I enjoyed this. An accessible puzzle for a Sunday but without dumbing-down, nicely done. Thank you Brunel.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | TOURISM |
It’s money protecting our travel industry (7)
|
| TIS (it’s) M (money) contains (protecting) OUR | ||
| 5 | PELOTON |
Many racing cyclists speed ahead, drinking nothing (7)
|
| PELT (speed) ON )ahead) contains (drinks) O (nothing) | ||
| 9 | ALCOHOLIC |
Distribute endless Coca-Cola – half is oddly like rum, say (9)
|
| anagram (distribute) of cOCA-COLa (endless) with every other letter (oddly) of HaLf Is | ||
| 10 | QUOTA |
Size limitation‘s no bar to Shakespeare’s general leading army (5)
|
| banQUO (Shakespeare’s general, in Macbeth) missing BAN (bar) then TA (Territorial Army) | ||
| 11 | NORTH CAROLINA |
Where Charlotte lies, with Virginia lying on top? (5,8)
|
| cryptic definition – Charlotte is a city in North Carolina, which lies to the south of Virginia | ||
| 13 | PRYINGLY |
Bawling, losing head and interrupting row in intrusive manner (8)
|
| cRYING (bawling, losing head) inside (and interrupting) PLY (row, of a boat) | ||
| 15 | KITSCH |
Trashy hotel to stick around (6)
|
| anagram (around) of H (hotel) with STICK | ||
| 17 | IMBIBE |
During climb, I begin to drink (6)
|
| found inside (during) clIMB I BEgin | ||
| 19 | SUPERMAN |
Reeve’s role, originally, over staff (8)
|
| SUPER (over originally, but now only when used as a prefix) MAN (staff) – played by Christopher Reeve in film | ||
| 22 | SPILL THE BEANS |
Fall badly beneath shower head and squeal (5,3,5)
|
| SPILL (fall) then anagram (badly) of BENEATH followed by Shower (first letter, head of) | ||
| 25 | OATHS |
Curses musketeer over being posted to front (5)
|
| ATHOS (one of the Three Musketeers) with O (over) moved to the front | ||
| 26 | LEICESTER |
Legendary horseman familiarly talked of racecourse here (9)
|
| sounds like (talked of) “Lester” (Lester Piggott, famous jockey) | ||
| 27 | THEOREM |
Article on maths initially covering old formula (7)
|
| THE ((the definite article) RE (on, regarding) Maths (first letter, initially) contains (covering) O (old) | ||
| 28 | GRAPNEL |
Mistress Gwyn doesn’t finish fruit, cut beforehand with hooked implement (7)
|
| NELL (Nell Gwyn) missing last letter (doesn’t finish) following (with…beforehand) GRAPe (fruit, cut) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | TEAR |
Drop rent (4)
|
| double definition | ||
| 2 | UNCANNY |
Wonderfully skilled peacekeepers preserve city (7)
|
| UN (peacekeepers) CAN (preserve) NY (New York) | ||
| 3 | ICHOR |
Recess’s contents: yellow or colourless fluid (5)
|
| nICHe (recess, content of) then OR (yellow) | ||
| 4 | MOLEHILL |
Earth thrown up from crumbling hole in works (8)
|
| anagram (crumbling) of HOLE inside MILL (works) | ||
| 5 | PICK AT |
Find fault with completely pointless piece by Keats (4,2)
|
| PIeCe and KeATs missing all points of the compass | ||
| 6 | LIQUORICE |
Scotch on the rocks? No – dark, sweet stuff (9)
|
| LIQOUR (Scotch perhaps) on ICE (on the rocks) | ||
| 7 | TROPICS |
I see through play that’s going round in circles (7)
|
| I C (see, name of letter) inside (through) SPORT (play) reversed (that’s going round) | ||
| 8 | NEAR AT HAND |
Close tight fist around a plotter’s heart (4,2,4)
|
| NEAR (tight) HAND (fist) contains (around) A plotTer (middle letter, heart of) | ||
| 12 | SPOILSPORT |
One stopping riot, perhaps, left with loot (10)
|
| PORT (left) follows (with) SPOILS (loot) – a riot is a good time, a party | ||
| 14 | NEBULISER |
Mister Lee Burn is mistaken (9)
|
| anagram (mistaken) of LEE BURN IS – something that creates a mist | ||
| 16 | RUMBLING |
Discovering singular sign of discontent? (8)
|
| double definition – I think singular is there as rumble is often used in plural e.g. rumbles of discontent | ||
| 18 | BRITTLE |
UK native heard the French can be sensitive (7)
|
| BRITT sounds like (heard) “Brit” (UK native) then LE (the, French) | ||
| 20 | MESS-TIN |
Setter originally served eggs flipped in Army cookware (4-3)
|
| ME (the setter) then first letter (originally) of Served followed by NITS (eggs, of headlice) reversed (flipped) | ||
| 21 | SHALOM |
Return handwritten document, enclosing ring, as greeting (6)
|
| MS (manuscript, handwritten document) reversed (return) contains (enclosing) HALO (ring) | ||
| 23 | ARENA |
Don’t apply to O2 for one (5)
|
| ARE NA (are not applicable, don’t apply to) – the O2 Arena in London for example | ||
| 24 | ORAL |
Fragment of molar on back of mouth (4)
|
| found inside (fragment of) moLAR On reversed (back) |
Good puzzle but I found this the most difficult Indy crossword to actually finish this week.
In 1ac “It’s” should be taken as “‘T is”, I presume, to make it work.
For me, the horseman in 26ac isn’t legendary, unfortunately – horse-racing is not my thing at all.
My CoD is 22ac.
Many thanks to PeeDee ? Brunel.
Not so easy, especially to parse, for me either and I never could work out NEAR AT HAND. I wondered if for 1a, the def was ‘industry’ with ‘travel’ as the anagram indicator for ‘It’s m(oney) around ‘our’. I think Sil’s explanation with TIS for ‘It’s’ is more plausible though.
I almost gave up on the ‘Legendary horseman’, thinking this would be yet another bit of Greek mythology I didn’t know, until the homophone materialised from the crossers. Once I’d worked it out (took a while), RUMBLING was my pick today.
(Sorry, but there’s a minor problem with the capitalisation for the odd letters of ‘half is’ at 9a).
Thanks to Brunel for puzzle number three and to PeeDee
Brilliant! I had “Tis” in 1a as well. Always liked “tis” and “twas” as words. Pleased to get 10a given my usual ignorance of Shakespearean characters. Only knew ICHOR as the blood of the gods but a check in Chambers revealed a second meaning. I don’t know if anybody has ever used the word PRYINGLY in a sentence but I can hardly complain. Lots of head-scratching to finish this – just how I like it. More please!
Thanks for the corrections everybody. TIS not IT’S is definitely correct for 1ac, I was a bit hasty when writing up the blog.
Relatively easily solved (given enough crossers), harder to parse in several cases.
ARENA raised a chuckle.
Thanks Brunel and PeeDee.
This was the perfect puzzle for me, in that I finished it with the last mouthful of breakfast. I didn’t find it difficult but some of the parsings were rather obscure and I needed PeeDee’s explanation, so thanks to him/her and of course to Brunel.
A lovely puzzle to find today – good mental workout and always fair clueing. Thrown slightly by the use of both yellow and or in 3D but the answer couldn’t be anything else so filed away as I’ve missed something.
I am no horse racing enthusiast but given the crossers for 26A that was easy enough. Interesting that Piggott had his OBE taken from him having been convicted of tax fraud. Compare and contrast with any number of the great and the good who managed to hold on to all sorts of gongs and titles despite, IMHO, far worse crimes.
Clue of the day 21D. It’s a personal thing – reminding me of the sublime Friday Night Dinner.
Thanks to Brunel and PeeDee.
I went to great lengths to get try and get a G in front of RUMBLING. Discovering singular? No that’s Gu. Taking sin for singular away from sign? No. Sing. is singular. So, thanks for the explanation PeeDee, and thanks for the puzzle Brunel
All good stuff, although we couldn’t fully parse everything. We particularly liked PELOTON (we’re currently following La Vuelta), GRAPNEL and ARENA. And in 1ac we saw it’s as the (often poetic) form ’tis.
Thanks, Brunel and PeeDee.
I agree with Sil @1 — I took longer over this than any other puzzle this week. But it was good fun. I’m surprised no-one has mentioned 5D, which I thought pretty good. I didn’t understand SPOILSPORT when solving. Thanks to Brunel and PeeDee.
27ac had to be THEOREM but I held off entering for a while as it’s not really a formula but a proposition that can be proved.
Fun puzzle & nicely clued throughout. Made a couple of silly errors so no unaided finish sadly.
Thanks all