An enjoyable tussle with yet another WANDERER beauty.
FF: 10 DD: 9
Mini food theme? – 5a, 11a, 7d, 16d, 17d, 19,13d [26a, 24d indirectly]
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | JACOBI |
Two-thirds of James II’s supporters, according to mathematician (6)
|
| JACOBItes ( james ii’s supporters, 2/3rd of ); german mathematician carl jacobi | ||
| 5 | CHOP SUEY |
Cooked extremely cheesy hot European soup dish (4,4)
|
| [ CY ( CheesY, end characters ) H ( hot ) E ( european ) SOUP ]* | ||
| 9 | BANDITTI |
Outlaws song broadcast following embargo (8)
|
| DITTI ( sounds like DITTY, song ) after BAN ( embargo ) | ||
| 10 | ISSUED |
Put out to be third person taken to court (6)
|
| IS SUED ( third person taken to court; ~ he is sued ) | ||
| 11 | PANEER |
Cheese turning somewhat green, apparently (6)
|
| hidden, reversed in “..gREEN APparently” | ||
| 12 | EYESIGHT |
Sense agreement in rowing team (8)
|
| YES ( agreement ) in EIGHT ( rowing team ) | ||
| 14 | PRIME NUMBERS |
Best book for 7 and 17, say (5,7)
|
| PRIME ( best ) NUMBERS ( book, hebrew bible 4th book ) – clever misdirection as i did spend some time thinking about sushi | ||
| 18 | LAKE DWELLING |
Dalek revelling in the pink gin drunk in old house over the water (4,8)
|
| [ DALEK ]* WELL ( in the pink ) [ GIN ]* | ||
| 22 | HALF-MOON |
Sky’s highlight periodically showing Farah or Salah? (4-4)
|
| cryptic def; HALF MOON = MO , how farah or salah are known (~mohamed) | ||
| 25 | ETHICS |
Moral code worked out in the centre of Chichester (6)
|
| ch [ ICHEST ]* er | ||
| 26 | OODLES |
Lots of pasta, perhaps, but no starter (6)
|
| nOODLES ( pasta, perhaps, without first letter ) | ||
| 27 | EASTERLY |
A blow-out later? Yes (8)
|
| [ LATER YES ]* | ||
| 28 | LIGHTS ON |
Comes across what one might need after sunset (6,2)
|
| double def | ||
| 29 | LEEWAY |
Play Spooner’s little song (6)
|
| spoonerism of WEE ( little ) LAY ( song ) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | ASANAS |
Poses a second teaser, essentially about an . . . .. (6)
|
| [ A S ( second ) AS ( teASer, essentially ) ] around AN | ||
| 3 | OLD PEOPLE |
. . . . omen, perhaps, for those getting on . . . . (3,6)
|
| cryptic expansion for omen – OLD [ o ] PEOPLE [ men ] | ||
| 4 | INTERVIEW |
. . . . TV? Were one to get confused by current new question . . . . (9)
|
| [ TV WERE I ( one ) ]* after [ I ( current ) N ( new ) ] | ||
| 5, 20 | CHINESE LANTERN |
. . . . search line ten round about bottom of down light (7,7)
|
| [ SEARCH LINE TEN ]* N ( dowN, last letter ) | ||
| 6 | OVINE |
Beefy’s bowled out Lamby? (5)
|
| bOVINE ( beefy, B – bowled out ) | ||
| 7 | SUSHI |
Rice dish gives us hiccups for a while (5)
|
| hidden in “..giveS US HIccups..” | ||
| 8 | EYE CHART |
They care about one means of testing 12 (3,5)
|
| [ THEY CARE ]*; see 12a | ||
| 13 |
See 19
|
|
| 15 | UNIVERSAL |
A French writer (mostly poetry) with a large set of studios? (9)
|
| UN ( a, in french ) I ( writer ) VERSe ( poetry, mostly ) A L ( large ) | ||
| 16 | BIG CHEESE |
Beige clothes? Not a great deal off for a VIP (3,6)
|
| [ BEIGE ClotHES ( without LOT, a great deal ) ]* | ||
| 17 | MACARONI |
Old woman about to join cycling club? That’s dandy (8)
|
| MA ( old woman ) CA ( about ) RONI ( club = IRON, cycling implies first letter moving to the last ) | ||
| 19, 13 | DIM SUM |
Range of appetisers coming to a total of just 7.5 cents? (3,3)
|
| cryptic def ; 7.5 cents would be a small total or a DIM SUM | ||
| 20 |
See 5
|
|
| 21 | SCYLLA |
Sea monster that’s one of a pair of scallywags (6)
|
| [ SCALLY ]* ; wags – anagrind | ||
| 23 | FILCH |
Steal from girl regularly going from France to Switzerland (5)
|
| IL ( gIrL, regularly ) in [ F ( france ) CH ( switzerland ) ] | ||
| 24 | OASTS |
Cooks lacking the right ovens (5)
|
| rOASTS ( cooks, without R – right ) |
Just right to do before lunch, though mine will be humbler than the offerings on show here. Of the food-related clues, I’d only vaguely heard of PANEER and am still not sure exactly how DIM SUM works. Had to guess the ‘mathematician’ at 1a from wordplay and ASANAS was another new term. Probably just me, but I wasn’t a fan of those ellipses connecting the first four down clues.
No spoiler, but there’s yet another example of an answer here which also appears elsewhere today.
Favourites were the misdirection in the def for PRIME NUMBERS and the 1980’s cricket surface for OVINE.
Thanks to Wanderer and Turbolegs
I think a DIMe is 10 cents so 0.75 of that is 7.5 cents.. Thanks for the blog , comment later when I have time.
Parsed DIM SUM as Roz. Thought the clue for MACARONI was masterful. Enjoyed cracking the clue for BIG CHEESE. A few unknowns for me: BANDITTI, ASANAS and wasn’t sure what PANEER was but have seen the word before.
Yes-nice misdirection on PRIME NUMBERS.I loved ASANAS(LOI).,I think there are various spellings for PANEER but I’ve found a good batch at my Indian grocers-a bit messy making your own.
The Chinese Lantern took me back to early non-English meals out, early 60s-so did lots of other clues.
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
Not heard of ASANAS but the clue was clear. Saag PANEER combines my two favourite foods.
To add to the food theme, CHINESE LANTERN is a plant which produces small fruits, like berries , which are nice in a salad, the rest of the plant is poisonous.
I did like HALF-MOON plus others mentioned above.
Thanks to Wanderer and Turbolegs. Enjoyable. Needed help from Google for ASANAS and PANEER (both rejected by my spell-checker).
Another enjoyable and entertaining puzzle from Wanderer to while away my journey home from holiday.
It’s perhaps worth mentioning that ‘that’s one of a pair’ in the clue for 21dn refers to the two sea monsters in Greek mythology, Scylla and Charybdis – see here
Many thanks to Wanderer and Turbolegs.
It may be worth pointing out to non-UK solvers, or to UK solvers with little or no interest in sport, that, with regard to the clue for 6D OVINE, the references are to the English all-round Test cricketer of the 1970s and 1980s, Ian Botham, whose nickname was ‘Beefy’ and to the England batsman, Allan Lamb, who played in Tests between the early 1980s and early 1990s, whose nickname was ‘Lamby’. A number of years ago, the two featured in a marketing campaign under their nicknames which was designed to encourage people to eat more red meat. Apologies is this is (a) unnecessary and/or (b) constitutes annoying mansplaining.
Good crossword, thanks Wanderer. This took awhile to get started but I got there in the end except for LEEWAY. There were some that I didn’t understand — JACOBI, SCYLLA, and HALF-MOON so thanks Turbolegs for explaining. I liked OVINE and after reading the background by Spooner’s catflap I like it even better. [There is nothing annoying about the sharing of information!]
Very enjoyable with several aha moments – for example with PRIME NUMBERS (although when a numeral occurs in a clue we are alert these days to the possibility that it isn’t the number of another clue). ASANAS was new to us but clear enough and soon checked in Chambers. UNIVERSAL was one of our favourites.
Thanks, Wanderer and Turbolegs.
Anyone else bung in scampi at 21d? Scamp 1, his pair being Scamp(scallywag) 2. Scampi look a bit monstrous, but are delicious.
I left this puzzle last night with three to which fell into place this morning OODLES MACARONI and LEEWAY. Thanks to Turbolegs for the parsing of HALF MOON – I had Mo but didn’t see what is now obvious – and to Roz for the explanation of DIM SUM. Thanks also to Wanderer for an excellent puzzle.
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
Only got to this one today and filled most of it in over a return to cafe-dining after yet another lockdown easing (our 5th one now). Finished it when I got home, but unfortunately slipped with ASANAS (had ASANAE, with some erroneous parsing involving mixing [t]EASE[r] with AN which still in hindsight doesn’t work).
Lots of other complex unravelling to unpick and needed help understanding the MO’s (knew the footballer but had forgotten about the athlete), had reversed IRON instead of cycling as I was told to and stumbled through the FILCH (not getting past ‘fille’ for girl from France). Did initially go down the Botham path at 6d before realising that it was only a surface relationship.
Finished with three of those – FILCH, HALF MOON and MACARONI.