While this seems to be a perfectly ordinary set of fine cryptic clues, for some reason I felt as though I were reaching into the depths of my solver’s bag of tricks to complete this puzzle from Peto, concluding with a couple of iffy parsings at 9A and 16D.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | BASELESS |
Worthless son accepting stories I dismissed as unfounded (8)
|
| {BASE (worthless) + S (son)} around (accepting) L[I]ES (stories) minus (dismissed) I | ||
| 5 | STACKS |
Rick suffering primarily from piles (6)
|
| STACK (rick) + first letter of (primarily) S[UFFERING] | ||
| 9 | OVERCOME |
Draw near on account of earlier defeat (8)
|
| I think this parses as: OVER (on account of) + COME (draw near), with “earlier” indicating the order of the wordplay | ||
| 10 | PAELLA |
Gangster bound to return with a Spanish dish (6)
|
| AL [Capone] (gangster) + LEAP (bound) all reversed (to return) | ||
| 11 | TALL TALE |
Unlikely story of tasteless articles featuring students and beer! (4,4)
|
| {TAT (tasteless articles) around (featuring) L+ L (students)} + ALE (beer) | ||
| 12 | BEHIND |
Bottom discovers what’s involved in difficult situation (6)
|
| EH (what) inside ([is] involved in) BIND (difficult situation) | ||
| 14 | SCRIPTURES |
Kind of soldiers to ignore argument against crossing river of biblical texts (10)
|
| {[CON]SCRIPTS (kind of soldiers) minus (to ignore) CON (argument against)} around (crossing) URE (river) | ||
| 18 | LACERATION |
Spike getting adequate amount of rent (10)
|
| LACE (spike) + RATION (adequate amount) | ||
| 22 | ROOSTS |
Rummages around small sleeping places (6)
|
| ROOTS (rummages) around S (small) | ||
| 23 | ALEATORY |
Dependent on chance drink with a Conservative (8)
|
| ALE (drink) + A + TORY (Conservative) | ||
| 24 | HANG-UP |
Chinese dog sent back with a psychological problem (4-2)
|
| HAN (Chinese) + PUG (dog) reversed (sent back) | ||
| 25 | EGYPTIAN |
Cleopatra perhaps unsettling tiny page (8)
|
| Anagram of (unsettling) TINY PAGE | ||
| 26 | WESSEX |
Home of Ethelred’s wife it includes Tewkesbury essentially (6)
|
| {W (wife) + SEX (it)} around (includes) middle letters of (essentially) [TEWK]ES[BURY] | ||
| 27 | START OUT |
Begin with brilliant solicitor (5,3)
|
| STAR (brilliant) + TOUT (solicitor) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | BLOTTO |
Following disgrace Athos regularly gets drunk (6)
|
| BLOT (disgrace) + alternate letters of (regularly) [A]T[H]O[S] | ||
| 2 | STEELY |
Hard to be secretive over support (6)
|
| SLY (secretive) around (over) TEE (support) | ||
| 3 | LOCATE |
Find Joyce oddly failing to interrupt recently (6)
|
| Even letters of (oddly failing) [J]O[Y]C[E] inside (to interrupt) LATE (recently) | ||
| 4 | SIMPLICITY |
Easiness of heartless spy holding captive without question (10)
|
| Outside letters of (heartless) S[P]Y around (holding captive) IMPLICIT (without question) | ||
| 6 | TRAVESTY |
Distorted representation of very arty set cavorting outside (8)
|
| Anagram of (cavorting) {ARTY SET} around (outside) V (very) | ||
| 7 | COLLIERY |
Lines in support of dog being mine (8)
|
| COLLIE (dog) + RY ([railway] lines) | ||
| 8 | SLAPDASH |
Careless hit-and-run (8)
|
| SLAP (hit) + DASH (run) | ||
| 13 | PILOT LIGHT |
Electric indicator showing jockey weighing relatively little (5,5)
|
| PILOT (jockey) + LIGHT (weighing relatively little) | ||
| 15 | CLERIHEW |
Her wiles endlessly intriguing after Cowley’s earliest satirical verse (8)
|
| First letter of (earliest [of]) C[OWLEY] + anagram of (intriguing) {HER + WILE[S] minus last letter (endlessly)} | ||
| 16 | ACCOUNTS |
Written reports of profit sharing at the outset (8)
|
| I think this parses as: ACCOUNT (profit) + first letter of (at the outset) S[HARING] | ||
| 17 | PROTRUDE |
Stick out for the original blue (8)
|
| PRO (for) + first letter of (original [of]) T[HE] + RUDE (blue) | ||
| 19 | PAMPER |
Priest describing more than enough left out to spoil (6)
|
| PR. (priest) around (describing) AMP[L]E (more than enough) minus (out) L (left) | ||
| 20 | BONITO |
Irish singer embracing Italian swimmer (6)
|
| BONO (Irish singer) around (embracing) IT. (Italian) | ||
| 21 | CYGNET |
Extremely costly bit of gear to catch young bird (6)
|
| Outside letters of (extremely) C[OSTL]Y + first letter of (bit of) G[EAR] + NET (catch) |
OVERCOME (draw near=COME seems all right to me) and ACCOUNTS: I had the same parsing.
profit=ACCOUNT:
account (Collins)
profit or advantage
to turn an idea to account
Thanks Peto and Cineraria.
I think that ‘draw near’ is actually COME OVER, but with OVER (‘on account of’) preceding COME to give the answer.
No arguments with either ACCOUNTS or OVERCOME as per the blog.
I enjoyed this although it was over rather too quickly. I feel sure I’ve seen this clue for SLAPDASH fairly recently – still neat though.
LACERATION and BONITO were my favourites.
Thanks to Peto and Cineraria.
It sounds like I had a similar experience to Cineraria. I blamed a number of an unusual meanings. Good on Diane for finishing quickly. I also liked BONITO.
One doubt: 12ac: How is “discovers what’s” = eh? I get what’s by itself….
Thanks Peto and Cineraria
Martyn@4
BEHIND
I think the ‘discovers’ is just a link word.
What=EH as you say.
Def discovers WP: I have seen some experts express reservations on this format. WP discovers Def is okay to them.
Diane@3, just 15 days ago in Julius’s FT 17982: “10a Careless hit & run? (8) … SLAP (hit) + DASH (run)”
Glad I wasn’t imagining things, Frankie!
😊
Long time lurker making my first comment. I saw 12ac as a triple definition – “bottom”, “what’s involved” and “in a difficult situation” all being BEHIND, with “discovers” simply being a link word as KVa suggests.
Challenging in places but all gettable without help. We didn’t have any problems parsing OVERCOME, but were a bit doubtful about ACCOUNTS. We couldn’t parse SCRIPTURES at all (we didn’t think of ‘con’); actually that appears to be a ‘wordplay of definition’ type of clue – supposedly taboo, although it doesn’t bother us – unless ‘of’ is just a link word.
Thanks, Peto and Cineraria – and welcome to Humbug on your first comment.
I enjoyed this, it took me a while to tune in and at one point the top half was pretty bare . I liked the combination of some easy clues (I always seem to start with anagrams) and some requiring a bit more thought. The only one I didn’t get was Steely, but I’m happy today.
I normally come here for The Guardian but I’ve been doing both recently. I was expecting the same crowd but you have to pay for the FT! I also saw another slapdash recently and it describes today’s efforts well. Everything was flying in, by my standards, until a couple of easier clues held me up – 12 and 19 if it makes anyone feel better! 😀
Thanks Peto for a well-crafted crossword with my favourites being STACKS, PAELLA, STEELY, SLAPDASH, BONITO, and CYGNET. Thanks Cineraria for the blog.
KVA @ 5: Count me as a solver who does not like DEF discovers WP. The WP can be for the DEF or leading to the DEF and the DEF can be from the WP or of the WP. I think incorrect directionality ruins a clue.
Martin @12: I’ve never paid for an FT crossword. I use the search box, enter ‘crossword’, and a list of them appears.