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The Teeser gets our week going
This is a tribute to German footballer and manager Franz Beckenbauer who died recently, thanks Tees
ACROSS
1. Fail when beginning to talk – it’s hot air (7)
BOMBAST
BOMB – fail in movies say & AS – when & start of T(alk)
5. Sappers leaving one French city for base (7)
IGNOBLE
I – one & RE – sappers removed from G(re)NOBLE
9. Yiddish gossip truly accepting Christian work (5)
YENTA
YEA – yes. truly with N(ew) T(estament) inserted
10. Hotel specialist returned to run leaderless institution (9)
ORPHANAGE
H(otel) & PRO- specialist all reversed and a Leaderless (m)ANAGE – run
11. Fish surprises, served with nut endlessly (4,6)
ROCK SALMON
ROCKS – surprises & an endless ALMON(d)
12. Don’t go to sleep with Stheno at first (4)
SKIP
14. Dancer in Opal van — a van wrecked (4,7)
ANNA PAVLOVA
[OPAL VAN A VAN]* wrecked
21. Mysterious character in ecstasy after work (4)
RUNE
RUN – work, it’s running, it’s working & E(cstacy)
22. Notice advertisement in city causing alarm? (5,5)
CLOCK RADIO
CLOCK – notice & AD(vert) in RIO
25. 26 18 taking a risk when out among animals (3,6)
DER KAISER
It’s 26/18’s nickname. [A RISK]* out inside DEER
26/18. Footballer, French, by an unknown stream in Parisian arbour we hear (5,11)
FRANZ BECKENBAUER
He died recently, FR(ench) & AN & Z – maths unknown & BECK – stream & EN – “in” in French & hom of BOWER – arbour.
27. Rude gesture given with little hesitation in game (7)
SNOOKER
SNOOK – gesture & ER -hesitation
28. Accepted member wearing crimson is backed (7)
INSIDER
IN – wearing & RED IS reversed
DOWN
1/2. Well-oiled machine run by 25’s team (6,6)
BAYERN MUNICH
A well-oiled – very drunk [MACHINE RUN BY]*
3. Raab corrected says these are LAS countries (4,6)
ARAB STATES
A corrected RAAB* & STATES – says. LAS is the League of Arab States
4. Monster to walk slowly after beheading (5)
TROLL
5. Tees is ready: solver reportedly unprepared! (9)
IMPROMPTU
I’m – Tees is & PROMPT – ready & sounds like you – the solver
6. Ham producer‘s Japanese production around area (4)
NOAH
A(rea) inside NOH – Japanese drama. Ham was Noah’s son
7. Recording device in jet pack (5,3)
BLACK BOX
Def could be extended to Jet but it’s JET – black & PACK – box
8. Former barrister killing time sees model (8)
EXEMPLAR
EX – former & without T (t)EMPLAR. Barristers often belong to a temple hence templar
13. Finished plans for lending arrangements (10)
OVERDRAFTS
OVER – finished & DRAFTS – plans
15. Spray where blue rinse needs management (9)
NEBULISER
16. Alumnus Eliot entertaining cheeky thrusts forward (8)
OBTRUDES
ON – old boy, alumnus & RUDE – cheeky inside TS (eliot)
17. Arsenic and Old Lace — synopsis needed (8)
SCENARIO
19. King seen in hackneyed war drama (6)
EDWARD
Hidden in hackneyED WAR Drama
20. Ounce captured by farmer who likes a drink (6)
BOOZER
OZ – ounce inside BOER – farmer
23. Canine tooth one has right in middle (5)
CORGI
COG – tooth & I – one with R(ight) inserted
24. Man in suit lifting equipment (4)
JACK
That was fun! I’d not come across the Gorgon Stheno, and was defeated by the cheeky Ham producer. Didn’t know FB was known as Der Kaiser, but it was clearly clued and not hard to infer. Ticks for the lovely anagram at 1/2d, the cunningly concealed anagram indicator in 17d and the hidden EDWARD, which took me a while to spot.
Thanks Tees and Flashling
Excellent. I originally had Pink Salmon but the theme put me right and pink surprise when I googled it turned out to be something else entirely. Not up on footballers but FB was quite famous when I was young and I remembered he died early this year. Didn’t pay any attention to the anagram for 1/2d because it was so obvious. OBTRUDES was a favourite for TS and BOMBAST. LOI because I was fixated on ‘fail’ as the def. Great clues, great surfaces. Thanks flashing and Tees.
Excellent, every clue fell neatly into place with no clarification from the blogger needed, nonetheless appreciated. At 8D I did wonder whether ‘templar’ could really be applied to a barrister, and in all the references I checked it only referred to the knights of that ilk. However, in the course of this research it came to light that there’s a barrister called Emma Templar, but I doubt this is what the setter intended. Thanks Tees and Flashling.
Here’s the 17d SCENARIO/synopsis/Plot of Arsenic and Old Lace(1944) – celebrating an 80th (Oak) anniversary. I think Archie Leach overacts terribly in this one – He’s a real “Ham producer”.
14a ANNA PAVLOVA – her two VANs must have run on Australian Opal fuel.
Tatrasman @3: I did have to research templar myself and Chambers came to the rescue: (also without cap) a student or lawyer, living or with chambers, in the Temple, London. Did anyone else confidently bung in ARAB LEAGUE instead of ARAB STATES? I did – with LEAGUE unparsed, admittedly, but it caused a bit of bother at the end. Rather like DP, I didn’t know the footballer was known as DER KAISER but the clue was very well constructed and solvable. BOMBAST, SCENARIO, BAYERN MUNICH and CLOCK RADIO were my favourites.
Thanks Tees and flashling
For 9a I’d heard of Yentl(1983),
so that helped with YENTA:
‘There is a mistaken belief that the word for a Jewish matchmaker is yenta or yente. In reality a Jewish matchmaker is called a shadchan …
… The origin of this error is the … musical Fiddler on the Roof, in which a character named Yente serves as the matchmaker for the village of Anatevka’
1964 – celebrating a 60th (Diamond) anniversary. Thanks T&f
Pretty much the same as Tatrasman wrote @3.
ORPHANAGE last in for me. Fit a word and then parse. I was hung up trying to remember the name of the woman with the TV show who’d try to rescue failing hotels.
Thanks Tees and flashling
Thanks Flash for the blog, and to all for commenting. Thanks esp for hunting down my templar.
Cheers
Tees
Well if you hadn’t got Franz before approaching 1 n 2 dn then the anagram wasn’t that easy.. but a write in if you did.. found the bottom half much more tricky than the top for some reason.. thanks Tees for the nod auf Der Kaiser who was a god to me during my football youth.. n flashling for the blog
Noah was a proper laugh. Nice to see a European footballer as theme too.
Thanks Tees and flashling
Certainly a more satisfying solve than today’s which I have just finished. It caused me to come here to check if an early blog could solve some of my missing parses