Sorry to be a bit late. Out on the toot last night, which at my age doesn’t really mean much, but I didn’t get to bed at the hour usual when blogging the next day.
As always with Dac, all very smooth and little to be said. Perhaps an unusually large number of double-definitions.
Definitions underlined and in maroon.
| Across | ||
| 1 | CAMPSITE | Mention a politician’s visiting that holiday venue (8) |
| c(a MP’s)ite | ||
| 5 | FIBRE | Material being initially engulfed in flames (5) |
| fi(b{eing})re | ||
| 9 | WATER | Drink: steward spills one (5) |
| wa{i}ter | ||
| 10 | LOOKING UP | Improving what chef’s doing, changing starter (7,2) |
| cooking up with the c replaced by a l — I always feel a bit short-changed by clues of this sort: they don’t say specifically what the relevant letters are | ||
| 11 | HERONRY | King once keeping rook along with old birds together (7) |
| He(R o)nry | ||
| 12 | CONVENE | Meet churchman in one, near front of cathedral (7) |
| c{athedral} on(Ven.)e | ||
| 13 | DISCOMBOBULATES | Upsets fellow dancers, perhaps, embracing your uncle? Extremely unusual (15) |
| disco m(Bob u{nusua}l)ates — Bob’s your uncle and your fellow dancers are your disco mates | ||
| 16 | MUSIC TO ONES EARS | Radio 3 output perfect? (5,2,4,4) |
| 2 defs | ||
| 18 | ANISEED | Cake flavouring? A shortage is admitted (7) |
| a n(is)eed | ||
| 19 | COCOTTE | Dish for tart (7) |
| 2 defs — when such clues contain so few words, as is also the case with 16ac, 5dn, 7dn and 17dn, I always wonder if the idea has been used before — when my first crossword was published, I can remember wondering to the crossword editor if my clue for MOVE (touch and go) had possibly been used before; to me it was perfectly original, but he said that he had “only seen it once or twice before”, a very gentle put-down; however, he did use the clue. | ||
| 21 | MAIL TRAIN | Transport boy, we might say, gets to school (4,5) |
| “male” train [= school] | ||
| 22 | ESTOP | Drunk topes in bar (5) |
| (topes)* | ||
| 23 | LINDA | Woman beautiful in dainty clothes (5) |
| Hidden in beautifuL IN DAinty | ||
| 24 | CHRYSLER | Cheryl’s bashed front of red car (8) |
| (Cheryl’s)* r{ed} | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | COWSHED | Hit on head round end of low farm building (7) |
| co({lo}w)shed | ||
| 2 | MATER | Old lady worried, entering empty manor (5) |
| m(ate)r, the mr being m{ano}r | ||
| 3 | STRING ORCHESTRA | Group of players ordered hot tarts in grocer’s (6,9) |
| (h tarts in grocer’s)* | ||
| 4 | TALLY | Score unbelievable by Yorkshire’s opener (5) |
| tall Y{orkshire} | ||
| 5 | FRIENDLY SOCIETY | Quakers a source of insurance? (8,7) |
| 2 defs | ||
| 6 | BIG BERTHA | Be a bright sort, making weapon (3,6) |
| (Be a bright)* | ||
| 7 | EXPRESS | Daily train (7) |
| 2 defs | ||
| 8 | LOG CABIN | Register vehicle in primitive building (3,5) |
| log [= register] cab [= vehicle] in | ||
| 14 | SUSPICION | Hitchcock film, American picture set in Israel (9) |
| S(US pic)ion | ||
| 15 | BROADWAY | Where you might see New York woman with style (8) |
| broad [= US woman] way [= style], &littish | ||
| 16 | MIASMAL | Liam and Sam turned out very smelly (7) |
| (Liam Sam)* — it was clearly an anagram of the two names, but not many words came to mind at first | ||
| 17 | SLEEPER | Overnight train: it’s on the track (7) |
| 2 defs | ||
| 19 | CINCH | What’s 254 cm? Singularly easy answer (5) |
| Since an inch is 2.54 cm, it was easy enough to see that this was 100 inches, but then … — oh yes, C [= 100] inch | ||
| 20 | TOTAL | Entire serving of spirit: a litre (5) |
| tot a l | ||
*anagram
A pleasant coffee-time solve that we got without any help – even though we don’t really know the complete Hitchcock oeuvre we had a suspicion (sorry!) as to 14dn.
Three train references, but hardly enough to count as a theme, but then Dac doesn’t do themes very often.
We think there’s a bit more to 16ac than simply a double definition. We saw ‘Radio 3 output’ as the output of a string orchestra (3dn) on radio (i.e. heard) – hence music to one’s ears. And Radio 3’s output isn’t quite all music.
Two front-runners for CoD – HERONRY and CINCH.
Thanks, Dac and John
I’ve been on Dac’s wavelength for a while, and after getting several acrosses in the first pass, nearly all of the downs went straight in as well, Cinch after trying to visualise a ruler. Put ‘your ears’ instead of ‘ones’ as usual but as always the joy of a Dac is that the clues read like normal sentences.
Thanks to S&B
Bit late to the party having been in transit to York for the upcoming Sloggers and Betters all day. Usual quality Dac – ’nuff said. Thanks to setter and blogger.