Today’s puzzle seemed pretty straightforward . . .
. . . although I do not know what Steerpike intended for 11A. I have provided my best guess, which still seems a little farfetched. See corrections and comments below.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | TOAD-IN-THE-HOLE |
Food to set before terrible heathen idol (4-2-3-4)
|
| TO + anagram of (terrible) HEATHEN IDOL | ||
| 9 | INSIDER |
Member of group at home with drink, say (7)
|
| IN (at home) + homophone of (say) CIDER (drink) | ||
| 10 | ASEPSIS |
Fool claiming record is in pristine state? (7)
|
| ASS (fool) around (claiming) EP (record) + IS | ||
| 11 | OMITS |
Forgets to mention sick son, very neglected (5)
|
| 12 | CASH BOXES |
Chartered accountant hits on Mum’s financial security providers (4,5)
|
| CA (chartered accountant) + SH (mum) + BOXES (hits) | ||
| 13 | SLAG HEAP |
Complicated phase entails delay for collection of waste (4,4)
|
| Anagram of (complicated) PHASE around (entails) LAG (delay) | ||
| 15 | GOSSIP |
Paramilitary group originally implicated in Republican Party report (6)
|
| {SS (paramilitary group) + first letter of (“originally”) I[MPLICATED]} inside (in) GOP (Republican Party) | ||
| 18 | UNTIDY |
Slovenly model lodged in college dormitory on vacation (6)
|
| T (model) inside (lodged in) UNI (college) + outside letters of (“on vacation”) D[ORMITOR]Y | ||
| 19 | MAINSTAY |
Support mother with questionable sanity (8)
|
| MA (mother) + anagram of (questionable) SANITY | ||
| 22 | GRANARIES |
Sign on relative’s food stores (9)
|
| GRAN (relative) + ARIES (sign) | ||
| 24 | APRON |
Expert occupying an area of stage (5)
|
| PRO (expert) inside (occupying) AN | ||
| 25 | NUTCASE |
Lunatic insults clansmen on a regular basis (7)
|
| Every other letter of (“on a regular basis”) [I]N[S]U[L]T[S] C[L]A[N]S[M]E[N] | ||
| 26 | AFFABLE |
Good-natured, alpha female enters story (7)
|
| A (alpha) + F (female) inside (enters) FABLE (story) | ||
| 27 | RESENTFULNESS |
Peace broken by discontented Euopean’s envy (13)
|
| RESTFULNESS (peace) around (broken by) external letters of (“discontented”) E[UROPEA]N. Note minor typo in published clue. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | TRIPODS |
Photographer’s assistants stumble upon police officer with nothing on (7)
|
| TRIP (stumble) + O (nothing) + DS (police officer, i.e., Detective Sergeant) | ||
| 2 | ASSAILANT |
He attacks while venerable type crosses city (9)
|
| AS (while) + SAINT (venerable type) around (crosses) LA (city) | ||
| 3 | INDUS |
Having eradicated source of heresy, religious people flower (5)
|
| [H]INDUS (religious people) minus (having eradicated) H first letter of (“source of”) H[ERESY], i.e., “flow-er” in the sense of “river” | ||
| 4 | THRACIAN |
Ancient Greek chair wrought in bronze (8)
|
| Anagram of (wrought) CHAIR inside (in) TAN (bronze) | ||
| 5 | ELAPSE |
Pass by some houses Palestinians erected (6)
|
| Hidden in (some) [HOUS]ES PALE[STINIANS] inverted (erected) | ||
| 6 | OVERBLOWN |
Extravagant linguistic feature common in Old Norse (9)
|
| {VERB (linguistic feature) + LOW (common)} inside (in) ON (Old Norse) | ||
| 7 | ESSEX |
It supports conclusions of male nurses in county (5)
|
| Last letters of (“conclusions of”) [MAL]E [NURSE]S + SEX (it) | ||
| 8 | USES UP |
Consumes American energy drink (4,2)
|
| US (American) + E (energy) + SUP (drink) | ||
| 14 | HIDEAWAYS |
Beginning to harmonise thoughts about style for sanctuaries (9)
|
| First letter of (beginning to) H[ARMONISE] + IDEAS (thoughts) around (about) WAY (style) | ||
| 16 | SATURABLE |
A blue star exploded exhibiting chemical property (9)
|
| Anagram of (exploded) A BLUE STAR | ||
| 17 | FALSTAFF |
Roguish character let down missing international workers (8)
|
| FA[I]L (let down) minus (missing) I (international) + STAFF (workers) | ||
| 18 | URGENT |
Grave of upper-class male found beneath ancient ruins (6)
|
| UR (ancient ruins) + GENT (upper-class male) | ||
| 20 | YANKEES |
Americans escalating search for Al-Qaeda’s base in state (7)
|
| SEEK (search for) + last letter of (“base” [of]) [AL-QAED]A inside (in) NY (state) all inverted (escalating) | ||
| 21 | PIGEON |
Message bearer simplified language on the radio (6)
|
| Homophone of (on the radio) PIDGIN (simplified language) | ||
| 23 | ALTAR |
Reportedly shift focal point of mass (5)
|
| Homophone of (reportedly) ALTER (shift) | ||
| 24 | AWFUL |
How sweet fellow starts to understand life is ghastly (5)
|
| AW (how sweet, i.e., as an exclamation) + F (fellow) + first letters of (“starts to”) U[NDERSTAND] L[IFE] |
OMITS is (v)OMIT + s
I thought 11a might be: ‘Forgets’ as the def with VOMIT (‘sick’ (as a noun)) S (‘son’) with V deleted (‘very neglected’) as wordplay. Not entirely convincing as this parsing leaves ‘to mention’ as a not er… very convincing anagram indicator.
Otherwise a bit gentler than usual for Steerpike. I liked MAINSTAY and was happy to have missed the potential ALTER trap at 23d. Is the surface for 1a apt? No comment.
Thanks to Steerpike and Cineraria
Sorry Roz @1. Must have pushed the “Post Comment” button a few seconds after you.
The defintion is fine – Forgets to mention – no need for an anagram . Sorry in a big rush, swim time.
Yes Roz @4, of course you’re right, not an anagram. Enjoy your swim.
Thanks, Steerpike and Cineraria!
A couple of minor suggestions:
SATURABLE
Should the def be ‘exhibiting chemical property‘?
YANKEES
”search for’=SEEK‘ works better, I feel.
AFFABLE
‘Alpha=A’ is in Chambers. Just wanted to add this as I found it interesting in the context:
Although the normal spellings in plain speech for “alfa” and “Juliett” are “alpha” and “Juliet“, these particular formats for the spellings of these words have been adopted to simplify the comprehension of these words internationally.
The word “alfa” was used because if the spelling “alpha” was used, it might not be pronounced correctly by non-English or French speakers.
Similarly the spelling for “Juliett” rather than “Juliet” was adopted because a single “t” is left silent in French. The use of “tt” meant that the letter t would be pronounced at the end of the word.
I found the above info on ‘electronicsnotes’.
ALPHA
The passage cited above@6 is from an article on the NATO phonetic alphabet.
KVa@6&7 – “…dressed up to the nines | At sixes and sevens with you…”
https://www.electronics-notes.com/articles/ham_radio/abbreviations_codes/international-radio-phonetic-alphabet.php
…manages to misspell whiskey – the !rish way – as whisky – the Scottish (scotch) way. Wikipedia gets it right…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet
…citing “Juliett (sic)” and detailing the evolution of each letter: A – Argentine, Amsterdam, ABLE, ADAM, ANA, ALPHA, Alfa.
I don’t think we need the NATO alphabet for 26a: alpha and A are identical in their upper-case forms.
Thanks for the blog , a good set of neat clues.
The “blue star exploded ” could be Rigel, one of the best candidates for a nearby supernova and a rare naked eye blue star.
With Andrew@9…
Roz@10, interesting.
Good puzzle.
Thanks Cineraria n STEERPIKE
Thanks Steerpike for a nice set of clues. I did some guessing-first-parsing-later but everything eventually made sense. My top picks were UNTIDY, INDUS, YANKEES, and AWFUL. Thanks Cineraria for the blog.
Can someone please tell me why Grave = Urgent in 18 dn?
Apologies from a very occasional contributor if it is obvious, but not to me!
Cameron
Timothy Duff@13: “Grave” as an adjective means “serious,” “very dangerous,” “important,” etc., thus in that sense is synonymous with “urgent.”
Timothy Duff@13. I must admit I did have initial reservations about using grave as a synonym for urgent, but as both Chambers and Collins list urgent as a synonym for grave, I felt I was on fairly solid ground. I think Cineraria has explained things better than I could. Thanks for dropping in!
Thank you for a speedy reply, Cineraria. I do know the word in that sense but can’t see that any of the words you quote necessarily carry a sense of urgency. The situation they refer to or describe may need urgent attention but that is not the first sense of them that comes to me.
However I do thank you for replying. At least I know that there is not a meaning of grave completely unknown to me!
Moreover, comments and exchanges such as this all add to the pleasure of crosswords.
Thank you, Steerpike, for taking the trouble to reply. Who am I to argue with Chambers and Collins? I think I must concede the position.
One learns all the time from crosswords, which is part of their charm.