Relatively easier workout from Alberich this Friday. Thanks Alberich !!!
FF: 8 DD: 8
| Across | ||
| 1 | WAGNER | Put pole in punt for scorer (6) |
| N (north, pole) in WAGER (punt) | ||
| 5 | BAYREUTH | Save hard, keeping year free to see where 1’s celebrated (8) |
| [ BUT (save) H (hard) ] containing YEAR* | ||
| 9 | LABRADOR | Work for American touring terrific area of Canada (8) |
| LABOR (work, american spelling) around RAD (terrific) | ||
| 10 | KETTLE | Confine crowd of 1,000 that’s calm without leader (6) |
| K (1000, kilo) sETTLE (calm, without leader) | ||
| 11 | AFGHAN | Hang out with a fellow Asian (6) |
| HANG A F* (fellow) | ||
| 12 | ABSOLUTE | Pure tar’s a dissolved substance (8) |
| AB (tar) SOLUTE (dissolved substance) | ||
| 14 | RAISE THE ROOF | Hear Rite of Spring, opus primarily composed to make a lot of noise (5,3,4) |
| [HEAR RITE OF S (Spring, first letter) O (Opus, first letter)]* | ||
| 18 | EASY ON THE EYE | Extremely nice to see? Yeah, remarkably close to dishy! (4,2,3,3) |
| [NE (extremely NicE) TO SEE YEAH Y (close to dishY)]* | ||
| 22 | HANGER ON | Hot with fury about unsolicited company (6-2) |
| H (hot) ANGER (fury) ON (about) | ||
| 25 | NIACIN | Almost a crime, we’re told, to provide vitamin (6) |
| sounds like NEAR SIN (almost a crime) | ||
| 26 | MEANIE | Ungenerous sort having average income, but not content (6) |
| MEAN (average) IE (IncomE, without content) | ||
| 27 | MICHIGAN | State employee comprehends nameless Chinese symbols (8) |
| MAN (employee) around [I CHInG (nameless chinese symbols)] | ||
| 28 | STURGEON | One guts flounders, having caught river fish (8) |
| ONE GUTS* containing R (river) | ||
| 29 | YIELDS | Provinces having year for fine crops (6) |
| fIELDS (provinces with Y for year replacing F for fine) | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | AMALFI | One’s following priest around Italian town (6) |
| reverse of I (one) F (following) LAMA (priest) | ||
| 3 | NORTHERLY | Try on exotic clothes the woman left – it could be a blast! (9) |
| TRY ON* around [ HER (the woman) L (left) ] | ||
| 4 | RED ENSIGN | Standard newspaper’s first to come into fashion again (3,6) |
| N (Newspaper’s first) in RE-DESIGN (fashion again) | ||
| 5 | BARRAGE | Rapid succession of violent incidents in pub? (7) |
| cryptic clue, read as BAR RAGE | ||
| 6 | YIKES | Good heavens! Yankee president succeeded! (5) |
| Y (yankee) IKE (president, eisenhower) S (succeeded) | ||
| 7 | EXTOL | Praise former work, not current (5) |
| EX (former) TOiL (work, without ‘i’ for current) | ||
| 8 | TELETHON | Sent back short letter about hospital’s fund-raising programme (8) |
| NOTELET (short letter) around H (hospital), all reversed | ||
| 13 | ONE | Join me periodically for a drink (3) |
| regular letters of “jOiN mE…” | ||
| 15 | HUE AND CRY | Raunchy, semi-nude dancing creates uproar (3,3,3) |
| [RAUNCHY nuDE (semi)]* | ||
| 16 | RE EXAMINE | Note: cut up egg and grill again (2-7) |
| RE (note) EXA (cut= AXE, reversed) MINE (egg?) | ||
| 17 | PARAKEET | Bird in a scrape, being swallowed by cat? (8) |
| [ A RAKE (scrape) ] in PET (cat) | ||
| 19 | OWE | Some borrow euros – they’ll do this (3) |
| hidden in “…borrOW Euros…” | ||
| 20 | HANGMAN | One who carried out a suspended sentence? (7) |
| cryptic – clever clue this | ||
| 21 | WIZARD | Expert takes care penning one last letter (6) |
| WARD (care) around [ I (one) Z (last letter) ] | ||
| 23 | GONER | Government’s big lie creates a hopeless case (5) |
| G (government) ONER (big lie) | ||
| 24 | REEVE | Touring Spain always upset old magistrate (5) |
| REVE (always = EVER, reversed) around E (spain, espana) | ||
*anagram
Thanks for the blog, Turbolegs and Alberich for a most enjoyable puzzle.
My favourites today were RAISE THE ROOF and RED ENSIGN.
In 10ac, I think ‘crowd’ is part of the definition.
I parsed 25ac as sounding like ‘nigh a sin’ and thought I must have been mispronouncing NIACIN but I’ve just checked the pronunciation in Chambers and here: http://howjsay.com/pronunciation-of-niacin
Chambers gives ‘egg’ as slang for a bomb or mine.
Thanks Alberich and Turbolegs
After 1 & 2 I wondered if we were in for a Wagner theme, which would have left me struggling, but fortunately not. I also wondered if we were going to have the second pangram of the day, but we’re J & Q short.
Like Eileen I parsed 25 as NIGH A SIN.
I don’t know about Eileen but if I had a £1 for every time someone said ‘I didn’t know egg could mean a mine’, I’d probably be able to buy myself a beer tomorrow at Big Dave’s Blog 8th Birthday Bash
As usual my thoughts on this, and most crosswords, agree with hers.
Quite right, crypticsue @3: an old favourite – but I don’t remember seeing it lately.
Have fun at the Bash! 😉
I wasn’t sure about the parsing of NIACIN either, but I think Eileen’s right (she usually is).
Nice puzzle.
Thanks Alberich and Turbolegs
Nice puzzle that I was able to finish in a single session over the weekend.
Found nothing too difficult in filling in the grid, but there were a few that took quite a while to figure out the word play, particularly MICHIGAN, TELETHON and NIACIN (that I needed to come here to see Eileen’s explanation).
Couldn’t find in any of the online references that I use, the definition of ONER for ‘big lie’ and had to look for a while to confirm that ‘laying eggs’ was a term for laying MINES.
Finished in the SE corner with MICHIGAN, WIZARD and NIACIN the last few in.