A gentle Sunday solve from Alchemi, with a couple of inventive clues that I particularly liked. The only hold ups were caused by my own muppetry. When you’re trying to solve a clue that is enumerated as (4,5), convincing yourself that it’s (5,4) is generally not ideal and can often lead to an utterance that ends in ‘sake’.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Parliamentary fixture breaks Cook’s Law
WOOLSACK
(COOKS LAW)* for the seat in the House of Lords. There isn’t really a Cook’s Law, unless it applies to Alastair Cook, the England Test opener, when it says that Cook either scores next to nothing or shedloads.
5 Comes out as terrorist group takes legal action
ISSUES
A charade of IS and SUES.
10 In Egypt, it legalises ownership
TITLE
Hidden in egypT IT LEgalises.
11 A massive Cockney in top European film
BEAU GESTE
An insertion of A UGE in BEST followed by E gives you the 1939 film. The ‘cockney’ bit is just telling you to drop the aitch from ‘huge’.
12 Irritated, so I filled areas drilled
OILFIELDS
(SO I FILLED)*
13 Drunk Greek character returned before
UNTIL
A reversal of LIT for ‘drunk’ and NU for the Greek letter.
14 Playwright‘s mother beginning to getting less healthy
MILLER
A charade of M for the first letter of ‘mother’ and ILLER gives you the US playwright probably best known for Death of a Salesman.
15 Star – which this isn’t, at the end of the day
SUNDOWN
A charade of SUN for the ‘star’ – and this isn’t a DOWN clue, is it?
18 Resistance infuriates footballers
RANGERS
A charade of R and ANGERS. For those that feel about football the way I feel about golf, they’re a Scottish Premier League football side.
20 Animal home was first designed
STYLED
A charade of STY and LED.
22 Very musical association with computer thinking
ASSAI
A charade of ASS and AI for Artificial Intelligence.
24 Being in credit, Danish city acquires new electrical component
CONDENSER
An insertion of N in ODENSE, all inserted into CR.
25 Drink from bootlegging era legitimised
GINGER ALE
Hidden in bootlegGING ERA LEgitimised.
26 Strict sort of diet for one in the lead
VEGAN
An insertion of EG for ‘for example’ or ‘for one’ in VAN.
27 Saint asks for floral arrangements
SPRAYS
A charade of S and PRAYS.
28 Second journalist covering island gets hidden away
SECRETED
A charade of S and CRETE in ED.
Down
1 Nobel laureate made TV appearance – about time!
WATSON
Inventive clue with a good surface reading – my favourite this morning. An insertion of T in WAS ON. It refers to James WATSON, who, together with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, received the Nobel Prize in 1962 for the discovery (with a lot of largely unacknowledged help from Rosalind Franklin) of the structure of DNA, in my opinion the seminal scientific discovery of the 20th century. One of the last lines of the short paper they submitted to Nature proposing the double helix structure is the classic piece of scientific understatement:
‘It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.’
It sure does.
2 Twist at start of lively dance for a very large number
OCTILLION
A COTILLION is indeed a lively dance, so if you twist the first two letters around, you get the big number (1 followed by 48 zeros in the British system).
3 Amazing ball that has to be signed for
SPECIAL DELIVERY
A simple charade of SPECIAL and DELIVERY. More cricket.
4 Dessert craftsman
COBBLER
I always had a COBBLER down as a savoury dish, but I discover today that it is more often a pudding. A dd.
6 Player is younger after makeover, partners say
SIGOURNEY WEAVER
The ‘player’ is an actor, in this case the American one who’s played many roles. A charade of (IS YOUNGER)* for SIGOURNEY and then WEAVER, which is WE AVER. The bridge ‘partners’ for WE is indubitably what Alchemi had in mind, but just WE kind of works as well.
7 Troubled logistics company on film
UPSET
A bit of product placement: UPS followed by ET.
8 Taking meat, tailless fish
STEALING
STEA[K] plus LING.
9 One leaves flowers on platforms
DAISES
DAIS[I]ES
16 Past good deal a mistake
OVERSIGHT
A charade of OVER and SIGHT. ‘She’s a sight too clever for him, that woman.’
17 War god called in orders
ARRANGES
An insertion of RANG in ARES, the god of war.
19 Spies infiltrate star party
SOCIAL
Another: of CIA in SOL for our ‘star’.
20 Meaning it as engineers
SINCERE
A charade of SINCE and RE for [Royal] Engineers.
23 Sherlock Holmes’s sidekick was boring
DRONED
Another inventive piece of clueing. The sidekick of course is Watson, which is the solution to 1 down. So it’s DR ONE D.
23 Scientists apparently now expect Republican leaders to be comparatively rational
SANER
The first letters (‘leaders’) of the first five words of the clue. I presume Alchemi is referring to the recent psychological tests that The Donald had to undergo.
Many thanks to Alchemi for today’s puzzle.
A fair few obscurities had to be dredged up from the subconscious during this outing. I missed both references to the grid, i.e. DOWN and ONE D. The first one just made me groan when I read the blog, but the second had me kicking myself for not noticing.
Thanks Alchemi and Pierre for the enlightenment.
lovely puzzle. Thanks to Alchemi and Pierre.
A very pleasant moment when the parsing for DRONED dawned
Thanks Pierre.
Apropos of nothing, for very silly reasons I didn’t pay any attention to my website lat year, but I have recently updated http://www.alchemipuzzles.com with Alchemi 251-280, in case anyone is really bored and needs something to do.
Thanks for the enlightenment on 23d .I solved this before 1d, so never made the connection.
I had a beef cobbler in a restaurant this week and it came with gravy, not custard.
How about a picture of the (Sigourney) Weaver bird, Pierre?
I also solved 23d before 1d, but did have a flicker of recognition between WATSON and Sherlock, without fully noticing. I found this tough going with the LHS going in relatively easily, but the RHS proving mre recalcitrant. I liked BEAU GESTE and Sigourney, whose Gorillas in the Mist is one of my favourite films. Thanks Alchemi and Pierre.
I am afraid, Rullytully, that the fiendishly arcane regulations concerning the appearance of an obligatory Pierre bird link do not allow me to give you a Weaver Bird. Pity, because they are striking creatures.
The “gentle Sunday solve” was not too gentle for us but we got there in the end. Struggled with 6dn trying to make an anagram of ‘player is younger’ until crossing letters suggested ‘Sigourney’ for the first word and the penny suddenly dropped. And there were a few answers that we biffed and then saw the parsing of later, notably VEGAN and DRONED.
A minor point about 24ac – in the electrical sense isn’t the usual term ‘capacitor’ these days – or does that just refer to the little ones found on circuit boards? And in 9dn the ‘on’ confused us: it’s necessary as a link word for the surface but hinders understanding of the clue.
Plenty to like, though, including BEAU GESTE, SPECIAL DELIVERY and the 1dn/23dn linkage.
Thanks, Alchemi and Pierre