*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, cd=cryptic definition, dd=double definition.
A solve of two halves for me – I raced through most of this in minutes, then ground to a halt on the remaining few. There's a few quite obscure references in there, which I think is what caught me out.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | PALINDROMIST – PAL + (ITS NIMROD)*. |
| 9 | CANALETTO – TALE* in CANTO. |
| 10 | DISCO – DISCO[rd]. |
| 11 | PELICAN – PEL[t] + I CAN. |
| 12 | COLLIER – COLLIE + R. |
| 13 | ROYAL – (LAY + OR)<. "Lay" (song) seems quite obscure to me, but then given the checking letters, one can't really complain! |
| 15 | TENEMENTS – (E + MEN) in TENTS. |
| 17 | SPHERICAL – (CAR IS HELP)*. |
| 18 | NAURU – U in (NA + RU). |
| 19 | SHOWMAN – (HOW + M) in SAN. |
| 20 | CAPTION – CAP + (I in TON). |
| 22 | GLORY – dd. This is in Chambers as “expressing surprise”, thus “my”. |
| 23 | CANTABILE – CAN + (I in TABLE). |
| 24 | STORM LANTERN – (SNARL + TORMENT)*. |
| Down | |
| 1 | PENALTY SHOOT-OUT – cd. |
| 2 | LILAC – CALL< "about" 1. |
| 3 | NOT ON – NOT[i]ON. This, plus 1ac had me looking for more palindromes, but I came up blank. |
| 4 | ROOT CANAL – CONTROL* “around” (AN + A). |
| 5 | MIDDLEMAN – (NAME + LD + DIM)<. |
| 6 | SESSION MUSICIAN – (IS MAN + SONIC ISSUE)*. Great clue. |
| 7 | SCEPTRES – (PRESS ETC)*. |
| 8 | FOUR – F[av]OUR. While the answer’s clear from the “number of gospels” def, AV for “bible” took some hunting for me. |
| 14 | LORD MAYOR – (D + MAY[o]) “aboard” LORR[y]. |
| 15 | TECHNICAL – (HIT CANCEL)*. |
| 16 | SQUANDER – (N in SQUAD) + RE<. |
| 19 | SIGH – SIGH[t]. |
| 20 | CANON – C + ANON. |
| 21 | PEAKE – hom. of “peak”. |
Re the comment at 13ac.
Students of literature will be familiar with the Lay of the Last Minstrel by Sir Walter Scott.
My experience was similar to Simon. Some clues very easy, others very difficult esp for me in the lower half of the grid. I wondered about ‘funny’ in 20 across – it seems to be part of the definition but a CAPTION could maybe be funny but not necessarily so, in fact mostly not. Or maybe I’m misreading the clue.
Because, as you say, nms, a caption may be funny, I think Phi’s use of the question mark makes his clue for CAPTION OK.
Can someone please elaborate a bit more on 19d. I’m not understanding how “a great many falling” takes the off of sight.
Hi –
I read 19dn as “sight” = “great many”, and then “falling short” to indicate that it is to be, well, shortened.
Informally a ‘sight’ is a ‘great number’, dicts confirm so I think it’s the last letter being removed – the clue says “falling short”.