A highly enoyable Tuesday romp with wit and originality aplenty.
Not the least bit challenging (although there’s one head-scratcher semi-extant) but loads to chuckle at and be impressed by, which is the other reason that we do these things. Thanks, Crux.
| Across | ||
| 1 | AT FIRST HAND | Personally present when card game begins? (2,5,4) |
| Cryptic second definition: one of the instigators of a card game might be said to be ‘present at the first hand [dealt]’. | ||
| 7, 28 | ASH CAN | Hospital blocks a medical screening? Refuse to go here! (3,3) |
| H[ospital] in A SCAN (‘medical screening’). ‘Refuse’ as noun, of course. | ||
| 9 | SANDY | Gritty Scot (5) |
| Double def. | ||
| 10 | DUCKS DOWN | Takes cover from birds’ dropping (5,4) |
| DUCKS (‘birds’) + DOWN (‘dropping’). Neat if rather tasteless surface. | ||
| 11, 12 | RAISE ONES GLASS | Doctor organises sales of toast (5,4,5) |
| Nice anagram (‘doctor’) of ORGANISES SALES. | ||
| 13 | EXHORTS | Persuades others, perhaps, to accept the unknown (7) |
| Anagram (‘perhaps’) of OTHERS to include X (‘unknown’). Another nice surface. | ||
| 15 | DRAB | Rather dull old poet from the east (4) |
| BARD, reversed (‘from the east’, i.e. from right to left on a normal map with north top). | ||
| 18 | SYNC | What sound may be out of (said to be in decline) (4) |
| Homophone (‘said’) of ‘sink’ (‘to be in decline’). | ||
| 20 | CHERISH | He’s rich so might provide prize (7) |
| Anagram (‘so’, succintly) of HES RICH. | ||
| 23 | RIVAL | Opposition starts to reform in vain after losing (5) |
| First letters of last 5 words. | ||
| 24 | UNDERWEAR | Bravest reveal such items of clothing (9) |
| BRA & VEST. Style. | ||
| 26 | GALLIPOLI | Largely French (and Polish) campaign of WW1 (9) |
| Most of GALLIc + POLIsh. | ||
| 27 | CIRCA | It means around a hundred also, in short (5) |
| More red herrings than a Marxist fishmonger, but the sense is that letter ‘C’ is ‘short’ for both 100 and C[irca] (‘around’). I think. | ||
| 28 | See 7 | |
| 29 | TASTELESSLY | Crudely botched a test (minus 50% only!) (11) |
| Anagram (‘botched’) of A TEST, then LESS (‘minus’), then LY (half of ‘onLY’). | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | ABSORBED | Spellbound little brothers go upstairs, asleep? (8) |
| BROS (‘little brothers’), reversed (‘go upstairs’ in this Down clue) are in A BED and therefore, possibly, asleep. Sweet image. | ||
| 2 | FANLIGHT | Some steps outside an upper window (8) |
|
FLIGHT (‘some steps’) around AN. |
||
| 3 | RHYME | What pay-day may do (5) |
| And does, and do, if you follow me. Subtle. | ||
| 4 | TIDINGS | Old news that’s mostly current! Unusual sign (7) |
| TIDe (most of ‘current’) + anagram (‘unusual’) of SIGN. | ||
| 5 | ACCUSED | Defendant who’s damned? Not right! (7) |
| ACCURSED (‘damned’) without its R[ight]. | ||
| 6 | DESIGNATE | Name a rude sign a teenager comprehends (9) |
| Inclusion (‘comprehends’) in ‘ruDE SIGN A TEenager’. | ||
| 7 | ATONAL | A hundred and fifty without a . . . . without a key (6) |
| A + TON (‘hundred’) + L (50) surround (are ‘without’) A. (And here, one might say, the 27 red herrings come home to roost). | ||
| 8 | HONEST | Just a little house and hideaway (6) |
| HO[use] + NEST (‘hideaway’). | ||
| 14 | ROYAL MINT | Money maker requires some sort of normality (5,4) |
| Another pleasing anagram (‘requires some sort’) of NORMALITY. | ||
| 16 | FIREARMS | Working farmers need one to obtain weapons (8) |
| Anagram (‘working’) of FARMERS and 1. | ||
| 17 | CHARLADY | Reluctant to house youngster who could be cleaner (8) |
| CHARY (‘reluctant’) surrounds LAD. | ||
| 19 | COUPONS | Vouchers issued when companies take over (7) |
| UP (‘issued’, perhaps as in ‘up for sale’) + ON (‘when’) surrounded by COS (‘companies’). I struggled to make ‘issued’ = ‘upon’ but I’m not convinced by ‘up + on’ either. Ideas welcome. | ||
| 20 | CODEINE | Established standard in drug, a painkiller (7) |
| CODE (‘established standard’) + IN + E (‘drug’). | ||
| 21 | TRAGIC | Distressing time with smoke seen rising (6) |
| T[ime] + CIGAR (a ‘smoke’), reversed (‘rising’). | ||
| 22 | AVALON | No igneous rock climbs in this mythical land (6) |
| NO + LAVA reversed (quite a lot of going up going on today). | ||
| 25 | RECCE | What scouts may do about cycles, oddly (5) |
| RE (‘about’) + odd letters of C(y)C(l)E(s). | ||
*anagram
19d is UPON (over) in (“taken by”) COS, with “issued” just meaning that the wordplay “issues” or produces the answer.
Yes, I parsed COUPONS as did Andrew @1, though you could argue that ‘issued’ may be part of the def. Couldn’t quite parse CIRCA to my satisfaction so thanks for the explanation.
Liked the ‘pay-day may’, ‘What sound may be out of’ and ‘Bravest’ clues as well as GALLIPOLI, given the significance of tomorrow, April 25th, in this part of the world.
Thanks to Crux and Grant.
Thanks to Crux and GB. I’m another who parsed COUPONS with “upon” and had trouble parsing CIRCA. For some reason I also had trouble accepting HONEST as “just” though now I’m not sure why. Enjoyable.
Thanks Crux & GB.
An additional more obscure interpretation of 27 across is that the short form of circa, its abbreviation ca, when reversed, means a hundred.
CIRCA means around; AC (CIRCA in short, reversed ‘around‘) also means a hundred.
Thanks Crux and Grant
This was classy … with some exquisite anagrams (at 11 12a, 14d,16d), the clever cryptic word play at 1a and the brilliant RHYME (my last one in). I’m afraid that I’ll make it 4/4 for the COUPONS parsing.
Thought that the abbreviation of CIRCA was ca … and was trying to work out how to get the ‘a’ to get behind the C (hundred) – could only do it by making double use of ‘around’ which is why I figured that the ‘also’ was there for.
Joining the CIRCA circus…
“Circa” is known to be abbreviated (“in short”) as “ca” which is, reversed (“around”) a hundred (“a c”). So is this possibly interpreted as an &lit?
Agggh … psmith@4 with my slow typing, we crossed !!
Bruce.
Not to worry — your comment has further to travel from @aus!
Brian @ 6
CIRCA abbreviated = CA, certainly. Also CIRCA = C.
So what is the source of IR, and why is “It means” in the clue?
I’m probably being dim, but at present the clue doesn’t really work for me,
Far too late to matter, but I took the definition of 1ac to be “personally present” with a card game beginning “at first hand”.
To DuncT:
Never too late. I toyed with same def, but the ‘principle of replacement’ applies, I think: ‘Personally present when card game begins?’. You can say ‘I heard this personally’ or ‘I heard this at first hand’. You can’t say ‘I heard this personally present’ or ‘I was at first hand when I heard this’. I think a nit-picking grammarian (hi, my name’s Grant) would say that one phrase is adverbial, the other adjectival, and never the twain shall meet and swap roles.
Thanks for the reply Grant – fair enough, I can’t think of a sense in which they are interchangeable.