It took us a little while to get into Tees’ offering today, but in preparing the blog, we’re not quite sure why.
Apart from a couple of references that we had to check electronically (for 1d and 25ac), all the clues were clear and the parsing was fairly straightforward. Perhaps we are just having a 24 moment?
| Across | ||
| 9 | Wind up eating this at Ship and get sloshed (9) | |
| SPAGHETTI | An anagram of AT SHIP and GET – anagrind is ‘sloshed’ | |
| 10 | Key locks office (5) | |
| CHAIR | C (key, in music) HAIR (locks) | |
| 11 | Soldier in uniform (7) | |
| REGULAR | Double definition | |
| 12 | Score after six balls exceed allotted time (7) | |
| OVERRUN | RUN (score, in cricket) after OVER (six balls, also in cricket) | |
| 13 | Nothing fixes a fixer (4) | |
| NAIL | NIL (nothing) round or ‘fixing’ A | |
| 14 | Coach turned at ring road not designed for the round trip? (10) | |
| SUBORBITAL | BUS (coach) reversed or ‘turned’ + ORBITAL (ring road) | |
| 16 | Search island shed that houses unknown number (7) | |
| MANHUNT | MAN (island) HUT (shed) round or ‘housing’ N (unknown number) | |
| 17 | Very allowable to harass for cash (7) | |
| SOLICIT | SO (very) LICIT (allowable) | |
| 19 | Rich lot are horribly insincere in style (10) | |
| RHETORICAL | An anagram of RICH LOT ARE – anagrind is ‘horribly’ | |
| 22 | Policeman from Lima involved in case (4) | |
| PLOD | L (Lima in the phonetic alphabet) ‘involved’ in POD (case) | |
| 24 | Eros Ltd corrupted senior citizen (7) | |
| OLDSTER | An anagram of EROS LTD – anagrind is ‘corrupted’ | |
| 25 | Indian round bend finds enormous deer (7) | |
| CARIBOU | CARIB (Indian) O (round) U (bend) – we had to check the ‘Indian’ part of this, but apparently Caribs are American Indian people who inhabit the coast of Central and South America and the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean | |
| 26 | Item with Oedipal strings attached? (5) | |
| APRON | Cryptic definition – maternal attachment can be described as hanging on to the APRON strings and Oedipus was renowned in Greek myth for marrying his mother | |
| 27 | Here one finds Samoan is openly a crook (9) | |
| POLYNESIA | An anagram of IS OPENLY A – anagrind is ‘crook’ | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | Solar Year Morton murdered John Flamsteed? (10,5) | |
| ASTRONOMER
ROYAL |
An anagram of SOLAR YEAR MORTON – anagrind is ‘murdered’ – we had never heard of John Flamsteed, but a google confirmed that he was the first Astronomer Royal in 1675 | |
| 2 | Pack animal gets problem with tendon (8) | |
| GANGLION | GANG (pack) LION (animal) | |
| 3 | Wide excavation complete (5) | |
| WHOLE | W (wide) HOLE (excavation) | |
| 4 | Stuff of dreams found to involve day with compilers (8) | |
| STARDUST | START (found) round or ‘involving’ D (day) US (compilers) | |
| 5 | Tees is appearing in knockout gown (6) | |
| KIMONO | I’M (Tees is) ON (appearing) in KO (knockout) | |
| 6 | Twist with dance nuts across the pond (9) | |
| SCREWBALL | SCREW (twist) BALL (dance) | |
| 7 | Repeat usual rubbish (6) | |
| PARROT | PAR (usual) ROT (rubbish) | |
| 8 | Gargantua’s ruled out sweetener (10,5) | |
| GRANULATED SUGAR | An anagram of GARGANTUA’S RULED – anagrind is ‘out’ | |
| 15 | Away frequently with one in Paris flat? (3-2-4) | |
| OUT-OF-TUNE | OUT (away) OFT (frequently) UNE (French for ‘one’) | |
| 17 | Conservative moving clear in second year? Only just! (8) | |
| SCARCELY | C (Conservative) and an anagram of CLEAR (anagrind is ‘moving’) in S (second) Y (year) | |
| 18 | Tree means to envelop an experimental facility (8) | |
| CALABASH | CASH (means) round or ‘enveloping’ A LAB (an experimental facility) | |
| 20 | Bear brings death to river (6) | |
| ENDURE | END (death) URE (river) | |
| 21 | Break in transmission initially with India two runs ahead (6) | |
| IRRUPT | T (first or ‘initial’ letter of ‘transmission’) with I (India in the phonetic alphabet) RR (two runs) UP (ahead) in front, or ‘ahead’ doing double duty | |
| 23 | Subtle humour fey perhaps? (5) | |
| IRONY | IRON (chemical symbol Fe) Y | |
IRONY from ‘fey’ is magic! A fine puzzle overall, in fact. CALABASH and IRRUPT I’ve only ever met in Crosswordland and a vague recollection of the ROYAL ASTRONOMER’s unusual surname helped here.
Most enjoyable, Tees. Thanks to Bertandjoyce for the blog.
Much as I like IRONY, I think 20 is a tad offside. “Brings death” surely is ENDS, not END. Obvious what the answer is but not a perfect clue for me.
Really enjoyed this. I got beat by the new-to-me tree (now hopefully stored in my brainbank for next time), but found the whole puzzle to have a lovely flow to the solve which was challenging in parts and easy in others. Lots of nice concise clues and neat devices, plus a laugh out loud at the amusing surface of 24a. Many thanks to Tees for a great puzzle and to B&J for the blog.
I was chugging along merrily with this until coming to a dead halt with IRONY.
Rude words were used when I read the blog.
Thanks to Tees and B&J
The bear one is ‘brings END to URE’ so think it’s okay as is.
APRON one got me chuckling, very clever.
Very enjoyable puzzle with the usual imaginative and accurate clue-writing one has come to associate with Tees.
I agree with crimper @5 that there’s no problem with 20d: copmus @2 seems mistakenly to be reading “brings death” as one lexical unit even at the cryptic level. I suppose one might equally well say “Bear sees death by river” – even if this wouldn’t be as vividly picturesque as the original.
I also appreciated the “perhaps?” at the end of 23d, which IMO renders this clue acceptable even by Ximenean standards.
Thanks to both Tees and Bertandjoyce.
I thought this remarkably easy by Tees’ standards – more like Quixote or Dac. Apart,that is from grinding to a halt on 23dn, then having a facepalm moment when IRONY appeared in the list from my wordfinder. Excellent clue, my only quibble being it had less than 50% checking.
Thanks, Tees and B&J.
Used to live near Greenwich Observatory and visited Flamsteed House regularly as a kid, so 1dn was a write-in for me.
23dn, however, eluded me, and even when I found it with a word search I couldn’t parse it.
That’s a Guardianesque clue if ever I saw one, that FEY, but super-clever.
All the others are word-perfect as you might say. Very good.