A breezy puzzle from REDSHANK this Friday.
No major hurdles in the solve except for a couple where I needed help to either confirm the parse or to complete the solve. One clue where I found the definition to be inexact so not sure if I missed something there.
FF: 9 DD: 7
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | DEFIANCE |
Temerity of Parisian guy who’s about to join union (8)
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DE ( of, french ) FIANCE ( guy who's about to join union ) |
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| 5 | CANDID |
Frank’s couple of auxiliaries (6)
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CAN DID ( two auxiliary verbs ) |
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| 10 | NURTURE |
Raise northern river covering track heading west (7)
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N ( northern ) [ URE ( river ) covering { reverse ( heading west ) of RUT ( track ) } ] |
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| 11 | STARDOM |
Mr Toad’s bogus celebrity status (7)
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[ MR TOADS ]* |
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| 12 | BASIC |
Unsophisticated graduate’s in charge (5)
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BA'S ( graduate's ) IC ( In Charge ) |
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| 13 | SCEPTICAL |
Dubious about entering sort of tank most of all (9)
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[ C ( about ) in ( entering ) SEPTIC ( type of tank ) ] AL ( most of ALl ) |
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| 14 | PLEASANTRIES |
Requests stars outside theatre to supply quips (12)
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PLEAS ( requests ) [ ARIES ( stars ) outside NT ( National Theatre ) ] |
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| 18 | UNDERWRITTEN |
Insured foreign articles current Times architect put out (12)
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UN DER ( foreign articles ) [ WREN ( architect, christopher ) around { I ( current ) TT ( times ) } ] |
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| 21 | DINING CAR |
Refreshing coach in golf clubs secured by Arab money (6,3)
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[ IN G ( Golf ) C ( Clubs ) ] in DINAR ( arab money ) |
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| 23 | ELUDE |
Avoid withdrawing last segment of schedule (5)
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reverse ( withdrawing ) of last part of schEDULE |
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| 24 | SO-AND-SO |
Child comes across a gong, not a nice sort (2-3-2)
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[ SON ( child ) containing ( comes across ) A ] DSO ( gong, medal, Distinguished Service Order ) ; had to look up the internet for DSO |
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| 25 | TONIGHT |
Firm keeps running when we’ll be asleep (7)
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TIGHT ( firm ) containing ( keeps ) ON ( running ) |
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| 26 | CHEERY |
Jolly earl ousts leading Republican in the red (6)
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[ E ( earl ) replacing first R ( leading Republican ) ] in CHErRY ( red ) |
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| 27 | ESPOUSAL |
Support French art with chum touring old states (8)
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ES ( art, french ) [ PAL ( chum ) around ( touring ) { O ( old ) US ( states ) } ] |
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| DOWN | ||
| 1 | DANUBE |
Spot European clutching new flower in Budapest (6)
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[ DAUB ( spot ) E ( European ) ] containing ( clutching ) N ( New ) ; flower as in something that flows |
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| 2 | FOREST |
Source of mast (or masts) on behalf of English saint (6)
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FOR ( on behalf of ) E ( English ) ST ( saint ) |
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| 3 | AVUNCULAR |
Relatively friendly and helpful? (9)
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cryptic def |
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| 4 | CHELSEA TRACTOR |
Suspect character stole so-called off-roader (7,7)
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[ CHARACTER STOLE ]* |
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| 6 | APART |
Old man splits craft in two (5)
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PA ( old man ) in ( splits ) ART ( craft ) |
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| 7 | DIDACTIC |
Visited polar region, getting shot of river that’s improving (8)
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DID ( visited ) [ ARcTIC ( polar region, without R – river ) ] |
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| 8 | DEMOLISH |
Protest is about large harbour ruin (8)
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{ [ DEMO ( protest ) IS ] around ( about ) L ( Large ) } H ( Harbour ) |
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| 9 | OSTEOARTHRITIS |
Ropey sore throat? It is what makes articulation difficult (14)
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[ SORE THROAT IT IS ]* |
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| 15 | THEREUNTO |
The tiniest item of litter stores energy and oxygen in addition (9)
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THE [ RUNT ( tiniest item of litter ) containing ( stores ) E ( Energy ) ] O ( Oxygen ) |
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| 16 | CUL-DE-SAC |
Copper scaled rocks where exit’s blocked (3-2-3)
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CU ( copper ) [ SCALED ]* |
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| 17 | EDENTATE |
GB tourist traps sloth for one (8)
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EDEN TATE ( two tourist spots in great britain ) |
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| 19 | FUNGUS |
Brief row about bovine rolling over athlete’s foot, say (6)
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FUSs ( row, briefly ) around ( about ) [ reverse ( rolling over ) of GNU ( bovine ) ] ; iffy about this clue – athlete's foot is the condition caused by the fungus and not the fungus itself |
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| 20 | VESTAL |
Immaculate striker joins Arsenal finally (6)
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VESTA ( striker, a short match ) L ( arsenaL , finally ) – i knew what the answer was likely going to be but failed due to ignorance of the word 'vesta'. nice surface. |
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| 22 | NADIR |
Clear article around the pits (5)
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RID ( clear ) AN ( article ) , all reversed ( around ) |
Although I got stuck a few times, I managed to complete without cheating. Did check Chambers for DSO and then realised I should have remembered that.
Liked the different meanings of “mast” in 2d (the pig feed from forest fruits and the ship poles). Wasn’t convinced by the definition for DIDACTIC in 7d but was ok with FUNGUS.
Managed this eventually but 27a had us foxed till last until we saw what the clever ‘French art’ was.
Thanks to Redshank and Turblolegs
Not easy. I found ESPOUSAL and THEREUNTO particularly difficult and the SE corner in general was slow to yield. I couldn’t remember the significance of the EDEN Project as a ‘GB tourist trap’ and thanks to Hovis @1 for explaining the ‘mast (or masts)’ bit of 2d as I’d forgotten the less common meaning. Finished with VESTAL which went in from a combination of Latin lessons and “A Whiter Shade of Pale”.
Thanks to Redshank and Turbolegs
Another lovely puzzle from Redshank, with some cracking clues.
My favourites today were CANDID, STARDOM, EDENTATE, VESTAL and the splendid anagrams CHELSEA TRACTOR and OSTEOARTHRITIS. I enjoyed working out PLEASANTRIES, UNDERWRITTEN and THEREUNTO.
Many thanks to Redshank for an enjoyable puzzle and Turbolegs for the blog.
Eileen’s favourites chimed with mine, by and large, especially CHELSEA TRACTOR. Found the wordplay, particularly the anagrams, really good fun today. I could only partially parse ESPOUSAL, being surprised by ‘art/es’, as well as the ‘de’ part of 1a as I was stuck for a long time on ‘homme’ and ‘type’, neither of which looked likely.
In the end, it was EDENTATE (again) which did for me as I was fixated on ‘idleness’.
Very enjoyable Friday solve.
Thanks to Redshank and Turbolegs.
Cant remember which way I jumped on THEREINTO and THEREUNTO
so thanks for pointing out RUNT-doh!
Thanks to Redshank and Turbolegs. Enjoyable. One of the rare times I managed to parse everything (including art/es, mast-masts, and ESPOUSAL) even though I had never come across CHELSEA TRACTOR.
wouldn’t the clue for 21 have been better with “club” rather than “clubs”?
Oh ok, I see. I was taking GC as golf club
I failed in the SE corner but no complaints – very enjoyable.
Thanks to Redshank and Turbolegs.
Good weekend all!
Needing a word finder more than once to complete this crossword, I found it on the difficult end of Redshank’s spectrum but I persisted due to the joy of clues such as CANDID, SCEPTICAL, and CHELSEA TRACTOR. Thanks to both.
We didn’t get round to commenting yesterday, so by now there’s not much to add. We liked CHELSEA TRACTOR, though – it reminded us of a comment by a friend about such vehicles: “the only time they’re off-road is in the supermarket car park!”
Thanks, Redshank and Turbolegs.
Ok in many places… but not particularly happy with DEMOLISH… instructions seem to point to putting IS around L n H… rather than other way around.. ?? Having read the blog I’m generally no further forward with ES = French art.. is it ART as in ARE? too clever for me..
Thanks REDSHANK n Turbolegs
Thanks Redshank and Turbolegs
Always enjoy this setter but was playing catch up and used help to unravel a few of these, still just as much fun to unravel the wordplay of them after getting the word itself. There were a couple that took quite some time to see how they worked – e.g. CHERRY and ESPOUSAL (happy to remember the ‘French art’ for once) and two that I couldn’t parse – EDENTATE (didn’t go down the English tourist destination path, not that I would’ve ever twigged to EDEN being one of them anyway) and CANDID (not grammatically clever enough to remember auxiliary verbs).
Finished with the tricky DEFIANCE, FOREST (happy again to remember the forest nuts as pig food) and CHEERY (which took ages to understand why).
Undrell: I am, thou art … Je suis, tu es …..!