjoyable Sunday stroll. Favourites were the three answers in linked lights – 14/1, 21/23 and 27/7; we also liked OPERETTA.
Thanks, Tees and PeeDee.
That link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Beerbohm_Tree
What I was able to solve I really enjoyed. Thanks Tees. Thanks PeeDee for filling in the blanks.
I’m sure there was a time that TREE was almost a write-in for actor if it appeared in a clue. Thankfully rarely seen now (I’d have said never, but here we are). I just wish IAN for Scotsman would go the same way.
Thanks all.
Herbert Tree – who knew… Glad we were not alone on this one!
Thanks as ever to Tees and PeeDee for providing post bank-holiday-tea entertainment (yes we are a day late but prefer Sunday’s gentle pace!)
Nice one.. as most others regarding TREE..
Thanks Tees n Peedee
It is interesting that TREE as an actor is not well known any more. Perhaps it is a generational thing. Maybe 10 or 20 years ago Herbert Tree used to crop up so often in cryptics that he was better known in Crosswordland than an actual trees.
PS – I don’t intend any disrespect to Tees here. A few nods here and there to old chestnuts (ahem) is all part of a fine puzzle in the traditional style as far as I am concerned.