MOO kicks off the week…
An enjoyable Monday morning puzzle.
Thanks MOO!
ACROSS
1. Son and I can sort out something for breakfast (9)
CROISSANT
(S (son) and I CAN SORT)* (*out)
6. Listened to cry of the masses (5)
HEARD
"herd" = HEARD (masses, "cry of")
9. Hack in casualty, shot (5)
ABIDE
in A&E (casualty), BID (shot)
10. Discourage daughter leaving new friend all the time (9)
ETERNALLY
[d]ETER (discourage, D (daughter) leaving) + N (new) + ALLY (friend)
11. Speed of march to South Pole? (10)
EXPEDITION
Double (cryptic) definition
12. Steal an advantage (4)
EDGE
14. Flirted with copper getting married (7)
DALLIED
D (copper) getting ALLIED (married)
15. Confronts aristocrat hiding enemy of the revolution (7)
TSARIST
[confron]TS ARIST[ocrat] (hiding)
17. Agents protecting City group (7)
SPECIES
SPIES (agents) protecting EC (City, postcode of the City of London)
19. Must art lectures partly shock? (7)
STARTLE
[mu]ST ART LE[ctures] (partly)
20. US novelist articulating anger (4)
ROTH
"wrath" = ROTH (anger, "articulating")
Probably Philip Roth, but there may be others
22. Others came down quite subdued (10)
RESTRAINED
REST (others) + RAINED (came down)
25. Need protection after bruiser’s first demand for money? (9)
BLACKMAIL
(LACK (need) + MAIL (protection)) after B[ruiser] (first)
26. See fit to exclude head of state from plan (5)
DEIGN
DE[s]IGN (plan, to exclude S[tate] (head of))
27. Employ specialist to dispose of piano (5)
EXERT
EX[p]ERT (specialist, to dispose of P (piano))
28. Ran nude around church, showing guts (9)
ENDURANCE
(RAN NUDE)* (*around) + CE (church)
DOWN
1. Old banger His Majesty devoured (5)
CRATE
CR (His Majesty) + ATE (devoured)
2. Suddenly under performing, Moo’s beat (2,7)
ON IMPULSE
under ON (performing), IM (Moo's) + PULSE (beat)
3. Restriction on amphetamine usage — 20 or 30 maybe? (5,5)
SPEED LIMIT
Double (cryptic) definition
4. Helped a detective from the south to squash speculation (7)
ABETTED
(A + (DET)< (detective, <from the south)) to squash BET (speculation)
5. Sign nearly all our opponents will join attack (3,4)
THE GOAT
THE[m] (opponents, nearly all) will join GO AT (attack)
6. Suspend Chinese? Good (4)
HANG
HAN (Chinese?) + G (good)
7. Grew weak and cried, losing weight (5)
AILED
[w]AILED (cried, losing W (weight))
8. Recent ad you originally designed for care facility (3,6)
DAY CENTRE
(RECENT AD Y[ou] (originally))* (*designed)
13. Cold-blooded creature alarms dean horribly (10)
SALAMANDER
(ALARMS DEAN)* (*horribly)
14. Sought-after individual found in eccentric earl’s bed (9)
DESIRABLE
I (individual) found in (EARLS BED)* (*eccentric)
16. Find camper here with no-one about? That’s the plan (9)
INTENTION
IN TENT (find camper here) with (NO I (one))< (<about)
18. Escape from court with errand boy (7)
SEEPAGE
SEE (court) with PAGE (errand boy)
19. Decided to pay off Democrat (7)
SETTLED
SETTLE (pay off) + D (Democrat)
21. Follow suggestion (5)
TRACE
23. Stupid partners caught in the act? Not quite (5)
DENSE
NS (partners) caught in DEE[d] (act, not quite)
24. Model receiving £1,000 for spoof (4)
SKIT
SIT (model) receiving K (£1,000)
L2i: 5d THE GOAT (since I don’t believe in astrology, but that’s because I’m a typical Capricorn, apparently); and 9a ABIDE with its two oblique synonyms. 🙂
Thanks M&T
[20a Philip RATH (my favourite US author) won’t work as a homophone for US solvers.]
It’s a while since EC has been a city in a puzzle, and I’d forgotten that for some reason it’s London. I was sure the city was going to be either LA or NY — the two usual favourites. I couldn’t parse (and indeed, didn’t get) THE GOAT. And A & E is another British thing that I’d forgotten. I can’t recall what we call it here, as I try as much as possible to steer clear of hospitals. Although “casualty” rings a bell.
All in and parsed, although ROTH and ABIDE were last in.
I was in the City of London yesterday, and it’s EC because its postcode is EC (east central), while the West End has WC postmarks – going out east gives us the lower numbered E post codes and the East End, further out to get to E17 in Walthamstow, from which the band took their name. I was also south of the river, where the postcodes are SE and SW.
Thank you to Moo and Teacow.
20a could be: Tom Rath. No, I’ve never heard of him.
And … we don’t need to go off-topic and discuss chapter titles in his books either.
Annoyingly beaten by a failure to dredge up BID as a synonym for shot. Otherwise pretty straightforward & an enjoyable solve.
Thanks to Moo & to Teacow
I had BID but cannot see how ABIDE is a synonym for hack. Please could someone help?
Thanks to Moo and Teacow.
dear S&M
those who cannot abide cannot hack it
-acid
Thanks acid@8 but I think this is stretching the synonym to breaking point.
SM @7,9. I thought the same but the Chambers thesaurus does give ‘hack’ as a colloquial synonym for ‘abide’, so I shrugged and accepted it.
All fairly straightforward apart from ABIDE where we too, Chambers notwithstanding, thought it was stretching things to the limit. Plenty to like, though; favourites were CROISSANT and SALAMANDER.
Thanks, Moo and Teacow.
A bit of a mixed bag for me. I found this tough in some places, straightforward in others. I also really liked some clues and found a few clues lacking.
I loved SALAMANDER for its great anagram and surface, ditto DESIRABLE. STARTLE was clever, and I liked the surfaces for SPECIES, SEEPAGE, SETTLED, and RESTRAINED. I struggled most with the same LOI clues mentioned above. I will not bore you with my quibbles and frustrations.
In closing, I must say there is a lot of criminal slang in crosswords.
Thanks Moo and Teacow
Thanks Moo for a great set of clues. I missed ABIDE but all else eventually revealed itself. My top picks were HEARD, TSARIST, DEIGN, CRATE, ON IMPULSE, THE GOAT, and DENSE. Thanks Teacow for the blog.
I can’t ABIDE a dodgy synonym, but that’s just an excuse from one who couldn’t hack 9 across. I enjoyed the rest of the puzzle.
Thanks for the blog , good set of clues with some neat double definitions.
Chambers93 has hack= put up with or bear , ABIDE=endure , so fine for me .
I had no trouble with ABIDE = Hack, and didn’t need confirmation from Chambers. Petert@14 gives a good example, as they tend to be used in negative expressions.
I tentatively arrived at the correct parsing of 11a EXPEDITION and 12a EDGE, but needed Teacow’s confirmation to be sure. EDGE has a great surface for its deceptive double definition.
For the same reason as FrankieG@1 I didn’t get 5d THE GOAT, but now I see it, it’s one of my favourites – clever construction and good surface.
Thanks Moo and Teacow for the fun.
Thanks Moo and Teacow.
12A We are missing something here. If it’s a double definition (as opposed to an &lit), how does edge mean steal?
piratewitch @17: Steal and edge can both mean to move slowly and gradually.
On this side of the pond Philip Roth doesn’t work for 29A. Robert Rath, a Hawaiian born novelist, does, however. Since the clue does not stipulate that the novelist be famous I’m sure there are plenty of others that also work. Other than that very minor point a quite enjoyable puzzle by Moo. Thanks to Moo, and to Teacow for a great blog.
“I can’t abide this continuous rain.”
“I can’t hack this continuous rain.”
Seems OK to me.
And thanks for the SE explanation, Shanne. I’ll see if i can remember it for next time.
Tony Santucci @18 Got it. Thanks very much!