Bradman returns this Friday, to dish out a straightforward challenge. I thought there were a higher-than-average number of hidden solutions and anagrams, which did help make quick work of the puzzle. Thanks Bradman.
I thought some of the clues where the defintion was in the middle of the clue was breaking from general standards. Either that or I have not marked the definition appropriately.
FF:7 DD: 7
| Across | ||
| 1 | RUGOSE | Wrinkled floor covering in front of huge entrance to edifice (6) |
| RUG (floor covering) OS (huge, oversize) E (entrance to Edifice) | ||
| 4 | PRODIGAL | Supporting two girls (one named) seen to be extravagant (8) |
| PRO (supporting) [ DI GAL (two girls – one name, one generic term) ] | ||
| 10 | SOUTH-EAST | Direction taken by Caesar in retreat (5-4) |
| hidden, reversed in “..caESar..” | ||
| 11 | SLANG | Serious language may limit it (5) |
| &lit; hidden in “seriouS LANGuage..” | ||
| 12 | RUHR | Some worker hurrying around industrial region (4) |
| hidden, reversed in “..workeR HURrying..” | ||
| 13 | CHARDONNAY | Somerset town having refusal, one way and another, to offer wine (10) |
| CHARD (somerset town) [ ON NAY (refusal, one way and another – straight and reversed {NO } ] | ||
| 15 | CURATOR | Custodian of gold meeting minister in church briefly (7) |
| CURATe (minister in church, briefly) OR (gold) | ||
| 16 | SICILY | Island showing cold nature following sun (6) |
| S (sun) ICILY (cold nature) | ||
| 19 | RENNET | Note about what cheese-maker needs (6) |
| reverse of TENNER (note) | ||
| 21 | FARM OUT | To subcontract is weird, a thousand being drafted in (4,3) |
| FAR OUT (weird) containing M (thousand) | ||
| 23 | DONER KEBAB | Exotic dish cooked by baker, horribly black (5,5) |
| DONE (cooked) [BAKER]* B (black) | ||
| 25 | PEAR | Part of crop, early fruit (4) |
| hidden in “..croP EARly..” | ||
| 27 | TIMON | As an Athenian, this writer’s in the fashion (5) |
| I’M (this writer’s) in TON (fashion) | ||
| 28 | ANNOYANCE | Anyone can get upset, showing irritation (9) |
| ANYONE CAN* | ||
| 29 | REHASHES | She hears about new arrangements for old things (8) |
| SHE HEARS* | ||
| 30 | PERSON | Boy joining theatre about to be seen as an individual (6) |
| SON (boy) after PER (theatre = REP, reversed) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | RESTRICT | Curtail support, internal scheme being inadequate (8) |
| TRICk (scheme, not complete) in REST (support) | ||
| 2 | GAUCHERIE | Social awkwardness of Erica, huge, dishevelled (9) |
| ERICA HUGE* | ||
| 3 | SOHO | Very good house useless in part of London (4) |
| SO (very good) HOuse (use-less) | ||
| 5 | RETURNS | When madam does this it makes no difference (7) |
| cryptic def; referring to the fact that the word MADAM is a palindrome. | ||
| 6 | DISCONCERT | Record on, sure thing to upset (10) |
| DISC (record) ON CERT (sure thing) | ||
| 7 | GRAIN | Good to have wet weather? It may stop this being harvested (5) |
| G (good) RAIN (wet weather) | ||
| 8 | LEG BYE | Extra line, say, written before Cheerio (3,3) |
| L (line) EG (say) BYE (cheerio) – cricket | ||
| 9 | BATHER | Club joined by the female swimmer? (6) |
| BAT (club) HER (female) | ||
| 14 | ITINERANTS | They travel around in the trains – not hard, tipsy (10) |
| IN ThE TRAINS* (not H – hard) | ||
| 17 | LOOSE ENDS | Possibly send things yet to be sorted out? (5,4) |
| cryptic def; SEND could be clued as LOOSE ENDS i.e. anagram of ENDS | ||
| 18 | STURGEON | Sour gent upset by female nationalist (8) |
| SOUR GENT* (nicola) | ||
| 20 | TEENAGE | Adolescent is rebellious free agent, putting father off (7) |
| frEE AGENT* (father= FR off) | ||
| 21 | FLAUNT | Draw attention to a Parisian imprisoned in apartment (6) |
| UN (french for one, a) in FLAT (apartment) | ||
| 22 | EDITOR | Journalist maybe travelled north to pen the article? (6) |
| IT (article) in reverse of RODE (travelled) | ||
| 24 | NYMPH | State speed with which goddess becomes manifest (5) |
| NY (state) MPH (speed) | ||
| 26 | LYRE | Instrument, one deceptive to the audience (4) |
| sounds like LIAR (one deceptive) | ||
*anagram
Found this much harder than any Bradman for quite some time. Didn’t know RUGOSE and took ages to get CURATOR and BATHER, my last two in. Wasn’t sure about ‘so’ meaning ‘very good’ in 3d. I guess it may be ok, or maybe it’s a double definition. ‘So’ meaning ‘very’ as in ‘she’s so pretty’ and ‘so’ meaning ‘good’ as in ‘make it so’?
Thanks to Bradman and Turbolegs. I too had doubts about the so in SOHO and assumed that LEG BYE was a cricket term. I did not parse SOUTH-EAST though I assumed that was the solution and came here to find out why. Overall, an enjoyable solve.
I’d actually filled in “retires” for 5d, but will admit that “returns” seems a better answer.
Thanks for stopping by, folks.
Ref 3d, I parsed SO as ‘very good’ as that seemed to be the logical fit even though I wasnt entirely sure , much like Hovis@2 and ACD@3. I just checked Chambers and one of the many meanings of this versatile word is indeed ‘very good’.
Brian@3 – I initially did consider RETIRES as a solution but couldn’t parse to my satisfaction so went a little farther.
Cheers
TL
Turbolegs @4. So it does. I only checked my Chambers Thesaurus, which was no use here.
Thanks Bradman and Turbolegs
Found this a bit of a challenge and put in a few false answers initially – FORK OUT instead of FARM OUT, BYE BYE instead of LEG BYE and something instead of SLANG. Was eventually able to nut out the right answers for all of them.
Had a bit of trouble working out the definitional part of NYMPH and thought that it was a very long-winded way to define it and didn’t fully parse RESTRICT.
Thought that TIMON was quite clever, hadn’t seen RUGOSE before and didn’t know the town of CHARD.
Finally finished with FARM OUT after not being able to parse FORK OUT, LEG BYE (after getting SLANG to show up my initial error) and PRODIGAL was the last one in.