A relatively gentle puzzle from Gozo, with much of the grid locked in by the two fifteen-letter solutions.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | RESIDENT |
Occupant’s monthly payment includes the team (8)
|
| RENT (monthly payment) around (includes) SIDE (the team) | ||
| 5 | IDEALS |
Negotiate breaking one’s standards (6)
|
| DEAL (negotiate) inside (breaking) I’S (one’s) | ||
| 10 | SEEKS |
Searches out disciples, we hear (5)
|
| Homophone of (we hear) SIKHS (literally “disciples,” in Hindi) | ||
| 11 | NEWSFLASH |
“Welsh fans upset” — it may interrupt broadcast (9)
|
| Anagram of (upset) WELSH FANS | ||
| 12 | ROUNDHEAD |
Puritan, corpulent school boss (9)
|
| ROUND (corpulent) + HEAD (school boss) | ||
| 13 | NADIA |
Russian girl and Roman goddess, cycling (5)
|
| DIANA (Roman goddess), with the last two letters “cycling” to the front | ||
| 14 | CANAAN |
Biblical land providing half of the cake and bread (6)
|
| Half of CA[KE] + NAAN (bread) | ||
| 15 | NOT A LOT |
Little number, rough total (3,1,3)
|
| NO. (number) + anagram of (rough) TOTAL. I think that this might also fairly be parsed as clue-as-definition, and “little” might be parsed as indicating an abbreviation for “number.” | ||
| 18 | CHEETAH |
Fast cat is no sportsman, we’re told (7)
|
| Homophone of (we’re told) CHEATER (no sportsman) | ||
| 20 | TEAM GB |
Afternoon meal by popular sports car for our Olympic sports stars (4,1,1)
|
| TEA (afternoon meal) + MGB (popular sports car, manufactured 1962-1980) | ||
| 22 | RUING |
Contrite, I step outside (5)
|
| RUNG (step) around (outside) I | ||
| 24 | TWENTY-TWO |
A couple of little ducks in line on a rugby pitch (6-3)
|
| Double definition, the first referring to bingo | ||
| 25 | HOT POTATO |
Stolen jacket — a tricky case (3,6)
|
| HOT (stolen) + POTATO (jacket) | ||
| 26 | CLEAR |
Cordelia’s opening her father’s net (5)
|
| First letter of (opening [of]) C[ORDELIA] + LEAR (her father), referring to Shakespeare’s King Lear | ||
| 27 | SPOUSE |
Married partner outside of ship by river (6)
|
| Outside [letters] of S[HI]P + OUSE (river) | ||
| 28 | LOP-EARED |
Bound along, a shade like a rabbit (3-5)
|
| LOPE (bound along) + A + RED (shade) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | RESORT |
Go here on holiday? (6)
|
| I think this is intended to parse as: Double definition | ||
| 2 | SPECULATE |
Firstly she has to embezzle, then gamble (9)
|
| First letter of (firstly) S[HE] + PECULATE (embezzle) | ||
| 3 | DISADVANTAGEOUS |
Not sausage, David, stewed — it’s bad for you (15)
|
| Anagram of (stewed) NOT SAUSAGE DAVID | ||
| 4 | NANKEEN |
Material for grannie with damaged knee (7)
|
| NAN (grannie) + anagram of (damaged) KNEE | ||
| 6 | DEFINITE ARTICLE |
The complex tenet I clarified (8,7)
|
| Anagram of (complex) TENET I CLARIFIED | ||
| 7 | AWARD |
Tony, for example, a child under the care of a court (5)
|
| A WARD (a child under the care of a court) | ||
| 8 | SCHMALTZ |
Sentimentality of school master, cutting some of dance (8)
|
| SCH. (school) + M (master) + [W]ALTZ (dance) minus first letter (cutting some of) | ||
| 9 | SWEDEN |
Is south-west paradise here? (6)
|
| Something of a cryptic definition/semi-&lit and SW (south-west) + EDEN (paradise) | ||
| 16 | LIGHT-YEAR |
Land on time from long distance (5,4)
|
| LIGHT (land on) + YEAR (time). I believe this is properly hyphenated. | ||
| 17 | SCORCHES |
Burns almost twenty churches’ exteriors (8)
|
| SCOR[E] (twenty) minus last letter (almost) + outside two letters of (exteriors [of]) CH[URCH]ES | ||
| 19 | HITMAN |
Killer decapitated US poet (6)
|
| [Walt] [W]HITMAN (US poet) minus first letter (decapitated) | ||
| 20 | TIEPOLO |
Venetian artist with link to river. See! (7)
|
| TIE (link) + PO (river) + LO (see!) | ||
| 21 | SOARED |
Foil, we hear, rose high (6)
|
| Homophone of (we hear) SWORD (foil) | ||
| 23 | INTRO |
First section cut out of thin trousers (5)
|
| Hidden in (cut out of) [TH]IN TRO[USERS] |
The top half was pretty much a write-in. The bottom took more thought and time, and I had several quibbles.
I enjoyed many clues, with DEFINITE ARTICLE a great anagram and NEWSFLASH a nice anagram and surface. CANAAN, NOT A LOT, CLEAR, and RUING also got ticks.
Thanks Gozo and thanks Cineraria for your usual top-notch blog
A brisk solve today. However, I did learn that SIKHS are disciples in Hindi . As Martyn says, many clues were write-ins. We need puzzles like this from time to time.
Good fun so thanks to Gozo and Cineraria.
SM@2: I completely agree that we need puzzles such as these. In my humble opinion, puzzles need to be enjoyable, which means different things to different people. This implies the need for a variety in both difficulty and setters. Circumstance mean we will always have a variety of setters. I hope the editor continues to present puzzles with varying degree of difficulty
Thanks Gozo for a pleasant crossword. Lots of good clues including IDEALS, NEWSFLASH (great anagram), CHEETAH, HOT POTATO, SWEDEN, and HITMAN. I couldn’t fully parse RESORT, SPECULATE, and TWENTY-TWO. I didn’t know that ‘exteriors’ in the clue for SCORCHES could mean two letters from each end. I also felt that some of the link words were loose i.e. ‘for’ in NANKEEN, ‘from’ in LIGHT YEAR, and ‘providing’ in CANAAN. Thanks Cineraria for the blog.
Liked NOT A LOT
Agree with Cineraria’s views.
LIGHT-YEAR
I think land=LIGHT
‘on’ is to indicate that LIGHT is on/above YEAR.
RESORT
Liked it. Unable to classify it. The blogger must be right.
SWEDEN
Didn’t understand the cryptic part of it. Why is SWEDEN a South West Paradise?
Thanks Gozo and Cineraria.
I’m glad everyone agrees on RESORT, because I tried to find something cryptic about it and couldn’t. I still can’t. Yes, there are jacket potatoes, but does it follow that a jacket is a potato? I knew MG is a car, but not MGB, so I couldn’t account for the B.
I learnt a little about rugby pitches. That’ll be useful. 😉
KVa, (the garden of) Eden is paradise, yes?
Puzzled by the 22-line (played s bit of Union as a youth) thinking Surely not 22 players in a line-out. No, I think it’s probably the closest in metres to the old 25-yard lline. Nice cruisy puzzle, cheers Gozo and Cineraria.
GDU @6, the MGA was the sleekly curvy model, the MGB came later and was stubbier.
GDU@7
SWEDEN
The Wordplay is clear. I thought the def was just ‘here’ (to indicate a place). If there’s a cryptic part in the def, I don’t get it.
RESORT
Def 1: Go
If we take Def 2 as ‘here on vacation?’
it doesn’t seem to match exactly.
That said, I feel the setter meant it to be a DD as Cineraria sees it.
Thoroughly enjoyable with the silly wordplay I love like ‘not sausage David’! My favourite was TIEPOLO but I also tipped TWENTY TWO for the bingo reference, NANKEEN for the ‘granny with a damaged knee’ and, naturally, DIANA!
Thanks for the smiles, Gozo, and Cineraria for a fine blog.
Like Martyn @ 1 I found the top easier than the bottom half. Lots of lovely clues.
I think my favourites were: NANKEEN, ROUNDHEAD and LOPE-EARED
I’ve seen CANAAN clued just the same very recently.
Thanks Gozo and Cineraria
I agree with other posters, a very accessible puzzle, and thank heavens for that. I have tackled a few by Gozo, and they are always entertaining, but not to underestimate how skilful the clues are….super surfaces and very smart ideas for solutions. [ I’ll mention, DEFINITE ARTICLE, 6(d); and DISADVANTAGEOUS, 3(d), excellent clues, smashing 15-letter anagrams. How often are these over-contrived by some setters? The use of ” THE” to define the solution is brilliant. ]
1(d),RESORT is synonymous with “GO” as a verb ( in the sense of to visit ), though I confess it may be archaic; so, double- definition it is, as per Cineraria. Not Gozo’s finest hour.
24(ac) TWENTY-TWO: ah! was Gozo tempted to make this 22(ac)? As per gif@8, when I played, it was yards not metres. It’s the new-fangled 22-metre line, as in the 50:22 rule ( offensive kick and line-out).
Bottom-line, lovely stuff, flag’s up, Gozo and Cineraria
Very enjoyable
Thanks Gozo and Cineraria
24ac: A bit of web searching suggests 1977 as the date when the 25 yard line in rugger was changed to 22 metres. I left school in 1976 but continued to receive the school magazine. The issue covering the Autumn Term of 1978 has match reports, from one of which I quote: “A tense second-half developed with both teams penetrating deep into their opponents’ 22”. That is the best I can do in pinning down the date when the change was made.
25ac: ODE 2010 p 933 has “a jacket potato” as a meaning for the noun jacket, albeit marked “informal”.
PB @ 15 it appears it was ‘from 1975’.
Most enjoyable. Only one complaint – it was over too quickly.
Thanks, Gozo and Cineraria.
As above, although I finished the bottom half way quicker than the top.. got to love a puzzle with TIEPOLO in it, my favourite Venetian painter. Those ceilings!!
Thanks Gozo n Cineraria
Some puzzles I can only solve 2 or 3 clues. Not a lot of fun. This one I came close to solving the puzzle, just got stuck on SE quadrant and missed 2 that in hindsight I should have got, but to echo what others have posted it’s nice to have a slightly gentler puzzle occasionally to give us slightly denser solvers a fighting chance!