Nice puzzle from The Editor with a theme that revealed itself in two parts for me: first, cities then Italian cities. Plaudits for getting so many in, especially when so many of them end in awkward letters like I and O.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 7 | F[LORE for RA]NCE |
| 8 | IN,I,MIR< – looks like the second I is indicated by A? |
| 11 | (LONG)* in BOA |
| 12 | even letters from “cAbOt’S aTlAs” – AOSTA was only town/city I didn’t know but it’s easy to get from the wordplay. |
| 13 | (LA PAZ IS E)* – not sure if LA is actually part of the anagram fodder, given that it appears in the clue and answer – not that it makes much difference. Liked the clue though. |
| 16 | OR,VIE,TO |
| 19 | AS,SIN in CO – I liked “comparatively ugly” for AS SIN (“ugly as sin” – geddit?) |
| 21 | C,(A GIRL)* in AI |
| 29 | BERGAMO[-t] |
| 30 | EN in VICE – an EN is half an em, which is a measurement in printing used for spacing. |
| Down | |
| 3 | ARGAL[-i] in NEE[-d] – this was a guess as NEAR GALE was a new phrase to me and I’d also never heard of Argali sheep. |
| 5 | GI[-r]L,LIE – another spelling of Ghillie. |
| 9 | [-ta]IWAN – the last one I filled in and for a while I thought I wasn’t going to get it. |
| 11 | BA,SIC – a computer language, rather than a human one. |
| 14 | [-m]IDI – with I?I it can only really be IDI but I didn’t know what the garment was supposed to be, although Midi seemed plausible enough. |
| 18 | [OT for I]AGO |
| 20 | (MANAGERS)* – another guess. SEMARANG looked a bit more convincing than SAMERANG or SAMARENG, although all 3 look reasonable enough now I come to think of it. Better make that a lucky guess. |
| 22 | (CAROL I)* – I think I must have come across LORICA in another puzzle somewhere. |
| 23 | BOR[-e] in INN – this was very good. Here’s the clue: “Congenital dullard has 25% reduction for hotel accommodation”. It took me a while to split up “congenital dullard” and longer still to work out what “hotel accommodation” was all about. |
Yes, impressive to fit all those in every single across answer. Made the puzzle hard. The ‘midi’ is a close relative of the ‘mini’ (skirt) so I’d no problems with that.