Rodriguez provides the entertainment in the middle of May – well almost the middle.
And apologies for the delay. Forgot what day it was.
I found this pretty straight forward for Rodriguez, certainly filling the grid. I suspect there is something hidden that I have not seen though. HIP and COOL are visible in the 3rd column and 2nd bottom row but can’t link it to anything else so may well just be random.
Favourite clue is 5ac – excellent surface and elegant direction.
Many thanks Rodriguez
Key * anagram; DD double definition; Rev. Reversed; underline defintion
Across
1 Overindulge in irrational complaint (3,3)
Pi (irrational) + Gout (complaint) = PIG OUT
5 Ted and Barney perhaps fly out of here (8)
Heath (as in Ted) + row (barney) = HEATHROW
9 Allegorist can put any bananas in bread roll (4,6)
John (can) + bun (bread) around (any)* = JOHN BUNYAN
10 Try to move river to the west, but it won’t fly (4)
hear (try) moving r to the left (west) = RHEA
11 Short, round friend of Dorothy (4)
tot(short) + o (round) = TOTO
13 Very early or mid-April, possibly (10)
(or mid april)* = PRIMORDIAL
14 Old king earl left in indebted state? (8)
e (earl) + l(left) in the red (indebted state?) = ETHELRED
15 One’s woolly reasoning, at first – it holds water (4)
ewe (one’s woolly) + r (reasoning at first) = EWER
17 It’s for roasting clues written the wrong way (4)
Rev. tips (clues) = SPIT
19 Dig up old wine and case of turpentine (8)
ex (old) + cava(wine) + te (case of turpentine) = EXCAVATE
22 Saving energy, old man means to call for 27’s car (10)
pop (old man) + mobile (means to call) around e (energy) = POPE-MOBILE
23 Bittern, egret, swallows, eagle (4)
Hidden bittERN Egret = ERNE
24 It’s admitted by twirling aristocrat with a bow (4)
Rev. hidden aristOCRAt = ARCO
25 Digs plots of land, interrupted by poser (10)
beds (plots of land) around sitter(poser) = BEDSITTERS
27 Big cheese steak centrally in French meat wraps (8)
e (steak centrally) + en (in French) in mince (meat) = EMINENCE
28 Edging of garter that hurts curmudgeon (6)
gr (edging of garter) + ouch (that hurts) = GROUCH
Down
2 Resolve current refusal to admit to defeat (4,3)
i (current) + rout (defeat) around no (refusal) = IRON OUT
3 Have attire for ball that doesn’t start (3)
gown (attire for ball) – g = OWN
4 Foolishness of US leader once, really losing head (8)
Trump (US leader once) + very (really) – v = TRUMPERY
5 Work for kids in regularly cheeky, repeated scams (3,6,6)
cHeEkY (regularly) + diddle (scam) x 2 = HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE
6 What baby’s wrapped in, returning home in a day (6)
a mon (day) aorung rev. in (home) = AMNION
7 Tucking into junk, devour cooked dish (4,7)
horse(junk as in drugs) around (devour)* = HORS D’OEUVRE
8 Old and mean, but not initially too old (7)
o (old) + average(mean) – a = OVERAGE
12 Man in public to display cheek, like 5 Down’s cow (4,3,4)
overt (public) + moon (cheek) around he (man) = OVER THE MOON
16 Ruses succeeded with Communist rulers of China (8)
s (succeeded) + Che (communist) + ming (rulers of china) = SCHEMING
18 App for reading, say, in school (7)
pro (for) + r (reading say) in gam (school) = PROGRAM
20 Type of sex magic’s brief function to begin with (7)
tan (function) + trick (magic) – k = TANTRIC
21 Sweet couple of 27s heading north (6)
Rev. Nob (eminence) x 2 = BONBON
26 Business institution demoting top figure (3)
WTO (Business institution) moving W = TWO
As our reviewer says, this was probably at the easier end of Rodriguez’s spectrum, but I found it nicely challenging and I enjoyed it a lot.
I did have one major and one minor niggle. I know many people won’t agree, but it’s a mystery to me that anyone can think that the enumeration for 7d is fair. IMHO the apostrophe should be included for foreign words and phrases. Also in the answer to 9a, “John” is an unindicated American expression.
I had a lot of ticks on my page with HEATHROW my favourite.
Many thanks to Rodriguez and to tewncelas.
Thanks for the blog, twencelas.
As you say, nothing too tricky but enjoyable as ever from Rodriguez. I agree with you re 5ac – a superb clue. Other favourites were JOHN BUNYAN, PRIMORDIAL, POPEMOBILE and GROUCH (for curmudgeon, a favourite word of mine).
(You’ve forgotten to underline the definition in 24ac.)
Many thanks, Rodriguez, for the fun.
(Rabbit Dave @1 – I’m one of the ‘many people’. 😉 )
Thanks Eileen – have corrected. Rabbit Dave – I’m old enough now to know that apostrophes are the source of much contention, so won’t comment on that point. The other looking in chambers – ‘can’ is slang and John is informal, especially US so don’t really thing we need to add reference to those across the Atlantic.
I too was initially flummoxed at 7D, especially as a word search came up with nothing for the second word, but then ‘hors d’oeuvre’ suddenly leapt out of the page, so no complaint from me. Good fun, so thanks Rodriguez and Twencelas.
Everything I would have said has been said already by Eileen
Thanks to Rodriguez and twencelas
We also struggled with 7dn – our usual wordfinder found nothing for the second word; fortunately Chambers Word Wizard can find two word expressions and we got 7dn from that. Apart from that we found that some of the four letter entries weren’t immediately obvious but maybe that was just us. Interestingly we got 21dn before 27ac and it helped us get the latter.
We liked ETHELRED and saw a possible extra layer of meaning; stretching things a bit one might say Ethelred the Unready was devoid of ready in the sense of money, and hence ‘in the red’
Plenty more to like as well, including HEATHROW, BEDSITTERS and IRON OUT.
Thanks, Rodriguez and twencelas.
For once, it’s my turn to say ‘What crypticsue said’
With acknowledgment to Eileen
And thanks to Rodriguez and twencelas
More accessible than usual from this setter although I did have to investigate the twirling aristocrat – new word for me.
Favourite by a mile was HEATHROW – so simple but so effective.
Thanks to Rodriguez and to twencelas for the review.
Thanks Rodriguez for the warm-up before I tackle Buccaneer in today’s FT. In addition to the oft mentioned HEATHROW, I enjoyed the short ones with smooth surfaces like PIG OUT, RHEA, SPIT, and ERNE. I thought 7d was nearly a write-in so the enumeration didn’t really bother me. Thanks twencelas for the blog.
@9
Tony, I came back to fifteen squared to see if the latest Buccs had been blogged and was surprised it hadn’t been.
That has got to be the easiest Brydon outing ever.
Rats @10: The Saturday FT crossword will be blogged in 2 weeks time. Even though the contest for the prize was discontinued at the start of the pandemic it’s still inexplicably treated as a prize crossword.