Sunday rolls round again, you can get the crossword here
The usual Everyman, nothing to really scare the horses in solving or blogging.
Thanks Everyman
Across
1 Join journalists, not soft in speech (7)
ADDRESS
ADD (join) & P (soft) removed from (p)RESS (journalists)
5 Speaker prepared for woe (6)
WOOFER
[FOR WOE]* prepared
10 Preference for refinement (5)
TASTE
Double def
11 King not at home in city on a regular basis (9)
ROUTINELY
R(ex, king) & OUT (not at home) & IN & ELY (a crosswordese city)
12 Be ruthless and smart, securing work and working on that (4,2,7)
STOP AT NOTHING
OP(us) – work & a working [ON THAT]* all inside STING (smart)
14 Table set for hospital room (3,7)
PUT FORWARD
As in table a motion, PUT (set) & FOR & WARD (hospital room)
16 Arouse some interest irregularly (4)
STIR
Hidden answer shown by some
18 Vain hero in hearing (4)
IDLE
Sounds like IDOL
19 Sheltered from cold and hung around, catching bus finally (10)
CLOISTERED
C(old) & (bu)S finally inside LOITERED
21 Chap in broadcast grips a tiny insect (7,6)
PRAYING MANTIS
MAN (chap) in a broadcast [GRIPS A TINY]*
24 Recent arrival in Los Angeles followed by sleuth more anxiously (9)
LATECOMER
L.A. & TEC (sleuth) & an anxious MORE*
25 Letter‘s publication brought about by mother (5)
GAMMA
MAG reversed & MA
26 Month with border in chaos (6)
MAYHEM
MAY & HEM. May and chaos together, no surely not.
27 Free, going into action, to be mocked (7)
DERIDED
RID (free) inside DEED (action)
Down
1 Worker perhaps is heroic, keeping middle of factory clean (10)
ANTISEPTIC
ANT (insect worker) & IS & middle of facTory in EPIC (heroic)
2 Party with lack of harmony having no road (5)
DISCO
R(oa)D removed from DISCO(rd)
3 Exercised to reveal muscle (8)
ELEVATOR
[TO REVEAL]* exercised
4 One in arena we’ll miss, fantastic tennis player (6,8)
SERENA WILLIAMS
A (one) inside a fantasic [ARENA WELL MISS]* Well she might be pregnant but I’m sure she’ll be around a while yet.
6 Root, not quite fixed, among number pulled up (6)
ORIGIN
most of RIGI(d) in NO (number) reversed
7 Cargo carrier, determined type, carrying on (9)
FREIGHTER
RE. (on) inside FIGHTER – a determined type
8 Reported lift shafts (4)
RAYS
Sounds like RAISE
9 Clumsy, say, and loud in spree, then blushing (6-8)
BUTTER FINGERED
UTTER (say) & F (loud) in BINGE (spree) & RED (blushing)
13 Attendant with dream is sadly taken in by proposal (10)
BRIDESMAID
[DREAM IS]* sadly inside BIDE (proposal). Nice if slightly melancholic surface
15 Record in weird tale your old-fashioned psychic ability (9)
TELEPATHY
E(xtended) P(lay) in a weird TALE* & THY
17 Odd pieces of satire infuriate outsider (8)
STRANGER
odd letters of SaTiRe & ANGER (infuriate)
20 Good, long, gripping utensil, initially awkward (6)
GAUCHE
G(ood) & U(tensil) initially in ACHE (long)
22 Nervous, and unclear with it, getting upset (5)
TIMID
DIM & IT reversed
23 Mollusc around lake before noon (4)
CLAM
C(irca) & L(ake) & A.M. (before noon)
I enjoyed this puzzle. My favorite was BUTTER-FINGERED
Thank you blogger and setter.
Thanks, flashling. As you say, nothing here was too demanding which is just right for a Sunday. I remember getting held up on CLOISTERED, only because I’d mistyped one of the crossing letters. Apart from that my only other challenge was the IDLE/idol homophone – for me the two are pronounced slightly differently.
Thanks both. Loved the SERENA WILLIAMS anagram.
Tiny typo in 13d – should be BID for proposal, not BIDE
Much easier than 3680 and just plain sailing really. Took me a while to see WOOFER though. Perhaps its construction is unusual. Thanks to f and E.
Thank you Everyman and flashling.
I liked the clue for the PRAYING MANTIS, though the ones we get, rarely, in the garden here in France (near Geneva) are quite large – our climate is more extreme than that of England, so I was surprised to read there are no wild ones there.
Everyman on more gentle form this week, and as enjoyable as always. I was solving in a hurry, and lots went in on definition alone without having to look at the cryptic, which is a pity really because everything was so nicely done.
Got totally stuck on ORIGIN and IDLE for some reason. Otherwise very enjoyable
Finished this today with no problems which is unusual for me these days. Most enjoyable.
Other than shoehorning Onion into 6D, no issues
“Ely” as crosswordese city was new to me, so as I was mystified as to the parsing
of 11 across, although the answer was “obvious”.
Struggled a lot with this one, and had to use a wildcard dictionary to get “origin”
(6 down). Then did the forehead smack.
Most straight forward for ages – for me anyway. Back to normal next time no doubt.