Tees fills the mid-week slot this week.
Just the one new word for us in this puzzle (9ac) – Tees usually seems to delight in introducing us to obscure words in his puzzles, but has given us a relatively easy ride today.
BAT (vampire perhaps) TO in or ‘borne’ by AIR
VA (Virginia – the US state) + a reversal (‘backed’) of LASS (girl)
R (right) ON (leg, as in cricket) ‘trapped’ in COACH (vehicle) – a new word for us
F (female) AUNT (relative) round or ‘guzzling’ L (litres)
IRON (press) CURT (concise) AIN (Scottish for ‘own’)
A reversal (‘back’) of LET (allowed) A R (run)
An anagram (‘rebrewed’) of ALE IS with LATE (behind time) inside or ‘coming in’
I’S (one’s) twice in an anagram (‘fluctuating’) of VALUE
If you are lacking in purpose, you could be said to have NO END
LARS (Swede) ‘covered’ in SOY (sauce) + STEM (stalk)
Double definition
Public service workers might be IN UNISON – the Public Service Union
An anagram (‘scattered’) of HIKERS
I + SOS (call for help) + a reversal (‘back’) of Y (yankee in the phonetic alphabet) SAT
A RC (Roman catholic) HIT (punched) RAVE (illegal party)
An anagram (‘rearrange’) of HAS SORTIES
ON (going) after T (first letter or ‘leader’ of Tories) + IC (in charge)
IN CORRIE (hollow) round or ‘holding’ an anagram (‘unusually’) of BIG and L (lake)
dARLINGTON (Durham town) without ‘d’ (departs)
Triple definition
LOT (crowd) H (first letter or ‘beginning’ to hesitate)
BEARING (air) with BALLS (bottle) outside
RENTS (fissures) in BASE (bottom) + A
Cryptic definition – READY (for immediate use) MONEY (‘necessary’)
L (pounds) + an anagram (‘converted’) of HAS KRONA
YON (over there) K S (first letters or ‘starters’ of knight saddled)
A homophone (‘on the radio’) of BASE (not pure)
FUR (stole) round or ‘pocketing’ O (ring)
SLUG: Is it possibly a case of quadruple def? Not sure if ‘slug’ as an adjective means ‘misshapen’. Someone will help.
Thanks, Tees and B&J!
This was good fun.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a definition like 23d before which has been disguised to look like a misprint, and 9a was a new word for me.
Thanks to Tees and B&J.
I’m always slightly amazed when words I didn’t think I knew but apparently do turn up in crosswords – 9a being a case in point
I enjoyed this very much (as I usually do when it is Tees) but particularly liked 17a as I thought it was nice to have a different clue from the ones we usually get for this solution) and 21d as I haven’t heard this expression for donkey’s for. literally 21d! I did like the misleading (4) in 23d too
Thanks to Tees for the fun and B&J for the blog
Enjoyed this. Got 3d as it couldn’t be anything else with crossers and wordplay but do= tonic was a bit obscure for me. Assuming it’s tonic the musical term as in do-re-mi?
Entertaining puzzle from Tees as usual. I couldn’t parse IN UNISON and entered SOLAR SYSTEM from the def without much effort to parse it. CORRIE for ‘hollow’ was a word I’d forgotten, but at least I was able to dredge up CORONACH.
I liked the ‘Do’ def at 3d giving TONIC – another term I’ve learnt from cryptics.
Thanks to Tees and B&J
Invariably have a few ‘well, I suppose so’ thoughts where some of this setter’s clues are concerned and usually come across some previously unknown words so this puzzle didn’t disappoint in those respects!
26a made me smile although they’re such small birds I doubt that they’d scatter many hikers.
Thanks to Tees and to B&J for the assurance that my answers were indeed what the setter had intended!
No such problems for me as the well-wrought clues pointed unequivocally to their solutions.
I note the appearance of another ‘illegal party’ with the like of which this setter seems obsessed. Perhaps with the publication of a certain report today things will quieten down.
Pardon me, I meant to say thanks to B&J.
Most of this went in relatively easily but we were left struggling in the NW corner and needed help for INCORRIGIBLE, CORONACH (a new word for us) and TONIC. Another new word was ISOSTASY but we managed to get that from the wordplay. We were tempted to regard the clue for 23dn as a misprint but soon realised that in that case there was no definition. So that was one of our favourites, along with VISUALISE, SOLAR SYSTEM and BARENTS SEA.
Thanks, Tees and B&J.
I think three solutions (TONIC, CORONACH, ISOSTASY) from word play alone is a personal record, and I have a way to remember how to spell ABATTOIR. Thanks Tees and B and J.
All good fun – thanks both. I enjoyed READY MONEY for the allusive definition and BARENT SEA because I had to work it our from the word play (with a vague flicker of GK in the background, flickering away).
Johnnybgoode@: yes the tonic is the note on which the scale or key starts. More user-friendly notation systems refer to it as the root. If ever there were a communication system that needs radical overhaul and updating it is the musical notation system. Doh!
Thanks Tees, it’s always a pleasure. I only knew CORONACH from crossword land, I guessed ARCHITRAVE and ISOSTASY from the wordplay, and I failed with YONKS. I particularly liked VISUALISE, BALL BEARINGS, and BARENTS SEA and I loved FOUR. Thanks B&J for the blog.
Jane @6, which clues do you mean? I’m interested. Thanks to Tees and Bertandjoyce in the meantime!
Yes, well, a little shrike wouldn’t necessarily cause bother to ramblers, but then, a carnivorous bird in the surface of a clue, written by a compiler who habitually fails to take things literally, might wreak havoc. Here’s to the surface, and all it can add, where otherwise we might just as well do with a definition-style clue.
Many thanks to Bert and Joyce, and everyone else as well.