I found this mostly on the straightfoward side but was lost on a few of the clues. The presence of a number of linked entries made the puzzle a little easier than it might have been.
My criticism of Tees is that the balance of the clues is sometimes not quite correct. For example, 21 was not only something that is not in my vocabulary but I couldn’t make head nor tail of the clue, making it close to impossible. Ideally, if you have an obscure word, you want an easier clue. I also found reach for project in 19 down a bit of a stretch.
| Across | ||
| 9 | ORCHESTRA | Revolutionary star playing with men in big band (9) |
| OR (men = ordinary ranks) + Che (Guevara) + star*(playing as anag indicator) | ||
| 10 | IMAGE | Single male to get on creates public persona (5) |
| I m(ale) + age(=get on in years) | ||
| 11 | YIELD | Give up being ridiculously idle after years (5) |
| Idle* after y(ears) | ||
| 12 | FACSIMILE | Stat showing lack of thought about minutes is rejected (9) |
| Facile(=showing lack of thought) around (m(inutes) is)<. I had trouble working out why stat was the def, but after a bit of research I found it can be short for photostat. | ||
| 13 | COMPILE | Puzzling polemic put together (7) |
| Polemic* | ||
| 14 | See 23 Down | |
| 17 | OWING | Outstanding to keep good one taken inside (5) |
| Own(=keep) + g(ood) around I | ||
| 19 | PEA | Power and energy beginning to affect plant (3) |
| P(ower) + E(nergy) + a[ffect] | ||
| 20 | EVENT | Syndicate’s backer opening show (5) |
| [Syndicat]e (backer=last letter) + vent(=opening) | ||
| 21 | EUTERPE | Doctor favourite to avoid extremes she’s inspiring (7) |
| Euterpe was a muse but don’t get the rest of it. | ||
| 22 | DUNEDIN | Discordant noise from drifted sand in port? (7) |
| DD/CD – dune din | ||
| 24/25 | IDENTICAL TWIN | Sibling success after Latin edict rubbished (9,4) |
| (Latin edict)* + win | ||
| 26 | THUMB | Hitch where corporation invests hospital billions (5) |
| Tum around H(ospital) + b(illions) – I imagine this is used in the context of “thumb a ride”. | ||
| 28 | ENNUI | Boredom seen in pupil regularly (5) |
| Even letters of sEeN iN pUpIl | ||
| 29 | ENAMELLED | Protected as Crown Land spoilt with melee? (9) |
| (Land melee)*, ref to crown of tooth. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | See 27 | |
| 2 | SCREAM | Sons pick greatly amusing person (6) |
| S(ons) + cream(=pick, as in pick of the crop) | ||
| 3 | DEAD RINGER | Lookalike‘s campanologist no longer with us (4,6) |
| DD, campanologist no longer with us would be a dead (bell)ringer | ||
| 4 | STIFLE | Horse’s joint that’s broken itself (6) |
| Itself* – the stifle refers to a horse’s knee | ||
| 5 | CALCUTTA | Some local cut taxes in city once (8) |
| Hidden in loCAL CUT TAxes (the city now called Kolkata) | ||
| 6 | KIWI | Caught important little bird (4) |
| Don’t follow this either. | ||
| 7 | VARIABLE | Changing sound to captivate rising artist (8) |
| Viable around RA< | ||
| 8 | MERE | Motorway bus, leaving darkness, comes to marsh (4) |
| M(otorway) + Ere[bus]. Erebus is the darkness under the Earth in mythology. Mere more often refers to a lake but can be a dialect word for a marsh as well. | ||
| 13 | CLONE | Tory holds Liberal ultimately responsible for hacked phone (5) |
| Con around l + [responsibl]e – phone cloning is copying the identity of one phone onto another for some malicious purpose | ||
| 15 | ONE ANOTHER | First drink, then second for each among themselves? (3,7) |
| Not totally sure on this but it might just be one(=first drink, as in “Can I buy you one?”) + another(=second) | ||
| 16 | EATEN | Dean flayed by cardinal and devoured (5) |
| [D]ea[n] + ten (cardinal number) | ||
| 18 | IN THE END | Basically mean to keep empty house (2,3,3) |
| Intend around h[ous]e | ||
| 19 | PREACHER | Minister upset salesperson over project (8) |
| Rep< around reach(=project) | ||
| 22 | DALLAS | Everyone in rush to hide hotel soap (6) |
| All in das[h] | ||
| 23/14 | DOUBLE TROUBLE | Jacket ready for Putin in twice as much hot water? (6,7) |
| Doublet + rouble (Russian currency, although I can’t say I’ve ever heard the term readies used in a singular context) | ||
| 24 | IBEX | Mounted team that collects live goats (4) |
| XI< around be | ||
| 25 | See 24 Across | |
| 27/1 | BODY COPY | Perhaps one’s 3, 10, 12, 23, or 24A 25 — 13 down certainly (4,4) |
| Not a phrase I’ve heard used much but obviously a synonym for all the other answers | ||
*anagram
Not heard of ‘body copy’ either. EUTERPE is nEUTER PEt (doctor favourite) and KIWI is a homonym for KEY WEE (important little).
Thanks Tees and NealH
6D is a soundalike of KEY (important) WEE (little).
I’d heard of 21A, but can’t fathomthe wordplay either.
Sorry Hovis, slow fingers!
I should add that I agree with your parsings for 26a and 15d, with ‘another’ in 15d also, perhaps, being a drink reference (I’ll have another), although this doesn’t just refer to a second drink. Thanks to S&B.
I got the KEY WEE but didnt parse EUTERPE I just lazily wrote it in as it fit the crossers and the def. So thanks there.
Good puzzle I thought with nit much else around.
This was another very doable puzzle from a setter whose crosswords are often qualified as ‘not as hard as they can be’.
Which seems to me some kind of contradictio in terminis if it happens too frequently.
I liked the puzzle.
No problems with ‘kiwi’ or ‘Euterpe’ (although both were parsed afterwards).
My last one not-in was the ‘gateaway’ clue at 27d/1d.
Gateway?
I’d never heard of ‘body copy’ and while it was perhaps the obvious answer, I thought maybe Tees is a bit jokey today and wants us to have ‘body body’ …
Thanks Neal for blogging
I found it doable too, though a bit of extra thinking was needed here and there. No complaints about ‘body copy’, which was the ‘gag’ to link all the doubles together. It’s in Collins. There are some others in there too, that weren’t used in the linked clue.
Loved ‘twice as much hot water’ for DOUBLE TROUBLE.
Thanks setter & blogger.
I was roundly beaten by this one, especially KIWI(I had VIPE, it could be pronounced VIP-Y for all I know, and could be classed as a small bird,certainly smaller than an Albatross:-)). That stopped me getting FACSIMILE until I eventually ground to a halt and used word reveal on KIWI and all became clear. I was still stuffed by BODY COPY (which I’ve not come across, body double, yes!), and like Sil, I finished up with BODY BODY. Doh! I did like DOUBLE TROUBLE and DEAD RINGER, but failed to spot the hidden CALCUTTA, (I guess I was already beaten into submission by then), and failed to see the parsing of EUTERPE. I also struggled with MERE as I didn’t know EREBUS, but with the M and the E what else could it be. Thanks Tees and Neal. I may go and lie down in a darkened room now!
Mostly enjoyable. Remembered Euterpe as being inspirational but parsing came later rather than sooner. I then decided that I both liked and was amused by 21a. Collins may feature body copy but surely those not employed in publishing are much more likely to be familiar with body double.
Solved 15d but parsing attempt similar to NealH. Would Tees please enlighten as I am like others lacking total conviction. I don’t mind torturing my residual working grey matter to solve difficult clues if the answer once achieved is immediately obvious as the only elegant solution. Therein lies great satisfaction.
Thanks S and B
We got there in the end. EUTERPE was our LOI after being raked out of the subconscious, but we then saw the parsing straight away. ‘Ready’ in the singular is quite common in cryptics for money or currency; I assume it to be a contraction of ‘ready money’, as in The Importance of Being Earnest
Algernon: [Picking up empty plate in horror] Good heavens! Lane! Why are there no cucumber
sandwiches? I ordered them specially.
Lane: [Gravely] There were no cucumbers in the market this morning, sir. I went down
twice.
Algernon: No cucumbers!
Lane: No, sir. Not even for ready money.
We hadn’t heard of BODY COPY either.
But our complaint is not with the puzzle but once again with the Indy’s rubbish software which can’t handle linked clues – it’s a nightmare trying to sort them out from a printout!
Thanks, though, to Tees and NealH
I spent the majority of this (by volume) feeling quite happy making better-than-usual-progress for a Tees puzzle. For me, as for others, it was a few at the end which caused the major hold up. I think I used a reveal or a check at some point to get me unstuck but can’t recall where now.
EUTERPE did come to me eventually, and the parsing a short furrow of the brow after. BODY COPY was new to me too and a bit of a guess, but one which seemed reasonable. Also dragged STIFLE from somewhere unknown. I didn’t parse MERE. Never mind – all most enjoyable.
Thanks to Tees and NealH.
Sil @6 – I think any puzzle that’s not a setter’s hardest could be “not as hard as they can be” … 😉
… but not as hard as usual would indeed be something that couldn’t happen too often.
It’s often said that puzzles by “easier” setters seem to be reliably dubbed harder than their average, while the reverse is true for those of “harder” setters. A matter of perception, I suppose.
In the end I couldn’t see 6dn and 19dn, although I guessed the right answers in both cases and then dismissed them as I couldn’t see why.
Very enjoyable puzzle from this excellent setter.
I didn’t know or guess correctly at BODY COPY so I entered BODY at both 1 and 27, assuming this was a rather clever way of representing “body double”. Am I the only one to do this? (Probably.)
@14: No, I did that too.
@14 And me!