Kairos steps in for Dac this week – and we found this quite difficult to get to grips with.
Having written up the blog we are now wondering why? Was it the long clues around the perimeter or some unusual words e.g. 20ac? There were also some ‘odd’ definitions e.g. 7 and 15d. We don’t remember ‘telephone’ being used as a homophone indicator before but no doubt someone will put us right! We are interested to see what others thought.
In the end, we enjoyed the solve so have no complaints.
| Across | ||
| 1 | Force some apples into kitchen equipment (8,7) | |
| PRESSURE COOKERS | PRESSURE (force) COOKERS (some apples) | |
| 9 | American hawk trailed badly (7) | |
| REDTAIL | An anagram of TRAILED – anagrind is ‘badly’ – this isn’t in Chambers and, from what we can gather via google is normally hyphenated | |
| 10 | Bottom and top around, say, spear (7) | |
| ASSEGAI | ASS (bottom) AI (first class – ‘top’) around EG (say) | |
| 11 | Time to return from North Copenhagen (5) | |
| EPOCH | Reversed (‘returned’) and hidden in (‘from’) NortH COPEnhagen | |
| 12 | Company condemned unusual component of mother’s milk (9) | |
| COLOSTRUM | CO (company) LOST (condemned) RUM (unusual) | |
| 13 | Bitterness in a continental soldier is caddish (9) | |
| UNGALLANT | GALL (bitterness) in UN (French or ‘continental’ for ‘a’) ANT (soldier) | |
| 15 | Acquire telephone next to pub (3,2) | |
| BUY IN | A homophone (‘telephone’) of BY (next to) INN (pub) – we think ‘telephone’ is rather unusual as a homophone indicator | |
| 16 | Runs electrical distributors (5) | |
| LEADS | Double definition | |
| 18 | General set of books has unknown picture of a representative group (9) | |
| GENOTYPIC | GEN (general) OT (set of books, as in the Bible) Y (unknown) PIC (picture) | |
| 20 | Medicinal name accepted by bureaucrat? (9) | |
| OFFICINAL | N (name) in or ‘accepted by’ OFFICIAL (bureaucrat) – a new word for us! | |
| 23 | Rascal moving south-east to find temporary lodgings (5) | |
| CAMPS | SCAMP (rascal) with the ‘s’ (south) moving to the end or ‘east’ in an across clue | |
| 24 | National airline’s folded after new leader quits (7) | |
| ISRAELI | An anagram of AIRLI |
|
| 25 | Talk with each superior wine producer (7) | |
| CHATEAU | CHAT (talk) EA (each) U (superior) | |
| 26 | Draft enthronement ceremony? (8,7) | |
| NATIONAL SERVICE | A rather dubious in our opinion, description of an enthronement ceremony, presumably in church, as a NATIONAL SERVICE | |
| Down | ||
| 1 | Energetic law breaker? (9,6) | |
| PERPETUAL MOTION | Cryptic definition – PERPETUAL MOTION is a hypothetical concept that is impossible within the laws of thermodynamics (energy) | |
| 2 | Once straight on death wish (7) | |
| ENDLONG | END (death) LONG (wish) | |
| 3 | Hearing looks about oil producer’s marine protection facilities (9) | |
| SEASHELLS | A homophone (‘hearing’) of SEES (looks) around SHELL (oil producer) | |
| 4 | Survival of software licence (5) | |
| RELIC | Hidden in ‘softwaRE LICence’ | |
| 5 | Mountebank left a function after tea (9) | |
| CHARLATAN | L (left) A TAN (tangent – function) after CHAR (tea) | |
| 6 | Removes judge from trials (5) | |
| OUSTS | ||
| 7 | Ancient embraces earth goddess with both hands (7) | |
| EAGERLY | EARLY (ancient) round or ‘embracing’ GE (earth goddess) | |
| 8 | Dizzy price mummies regularly expended for beachwear (8,7) | |
| SWIMMING COSTUME | SWIMMING (dizzy) COST (price) + alternate or ‘regular’ letters of mUmMiEs | |
| 14 | Spy arresting Republican in a South American country (9) | |
| ARGENTINA | AGENT (spy) round or ‘arresting’ R (Republican) IN A | |
| 15 | One may be pushed to involve Henry in group song (4,5) | |
| BATH CHAIR | H (Henry) ‘involved’ in BATCH (group) AIR (song) | |
| 17 | Initially attend chief (2,5) | |
| AT FIRST | AT (attend) FIRST (chief) | |
| 19 | Procession with European team in ancient city (7) | |
| POMPEII | POMP (procession) E (European) II (eleven – team) | |
| 21 | About to duplicate doctrine (5) | |
| CREDO | C (about) REDO (duplicate) | |
| 22 | Report of rocket fuel in Scottish waters (5) | |
| LOCHS | A homophone of LOX (‘liquid oxygen’ – rocket fuel) | |
Got there in the end. I agree with your initial comments, particularly in reference to odd definitions. I’ve seen ‘on the phone’ used for homonyms so, I guess, telephone isn’t much of a stretch. I didn’t care for 20a. I’ve never met it before and it only differs from ‘medicinal’ in the first 3 letters.
Enjoyable and interesting crossie, I thought. Defo agree it was harder to get to grips with and did beat me by a few in the end. No particular fave for me today so honours go to the engaging challenge overall. Thanks to Kairos for the puzzle and to B&J for the enlightenment.
Goodness, a toughie, for me at least. Please tell me that the Indy daily cryptics are getting harder these days. Or you can tell me that I should at my age move out of where I live and into a home for the bewildered.
Nowt wrong with the puzzle (except perhaps ‘telephone’ as a homophone indicator). Oh, and I never would have parsed in a million years LOCHS, so thank you B&J. Thanks also to Kairos.
Well, I found this pretty straightforward, solved without help though it took about 5 or 6 passes, and no words that were new to me. OFFICINAL I knew from the Latin names of plants – those that have medicinal uses often have ‘officinalis’ as the second part of the name. Lots to like here, CAMPS and PERPETUAL MOTION in particular.
Thanks, Kairos and B&J
I thought this was rather lovely.
Some great ‘Ah-ha’ moments: PRESSURE COOKERS, which I thought was going to be a 15-letter anagram, CAMPS with its unusual letter-shift, EAGERLY for the ‘both-hands’ def (and use of GE-as-goddess, which I had to look up, noted for future use) and ‘II’ in POMPEII for team, when I’d been looking for something ending in XI.
Not that it matters – although B&J are surely right and I wrong – in ASSEGAI I took ASS to be Bottom the Weaver dressed as a donkey in MND.
Thanks to all. A pleasure.
I too thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle.
PRESSURE COOKERS made me chuckle, as did PERPETUAL MOTION, which I thought a clever description. I also particularly liked CAMPS and NATIONAL SERVICE — but then, I found something to like in all of the clues…
Using ‘telephone’ as a homophone indicator does not bother me. In fact, I rather like finding fresh words used for indicators. It adds at the pleasure of working out the clue!
Thanks to Kairos and B&J.