A tricky puzzle from Twin today.
We scratched our heads a few times here. We guessed the answer but struggled with the parsings. Thankfully, a number of the anagrams fell into place fairly quickly. We would like some help please with 9ac. Is this something to do with a theme? Any thoughts out there?
Some smooth surfaces and inventive – lots to enjoy!
SEATbELT (‘transit protector’) with the ‘back half’ missing the first letter or ‘not opening’ and then reversed or ‘twisted’
GUn (weapon) missing last letter or ‘almost’ + ESSE (being) D (dead)
DA (Russian for yes or ‘certainly’) RED (left wing) EVIL (wicked). The definition must be ‘alter ego’ but we cannot find anywhere that describes these as synonyms. Can anyone help please?
UN (United Nations – ‘set of countries’) aCUTe (pressing) missing first and last letters or ‘dropping borders’
S AND Y (first and last letters or ‘both sides’ of strategy)
PEELS (pares) reversed or ‘back’ + LESS (not as much as) – the ‘resident?’ refers to Tom Hanks who was “SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE”
An anagram (‘struggles’) of TIGER CUB and sELECTEd (missing first and last letters or ‘for shaving’)
An anagram (‘played’) of WHO and GRIEG’S GENRE
P (soft) + a reversal (‘reflected’) of LUTE (stringed instrument) + A N (new) CE (church)
EID (festival) reversed or ‘recalled’ after IN (happening)
chAMBER (room) missing CH (companion)
ESP (super intelligence) and IrON AGE (historical period) losing ‘r’ (Republican)
MEN (soldiers) in a reversal (‘revolutionary’) TELE (TV ‘set’)
SP (odds) YEs (certainly) missing last letter or ‘shortened’ about WAR (fighting)
StatISTIC (fact) with AD (promotion) replacing ‘tat’ (tattoo)
PRO (old hand) inside or ‘inhabiting’ AN
An anagram (‘rearranged’) DERBY DATE
pELVIS (‘hip neighbour’) missing first letter or ‘lead’
GEN (information) about OLD (hackneyed) + EYE (detective)
E (on-line) QUIP (joke)
SCARED (afraid) with ‘a’ ‘brought up’ + COW (bully)
A reversal (‘rising’) of TS ElioT (first and last letters only or ‘ignoring content’) ED (editor)
EL (Spanish for ‘the’) EC (city) TABLE (lodge)
Double definition
I’M (one’s) ON (working’) Y (first letter of ‘you’) underneath or ‘undermining’ TEST (trial)
An anagram (‘disrupting’) of A (first letter or ‘leadership’ of Anthony) and EDEN ETC
I (one) ATE (did shift) after OP (work)
LA (city) RE (about) around or ‘hosting’ G (golf)
Hidden (‘part of’) in sussEX POSitively
A NAIaD (nymph) reversed or ‘from the underworld’ without or ‘avoiding’ ‘a’
I was pleased how quickly I solved this, although I failed to parse DIANA, annoyingly. SLEEPLESS & ESPIONAGE held me up the most.
As for DAREDEVIL, I took it as the Marvel hero alter ego of Matt Murdoch but may be wrong.
Agree with ‘tricky’, although Twin is usually a little idiosyncratic. I liked ESPIONAGE and SACRED COW. I didn’t really go for ‘transit protector’ as seatbelt but maybe it’s UK terminology. I couldn’t solve 1a until I had SLEEPLESS and then it fell into place and I understood the parsing. ‘Leaves’ is perhaps a little overused these days so with just an ‘e’ and a ‘g’ the lettuce came to mind. I did enjoy the puzzle though, and Twin’s quirky constructions. I went to Google for DAREDEVIL and maybe it is an alter ego for a type of superhero but I’m not sure. It parsed well so in it went. Thanks for the blog and thanks Twin.
Getting “fit to choose” to mean fit to be chosen takes a bit of un-gnarling, as does seat + >[b]elt, which I missed. Daredevil, too, was a shrug — presumed ref to one of many nho comic strip characters. Otherwise, pretty neat, thanks Twin and BandJ.
I’m sure Hovis is right about Matt Murdoch (blind lawyer from memory) and his alter ego of Daredevil.
I too dismissed electable originally until it had to be right.
That along with ‘did shift’ (which I originally mis-read probably because of it’s proximity to ‘number one’!) for ate both seemed a stretch for me but enjoyed this and completed quite quickly really.
Thanks to Twin and BandJ