A fun gentle challenge from MUDD today
FF: 9 DD: 7
Apologies for the dodgy format. More technical problem
| ACROSS | ||||
| 1 Dismiss people in traditional event (4,4) | SACK RACE | SACK ( dismiss ) RACE ( people ) | ||
| 5 Booze cruises returning having nabbed last of Martini (6) | SPIRIT | { reverse of TRIPS ( cruises ) } containing I ( martinI, last letter ) | ||
| 9 Later, I screwed on link (8) | RELATION | [ LATER I ]* ON | ||
| 10 Entering empty stage, drunk can’t stand (6) | STANCE | SE ( StagE, without inner content ) containing [ CANT ]* | ||
| 12 Separate strip for game (9) | PARTRIDGE | PART ( separate ) RIDGE ( strip ) | ||
| 13 Perfume dispatched, by the sound of it? | SCENT | sounds like SENT ( dispatched ) | ||
| 14 Finished again (4) | OVER | double def | ||
| 16 Air about tease in old Roman official (7) | TRIBUNE | TUNE ( air ) around RIB ( taunt ) | ||
| 19 Two-star building almost certainly better? (2,5) | AT WORST | [ TWO STAR ]* | ||
| 21 How I might mark present I’d bought for myself, a book (4) | TOME | cryptic def; read as TO ME ( how i would address a gift to myself ) | ||
| 24 African animal, thing seen in middle of Sahara (5) | HYENA | YEN ( thing ) in HA ( saHAra, middle of ) | ||
| 25 Bird found refuse on Scottish island (9) | CHAFFINCH | CHAFF ( refuse ) INCH ( scottish island ) | ||
| 27 Something dried is covered in something wet (6) | RAISIN | IS in RAIN ( something wet ) | ||
| 28 Pretty appropriate (8) | BECOMING | double def | ||
| 29 Type of bend, cocker’s cocker? (6) | DOGLEG | DOG ( cocker ) LEG ( cocker ) | ||
| 30 Not out, aunt has been abroad (8) | UNBEATEN | [ AUNT BEEN ]*; cricket terminology | ||
| DOWN | ||||
| 1 5 Across a little closer, a phantom (6) | SERAPH | hidden in “..cloSER A PHantom” | ||
| 2 Salad ingredient, speed of thought has it removed (6) | CELERY | CELERitY ( speed of thought, without letters of IT ) | ||
| 3 Turner in rust and gold (5) | ROTOR | ROT ( rust ) OR ( gold ) | ||
| 4 Food has tipped over beetroot soup (7) | CHOWDER | CHOW ( food ) DER ( reverse of RED, beetroot ) | ||
| 6 Metal vessel a problem, silicon contained (9) | POTASSIUM | POT ( vessel ) A [ SUM ( problem ) containing SI ( silicon ) ] | ||
| 7 Athlete ahead, one won’t quite finish ahead! (6-2) | RUNNER UP | RUNNER ( athlete ) UP ( ahead ) | ||
| 8 Contracts erode in taxes (8) | TREATIES | EAT ( erode ) in TRIES ( taxes ) | ||
| 11 Port not drunk? (4) | LEFT | cryptic def | ||
| 15 Multi-talented relatives dancing around | VERSATILE | [ RELATIVES ]* | ||
| 17 Article probing poor grade, understood | GATHERED | THE ( article ) in [ GRADE ]* | ||
| 18 Little nail pierces covering of something wide (8) | SWEEPING | [ WEE ( little ) PIN ( nail ) ] in SG ( SomethinG, end characters ) | ||
| 20 Tiny arachnid bit (4) | TICK | double def | ||
| 21 Business arrangement where debt halved in sequence of events (5-2) | TRADE-IN | DE ( half of DEbt ) in TRAIN ( sequence of events ) | ||
| 22 Sign up with squiggly lines on bottom of parchment (6) | ENLIST | [ LINES ]* T ( parchmenT, last letter ) | ||
| 23 Old Japanese leader, one having abandoned development of housing (6) | SHOGUN | [ HOUSiNG ( without I – one ) ]* | ||
| 26 Fahrenheit zero, unfortunately, became very cold (5) | FROZE | F ( Fahrenheit ) [ ZERO ]* |
A lovely, gentle puzzle from Mudd with lots of succinct, neatly worded surfaces including SACK RACE, for one or fun riddles like those for RAISIN and DOGLEG.
Other ticks were… TICK, STANCE and LEFT.
Very entertaining. Thanks Mudd and Turbolegs, notwithstanding the dodgy format!
Liked SACK RACE, STANCE, RAISIN, LEFT and SHOGUN.
Thanks Mudd & Turbolegs.
Haven’t seen celerity for ages, same root as ac celer ate I guess, so probably not exclusively “.. of thought”, but hey ho. Becoming, for behaviour, is usually un-, and, for looks, a bit like fetching. Nice cruiae from Mudd and Turbo, for which tiring ginf brain gives thanks.
Much easier than Paul in the Guardian today. I initially had MITE for 20d, which seems to work nearly as well as TICK (mite = a very small amount, as in “the widow’s mite”, as well as another arachnid).
I did not understand in what sense “leg” = “cocker”? When the dog is urinating?
MITE was my FOI…
Thanks for the blog , neat and concise clues and SHOGUN managed to avoid the shotgun for once .
Cineraria@6 you are right , the cocker (spaniel) cocks his leg , so a cocker’s cocker is a dog leg .
Thanks Mudd and Turbolegs
2dn: Chambers 2016 p 251 gives “rapidity of motion or thought” as a definition of celerity, so at worst it is an unsignalled definition by example.
Thanks Mudd, that was fun. My favourites were SACK RACE, OVER, LEFT, SHOGUN, and RAISIN. In UNBEATEN, I wondered about ‘has’ separating the fodder, AUNT & BEEN but I guess an arguement can be made justifying this. Thanks Turbolegs for the blog.
Not quite our quickest solve as we were puzzled for ages by the ‘has’ separating ‘aunt’ and ‘been’ in 30ac, and in 8dn we initially thought of ‘tithes’ for ‘taxes’. Otherwise very straightforward and enjoyable. We liked PARTEIDGE and CHAFFINCH.
Thanks, Mudd and Turbolegs.
My thoughts correspond closely to what has already been written – I even had the same cocker question as Cineraria@5, and also entered MITE initially for 20d.
My summary: an enjoyable set of approachable, and well-crafted clues.
Thanks Mudd, Turbolegs and all
Enjoyed it. Thanks everyone