A tough challenge from a rare Friday setter. Thanks LEONIDAS, for the treat.
FF: 9 DD : 9
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | STRUCK OFF |
Deregistered vehicle on Square in motion (6,3)
|
| S ( Square ) TRUCK ( vehicle ) OFF ( in motion ) | ||
| 6 | TIMID |
Tailless bird outside of innyard in need of pluck (5)
|
| TIMe ( tailless bird, meaning in the context of a prison sentence ) ID ( outside of InnyarD ) | ||
| 9 | LEVERET |
Seesaw maybe starts to entertain the youngster (7)
|
| LEVER ( seesaw maybe ) ET ( “..Entertain The.., starting letters ) | ||
| 10 | REREDOS |
Screen some episode re-runs making a comeback (7)
|
| hidden, reversed in “.. epiSODE RE-Runs..”, new word for me | ||
| 11 | MILAN |
Note left the heart of Scandi fashion capital (5)
|
| MI ( note ) L ( left ) AN ( heart of scANdi ) | ||
| 12 | TECHNICAL |
Criminal can’t lie to protect child specialist (9)
|
| [ CANT LIE ]* containing CH ( child ) | ||
| 14, 19 | STYLED |
Arranged home for the Trotters (Del retired) (6)
|
| STY ( home for the trotters ) LED ( reverse of DEL ) | ||
| 15 | CONTRETEMPS |
Barney books into centre with secretarial staff? (11)
|
| [ NT ( books ) in CORE ( centre ) ] TEMPS ( secretarial staff, could be ) | ||
| 17 | EXTREMITIES |
Old-timer shakily draws what might be digits (11)
|
| EX ( old ) [ TIMER ]* TIES ( draws ) | ||
| 19 |
See 14
|
|
| 20 | TWEENAGER |
In Paris to swim with pretty youth (9)
|
| TWEE ( pretty ) NAGER ( swim, in french ) | ||
| 22 | DEMOB |
Discharge Maureen blocking bed after a turn (5)
|
| MO ( maureen ) in BED reversed | ||
| 24 | CURVIER |
Scoundrel meets competitor that’s more bent (7)
|
| CUR ( scoundrel ) VIER ( competitor ) | ||
| 26 | ALI BABA |
Woodcutter in tale died leaving store with cake (3,4)
|
| ALdI ( store, without D – died ) BABA ( cake ) | ||
| 27 | LYMPH |
Fluid fuel, say, ultimately adding speed (5)
|
| LY ( “..fueL, saY,..”, finally ) MPH ( speed ) | ||
| 28 | WASHED OUT |
Show university date around flat (6-3)
|
| [ SHOW U ( university ) DATE ]* | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | SALEM |
Small teams alternately used in place of trials (5)
|
| alternate letters of “SmAlL tEaMs..” | ||
| 2 | RIVALRY |
Competition forced Larry to box drip (7)
|
| [ LARRY ]* containing IV ( drip ) | ||
| 3 | CHRONICLE |
Awful lyrics Elton originally put on record (9)
|
| CHRONIC ( awful ) LE ( “..Lyrics Elton..”, originally ) | ||
| 4 | OUTSTANDING |
Remarkable trip nurses endure (11)
|
| OUTING ( trip ) containing STAND ( endure ) | ||
| 5, 25 | FARROW |
Litter in seats most distant from us (6)
|
| cryptic def; read as FAR ROW ( seats most distant from us ) | ||
| 6 | TURIN |
Characters seized by capturing city (5)
|
| hidden in “..capTURINg..” | ||
| 7 | MODICUM |
Bit of a well-known Indian spice missing at home (7)
|
| MODI ( well-known indian, narendra modi, pm ) CUMin ( spice, missing IN – at home ) | ||
| 8 | DISCLOSED |
Circle Line finally to progress, the Board is shown (9)
|
| DISC ( circle ) L ( Line ) OSED ( final letters of “..tO progresS thE boarD ..” ) | ||
| 13 | CARRIER BAGS |
The current Mrs J grabs recycled items offered at tills (7,4)
|
| CARRIE ( current mrs j, wife of boris johnson ) [ GRABS ]* | ||
| 14 | SCEPTICAL |
Questioning infected mobster full of cold (9)
|
| [ SEPTIC ( infected ) AL ( mobster, capone ) ] containing C ( cold ) | ||
| 16 | TEST DRIVE |
Spin endless claptrap after match (4 5)
|
| TEST ( match ) DRIVEl ( claptrap, endless ) | ||
| 18 | THEOREM |
Proposition from Oscar splitting the band (7)
|
| O ( oscar ) in THE REM ( band ) | ||
| 19 | LUMBAGO |
Pain in bum possibly accepted by most of city (7)
|
| [ BUM ]* in LAGOs ( city, most of ) | ||
| 21 | NEIGH |
Sounds like a vote against Arab’s release? (5)
|
| sounds like NAY ( vote against ) | ||
| 23 | BLAST |
Quick go with hairdryer perhaps while filling sarnie (5)
|
| AS ( while ) in BLT ( sarnie, sandwich ) | ||
| 25 |
See 5
|
|
Took me a while to get going but once I had enough crossers the rest fell fairly quickly. I enjoyed the struggle and felt satisfied to finish without using aids. LOI 27ac. MY COD is 19d. Many thanks to setter and blogger.
I am warming to this setter-a bit unconventional and all the better for it
Loved the Hairdryer and LUMBAGO
Lots of goodies
Great stuff
I’m embarrassed to admit I didn’t know the name of the Indian PM, despite all the recent COVID-related publicity, so couldn’t parse MODICUM. I managed to make sense of everything else and liked LEVERET and TWEENAGER. A nod to our porcine friends in FARROW and the wordplay for STYLED but nothing else in the way of a theme that I could see.
Sorry, a very, very minor suggested correction to the blog, but I think ‘perhaps’ should be underlined as part of the def in 23d.
Thanks to Leonidas for an enjoyable puzzle that needed some thought to eventually solve and to Turbolegs
Hi Steven@1 – My experience was similar. Felt like it was going to be a slog before I picked up momentum. I had to use the internet to confirm my solve/parsing for several across clues ( 9ac, 10ac for the solves, 15a for the meaning of BARNEY, 20ac to confirm NAGER’s meaning in french ).
Regards,
TL
Wordplodder@3 – Thanks for the very very minor suggestion . Duly incorporated. 🙂
Regards,
TL
Thanks for the blog, a model of clarity. Too many favourites to list, just agree with all above.
Nice to see Derek Trotter, beautiful disguise, and the use of IV is very original.
Leonidas is now up there with giants like Monk or Basilisk.
And judging by today’s crossword, he might have even overtaken Buccaneer.
I think this was wonderful – just my kind of crossword!
Many thanks for that to our setter, & Turbolegs.
It took me a bit of time to get on the right wavelength for this, but then things improved and there was a lot to appreciate, so my thanks to Leonidas as well as to Turbolegs for sorting the ones I hadn’t fully parsed.
We took a while to get going but we warmed to it and managed to finish. We got the NE and SW corners reasonably quickly but the SE and NW corners took a bit of thought. LOI was STRUCK OFF, which we ought to have seen earlier but failed to separate the first two words.
Impossible to nominate a favourite, but we liked LEVERET, EXTREMITIES, CHRONICLE and LYMPH among others.
Thanks, Leonidas and Turbolegs.
Another I had to finish over breakfast coffee on a foggy morning. This was a great challenge Leonidas – thanks. SALEM, TURIN & MILAN made me wonder if we were in for a grid of cities.
Thanks for the blog Turbolegs as it confirmed a number of parsings and I also had to resort to Google for French swimming.
Thoroughly enjoyable a good sense of satisfaction when ALI BABA finally dropped into place.
I must be the only one keeping count, but by my reckoning this was number 9 from Leonidas.
Only spotted this tonight, and glad I did. Another cracking puzzle. Needed a word wizard to keep me going, but got there in the end with 21d and 27a being my last ones in.
Thanks Leonidas and Turbolegs
A toughie to finish a pretty solid week of FT puzzles. Was able to see SALEM pretty quickly with MILAN following soon after and like Mystogre@10 thought that there might be a city-based theme going to evolve. Things slowed down soon after and it took well over the hour to finally get to the end.
Many fine clues with what used to be the easiest device, the run-on in REREDOS and TURIN, being amongst the last to fall. Hard to pick a favourite, but the pleasure of unravelling the trickery was sustained throughout the solve. Finished in the NE corner with DISCLOSED, TIMID (with its tricky parse) and that TURIN the last few in.