Thank you Nitsy for another enjoyable Sunday morning puzzle.
| Across | ||
| 1 | CALIPH | A kiss in church for religious leader (6) |
| A LIP (kiss) in CH (church) | ||
| 4 | ALTHOUGH | Whilst tight, laugh about hot pants (8) |
| anagram (tight, drunk) of LAUGH contains (about) anagram (pants, bad) of HOT | ||
| 9 | MENTOR | Soldiers rejected rubbish advisor (6) |
| MEN (soldiers) then ROT (rubbish) reversed (rejected) | ||
| 10 | OFFENDED | Rotten goal leads to Everton’s dramatic upset (8) |
| OFF (rotten) END (goal) then first letters (leads to) of Everton’s Dramatic | ||
| 12 | BASIL | Plant from stall is about to be returned (5) |
| found inside (from) staL IS ABout reversed (to be returned) | ||
| 13 | UNSHACKLE | Hairstyles with first cut and comb for free (9) |
| bUNS (hairstyles) missing first letter (with first cut) then HACKLE (comb) | ||
| 14 | COMMON SENSE | House seen renovated – good judgement (6,5) |
| COMMONS (The House of Commons) then anagram (renovated) of SEEN | ||
| 18 | FRAME OF MIND | Fan of dimmer switches to create mood (5,2,4) |
| anagram (switches) of FAN OF DIMMER | ||
| 21 | FANTASTIC | Wonderful soft drink – it’s flipping cold (9) |
| FANTA ( a soft drink) IT’S reversed (flipping) and then C (cold) | ||
| 23 | CAROL | Conservative with a capacity to ignore conclusion? Thatcher, perhaps (5) |
| C (conservative) with A ROLe (capacity, of a job) missing last letter (ignoring conclusion) – Carol Thatcher perhaps, daughter of former PM Margaret Thatcher | ||
| 24 | OVERHEAD | Above average (8) |
| double definition – I have not come across overhead meaning average before | ||
| 25 | LIAISE | Characters in Australia I seldom get in touch with (6) |
| found inside (characters in) austraLIA I Seldom | ||
| 26 | TALENTED | Story about hospital department? Daughter’s gifted (8) |
| TALE (story) contains (about) ENT (Ear Nose and Throat, hospital department) then D (daughter) | ||
| 27 | MERELY | Just two lakes, yes? (6) |
| MERE and L (two lakes) then Y (yes) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | COMEBACK | Sally‘s heavenly body almost touching rugby player (8) |
| COMEt (heavenly body, almost) then BACK (rugby player) | ||
| 2 | LONESOME | Left with drink, therefore this writer’s feeling isolated (8) |
| L (left) with ONE (a drink, one for the road) SO (therefore) ME (this writer) | ||
| 3 | POORLY OFF | Having short bread? (6,3) |
| cryptic definition? Bread is money but I don’t get the wording here. I can imagine someone saying “short of bread” or “money is short” but saying “having short bread” doesn’t make any sense, unless you are actually carrying some truncated baguettes or something. | ||
| 5 | LIFE SENTENCE | Feel intense cold when out? Stay inside for a long time (4,8) |
| anagram (out) of FEEL INTENSE with C (cold) | ||
| 6 | HYENA | Animal has almost contained hunger (5) |
| HAs (almost) contains YEN (hunger) | ||
| 7 | UPDIKE | United Press ditch writer (6) |
| UP (United Press) and DIKE (ditch) | ||
| 8 | HIDDEN | Girl keeping identification card ultimately concealed (6) |
| HEN (girl) contains (keeping) ID (identification) and carD (ultimately, last letter of) | ||
| 11 | SUBSTANTIATE | Prove aunt is best at rambling (12) |
| anagram (rambling) of AUNT IS BEST AT | ||
| 15 | EFFECTIVE | Powerful canine welcomed by vet if fee’s high (9) |
| C (canine, abbreviation in dentistry) inside (welcomed by) anagram (high) of VET IF FEE | ||
| 16 | MIGRAINE | Pain in the head teacher’s rear? Imagine rioting (8) |
| anagram (rioting) of teacheR (rear, last letter of) and IMAGINE | ||
| 17 | ADULTERY | How’s your father not with my wife? (8) |
| cryptic definition – “how’s your father” is a euphemism for sex. Originally the phrase was from a music hall act and simply denoted a meaningless or unidentified thing such as “thing”, “it” or “a bit of something”. Like most such phrases it ended up with sexual connotations. | ||
| 19 | AFLOAT | A launch at sea (6) |
| A and FLOAT (launch) | ||
| 20 | UNWELL | Funny upper-class name? Considerably (6) |
| U (upper class) and N (name)and WELL (considerably) | ||
| 22 | ASHEN | White bird follows a second (5) |
| HEN (a bird) follows A S (second) | ||
definitions are underlined
I write these posts to help people get started with cryptic crosswords. If there is something here you do not understand ask a question; there are probably others wondering the same thing.
Quite easy, especially after yesterday’s offering. Found myself frequently checking my dictionaries for meanings of words I was unfamiliar with. In 24a, I would say I have not come across average meaning overhead, rather than the other way around.
Interestingly brief intro to blog today 😉
Thanks to Nitsy and PeeDee.
I wrote up the explanations for the clues a week ago, I obviously intended to finish the intro later. There again, I can hardly remember what happened a week ago any more so who knows?
I enjoyed this, but had a wavelength-tuning failure with the UNWELL/OVERHEAD intersection so a DNF sadly.
Thanks to Nitsy & PeeDee; now where did I leave my glasses?
Got off to a bad start by having CANNON for 1a – must have been watching too much snooker!
No other problems although I shared PeeDee’s thoughts on 24a&3d.
Thanks to Nitsy and to PeeDee for the blog.
Almost enough to give me a MIGRAINE.
LONESOME, UNWELL, POORLY OFF and ASHEN. I hope Nitsy is now feeling in a better FRAME OF MIND.
Otherwise, some relief for the solver after yesterday’s travails although I couldn’t parse 24a or 3d satisfactorily either. I enjoyed 17d.
Thanks to PeeDee and best wishes to Nitsy
Some help required for a few we just couldn’t see but were obvious when we got them, otherwise fairly straightforward.
We had ‘unreal’ for 20dn; if something is funny in the sense of dodgy it could be unreal, and ‘real’ can mean considerable as in ‘making real progress’. But we weren’t totally convinced since the clue had ‘considerably’ (with a y) and now we see why – pun intentional. And we didn’t really understand 3dn.
Thanks, Nitsy and PeeDee.
I was confused by overhead=average, but I see it is in chambers.
I thought 3D might refer to shortbread, but that is one word.
Pleasant puzzle many thanks Nitsy and Peedee
The OED has this to say about overhead:
2. Chiefly Sc. Overall; average. Cf. sense A. 1b.
1875 W. Alexander Sketches Life among Ain Folk 105 Sandy would loudly declare that he had offered less for what formed really ‘the pick’ of the lot than the average ‘owreheid’ price to himself.
1892 Pall Mall Gaz. 3 Aug. 3/3 An over~head charge of so much per ton [for parcels] leaving Euston.
1947 T. M. Cooper Regiam majestatem 27 The amicabilis compositor..aided parties to adjust an overhead settlement of outstanding differences.