A challenging opener to Fridays of the New Year from Alberich, thanks to whom for providing a riveting session of mental gymnastics this morning. Did have a couple of words that I needed to clarify with google.
I think 2d can be helped.
FF: 9 DD: 9
| Across | ||
| 1 | COMMONPLACE | Trite description of Wimbledon maybe? (11) |
| cryptic clue, referring to wimbledon common | ||
| 7 | SIC | So the listener’s disgusted (3) |
| sounds like SICK | ||
| 9 | TUTOR | Instructor knocked back cheap booze? Not good (5) |
| ROT gUT (cheap booze, reversed, without ‘G’-good) | ||
| 10 | ATROCIOUS | Very poor actor cast with one semi-famous (9) |
| ACTOR* with I (one) OUS (semi famOUS) | ||
| 11 | HANDS DOWN | Employees will get depressed very easily (5,4) |
| HANDS (employees) DOWN (depressed) | ||
| 12 | FATAL | What a time being submerged by river could be? (5) |
| &lit, [A T (time)] in FAL (river) | ||
| 13 | LAMPOON | Nothing’s being broadcast after light satire (7) |
| [O (nothing) ON (being broadcast) ] after LAMP (light) | ||
| 15 | EXIT | Departure lounge’s close by it (4) |
| E (loungE, last letter) X (by, times) IT | ||
| 18 | AFAR | Part of Niagara Falls reflected at a distance (4) |
| hidden , reversed in “…niagaRA FAlls…” | ||
| 20 | TERRIER | Row about stray dog (7) |
| TIER (row) about ERR (stray) | ||
| 23 | EULER | Well-spoken mathematician (5) |
| sounds like oiler (oil well) | ||
| 24 | FORTUNATE | Adversary keeps playing truant – that’s lucky (9) |
| FOE (adversary) containing TRUANT* | ||
| 26 | ANCHORITE | One fluked it, meeting European recluse (9) |
| ANCHOR (one fluked, a fluke is triangular plate on the arm of the anchor ) IT E (european) – new word for me | ||
| 27 | AITCH | A long letter. . . . (5) |
| A ITCH (long) | ||
| 28 | TEE | . . . . one giving support (3) |
| the letter T (ref the previous clue, 27ac) | ||
| 29 | YAH BOO SUCKS | So there is bile chiefly in derogatory statement about search engine? (3-3,5) |
| B (Bile, first letter) in YAHOO SUCKS (derogatory statement about search engine) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | CATCH ALL | Tom’s seen by hospital in visit covering several eventualities (5-3) |
| CAT (tom) [ H (hospital) in CALL (visit) ] | ||
| 2 | METONYMS | Fancy writing about school’s figures of speech (8) |
| 3 | ORRIS | Depose head of old car plant (5) |
| mORRIS (old car, without head) | ||
| 4 | PLATOON | Climbing mountain’s extremely nasty at first for troops (7) |
| PLA (mountain = ALP, reversed) TOO (extremely) N (Nasty, first letter) | ||
| 5 | ARRANGE | Soldiers back field marshal (7) |
| AR (soldiers= RA, reversed) RANGE (field) | ||
| 6 | ESCOFFIER | Always eats food by one French chef (9) |
| EER (always, ever) containing [ SCOFF (food) I (one) ] – georges auguste escoffier, didnt know this one either. | ||
| 7 | SMOOTH | Iron Maiden shoot off touring (6) |
| M (maiden) in SHOOT* | ||
| 8 | COSTLY | On the whole, college for Mark is pricey (6) |
| mOSTLY (on the whole, with C – college replacing M – mark) | ||
| 14 | OFFERTORY | Old fellow put on tyre for free? It’s part of the service (9) |
| O (old) F (fellow) [TYRE FOR]* | ||
| 16 | GIGANTIC | Massive jerk’s after private gain, I let slip (8) |
| GI (private) GAiN (without ‘I’ – let slip) TIC (jerk) | ||
| 17 | BREECHES | Pants, taking run among trees (8) |
| R (run) in BEECHES (trees) | ||
| 19 | RAFFISH | Dashing off a riff’s hard (7) |
| A RIFFS* H (hard) | ||
| 20 | TORPEDO | Eccentric poet gets hold of recipe to cook fish (7) |
| [ POET* containing R (recipe) ] DO (cook) | ||
| 21 | PEDANT | Person everyone describes as nit-picking type, for starters? (6) |
| starting characters of “Person Everyone Describes As Nit-picking Type…” | ||
| 22 | CLOCHE | Awe possibly secured by church hat (6) |
| LOCH (awe, scottish highlands) in CE (church) | ||
| 25 | URALS | Range of paintings left by Frenchman (5) |
| mURALS (paintings, without ‘M’ – frenchman, monsieur) | ||
*anagram
Thanks TL. I think 2 dn is MY (fancy) around ETON (school) plus MS (manuscript = writing).
Thanks to Alberich for the puzzle.
2dn is My My (fancy!) around Eton.
…or maybe you’re right!!
I too had thought ‘my, my’ meant ‘fancy’ in some obscure UK sense but I too like ‘metronyms’ better.
And 27a stumped me. What a glorious clue!
A delightful puzzle all around. I’m not usually through the puzzle so soon (and so this is my first-ever post) — credit a long airplane flight. With these FT cryptics I especially love the smooth surface readings — 13a, 24a, even 11a — so often and so cleverly completely independent of the actual cryptic construction. (On our side of the pond the cryptics often seem so … pedestrian. That extra polishing, the wit that goes into the surface readings is the biggest difference between the two, IMO.)
Thank you!
Thanks all, for stopping by.
jmac@1, you are correct of course. I have made the edits as necessary. Thanks for the prop up.
Regards,
Mahesh
Thanks Alberich and Turbolegs
Another very good puzzle from this setter with an interesting variety of clue types and a couple of new terms for me – METONYMS (which I parsed the same as jam’s original post) and YAH-BOO SUCKS. Was nice to see a mathematician featured at 23a.
Really liked the misdirection that was used throughout and thought that the clues for ANCHORITE, CLOCHE and ARRANGE were the standouts.
Finished in the SE corner with OFFERTORY, that YAH-BOO SUCKS and TORPEDO (which I hadn’t seen defined as a ‘(tin) fish’ before.