A relatively easy puzzle from Math, with a few tricky clues in the lower part of the grid. I was only able to get 23 across after I’d noticed that the extreme left column of the grid was populated entirely by the letter “L” and the extreme right-hand by “R”.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 9 | Lead Astray: (Days later a)*. Reasonably deceptive anagram indicator of “doctor” |
| 12 | Cleverer: C + leverer. Slightly moot as to whether “leverer” is actually a word or not, although it is clued with a “perhaps”. |
| 16 | Leases: I wasn’t completely sure on this. The clue is “What letters have written”, so I imagine it’s letters in the sense of landlords, but it might be something else. |
| 21 | Yabber: Reversal of (Reb + bay). “Reb” was clued as “with grey coat”, referring to the US Civil War. |
| 23 | Loki: Soundalike of “low key”. One of those tricky name of god clues (all of which seem to be obscure things with short names). I would really have struggled without knowing the first letter was “l”. |
| 26 | Rehear: “He” in “rear”. Try in the legal sense. |
| Down | |
| 1 | Lifeless: “Less” after “life”. Easy enough clue, but well disguised by using clue 25 (lethargy) as the definition. |
| 3 + 13 | Two sides to every story: (Vet’s wise to destroy Roy)*. Excellent anagram with a good surface meaning. |
| 8 | Lyrics: L + (ry)* + i + cs. |
| 15 | Outright: “Tri” in “Ought”. |
| 17 | Skeletal: Reversal of “late” + “leks”. Probably the trickiest clue, unless you’re a currency expert (and, given currency is also sometimes used to mean river, the range of possibilities is quite large). The Lek is the currency of Albania. |
| 24 | Mare: Mar + E. A “hack” is a type of horse. |
I filled in YABBER and SKELETAL without completely understanding why so thanks for explaining both of those. Like you, I would have struggled with 23a without knowing it started with an L; the final R made 24a easier too.
All in all, a nice puzzle to start the week on.
There were also two LEFTS and two RIGHTS visible in the grid and TWO SIDES TO EVERY STORY. Saw L and R in the columns early on which spent solving. Letters = landlords with the leases being written, I think.
should be “sped” solving.
The bottom half held me up too. I would have been a lot quicker if I’d gone for SY for Seychelles instead of the SS I quickly leapt in with, which caused me some problems with 25ac.
The ‘destroy’ in the middle of the long anagram fodder tricked me for a bit too, before I worked out it wasn’t in fact the anagram indicator. I had the answer for a while before I worked out where all the letters came from!
Well, it is a Monday…