Solid setting leavened with a little wit from Jason today.
Nothing too vicious and a chuckle or two. Just what a Tuesday FT should be. Thanks, Json.
| Across | ||
| 8 | SOLACE | Accordingly fabric provides comfort (6) |
| SO (‘accordingly’) + LACE (‘fabric’). | ||
| 9 | WAR PAINT | With a standard accent “isn’t” commonly gets slap (3,5) |
| W[ith] + A + R[eceived] P[ronunciation] (‘standard accent’) + AINT (‘isn’t “commonly”‘), ‘slap’ & ‘warpaint’ both meaning make-up. | ||
| 10 | MEND | Blokes starting to distribute remedy (4) |
| MEN + D(istribute). | ||
| 11 | BANANA SKIN | Clowns fall for such a cuckoo family? (6,4) |
| BANANAS (‘cuckoo’) + KIN (‘family’). | ||
| 12 | DASH | Destroy dead tree (4) |
| D[ead] + ASH. | ||
| 13 | CLAPPED OUT | Done in like the house after umpteenth encore? (7,3) |
| Jocular whole-clue def. | ||
| 17 | HYPE | Weepy hardly holds back effusive promo (4) |
| Reversed inclusion in ‘weEPY Hardly’. | ||
| 18 | DUPER | With superintendent I’d be an absolutely marvellous trickster (5) |
| With ‘super[-intendent’] this would be ‘super-duper’, or ‘absolutely marvellous’. | ||
| 19 | SUMO | Problem with old form of wrestling (4) |
| SUM (‘problem’) + O[ld]. | ||
| 21 | AFTERSHAVE | Dessert with own scent? (10) |
| AFTERS (‘dessert’) + HAVE (‘own’). | ||
| 23 | WAND | What Sooty waved with ‘elp? (4) |
| Glove-puppet Sooty used to wave ‘is magic wand with the ‘elping ‘and of ‘arry Corbett. | ||
| 24 | MEANS TESTS | These may let slip men’s states (5,5) |
| Anagram (‘let slip’) of MENS STATES, plus whole clue definition or ‘&lit’ if you will. | ||
| 28 | SCAM | Racket in returning laptops, say (4) |
| Reversal of MACS (‘laptops say’). | ||
| 29 | SCRAMBLE | Jostle for top slot – to wit, witter on (8) |
| SC[ilicet] (abb. of Latin ‘namely’ or ‘to wit’) + RAMBLE (‘witter on’). Not quite sure whether ‘top slot’ is part of def or surface. | ||
| 30 | OPENER | Intro of noble with name entered (6) |
| O[f] + PEER (‘noble’) includes N[ame]. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | ROSEMARY | Stood up one woman for another (8) |
| ROSE (‘stood up’) + MARY (‘a woman’). | ||
| 2 | HARD CHEESE | Better luck next time with export of Parma? (4,6) |
| Double def, parmesan cheese the product in question. | ||
| 3 | HERBICIDES | Blooming beech is rid of what does for weeds (10) |
| Anagram (‘blooming’) of BEECH IS RID. | ||
| 4 | SWAN | Swimmer is pale (4) |
| [I]S WAN (‘pale’). | ||
| 5 | IRON | Press club (4) |
| Double def. | ||
| 6 | LASS | Girl is left behind (4) |
| L[eft] + ASS (U.S. buttocks, ‘behind’) | ||
| 7 | IN LIEU | Fashionable fiction over university instead (2,4) |
| IN (‘fahionable’) + LIE (‘fiction’) + U(niversity). | ||
| 14 | ALPHA | First character to appear in Aristophanes? (5) |
| Alpha being the first letter of both the Greek alphabet and Ari the Greek. | ||
| 15 | PERVERSION | A form of kinkiness? (10) |
| Double def (just), Chambers giving ‘a distortion’ as def 6 for ‘perversion’. | ||
| 16 | DISH WASHER | Plongeur shared wish disastrously (4,6) |
| Anagram (‘disastrously’) of shared wish. | ||
| 20 | MAN-EATER | She often ditches mates with long hair at hospital department (3-5) |
| MANE (‘long hair’) + AT + E[mergency] R[oom] (U.S. ‘hospital department’). | ||
| 22 | FLEECE | Rip off a winter warmer? (6) |
| Double def. | ||
| 25 | NOAH | Shipbuilder is someone who’s well aware, we hear (4) |
| Homophone of ‘knower’. | ||
| 26 | TUBA | Ship a blown instrument (4) |
| TUB (an old ‘ship’) + A. | ||
| 27 | STEP | Pace set by flipping family favourites (4) |
| Reversal of PETS (‘family favourites’). | ||
*anagram
I parsed 15d as PER (a) + VERSION (form). Failed to get ROSEMARY without a word fit. Wasn’t mad keen on MEANS TESTS definition but, overall, a lovely puzzle.
To Hovis:
Yes, you’re clearly right about ‘per version’, to the extent that I think the question-mark becomes unnecessary. Also, while I’m on, I forgot to put the W[ith] in Sooty’s ‘Wand’. Apologies.
Thanks Jason and Grant
An entertaining workout.
Had CLAPPED OUT as a double definition – worn out or dilapidated / the jocular affect of the umpteenth encore – it was my last one in.
Smiled a bit with the &lit definition of MEANS TEST.
Liked the inference that Aristophanes would spell his name with an opening ALPHA.
‘Plongeur’ was a new term for me.
Thanks to Jason and Grant B. I had a a lot of blank spaces until I got AFTERSHAVE after which things fell into place. I deciphered the anagram for MEANS TEST but wasn’t clear on how it followed from the definition and parsed WAND without knowing Sooty, but even with all the crossers I spent much time getting my LOI PERVERSION until I got the per-version split. Re LASS, I was surprised that my US use of “ass” fit the bill without some non-arse indicator.
If my memory serves me well, I was not always on Jason’s wavelength (in the past) but this one was really good!
(even though I failed on 18ac and I’m not sure that I like that one … bad loser, ay?)
Grant, I assume your parsing of 23ac: is W (with) + [h]AND (help).
In that case, I found it a bit (but only a bit) of a pity that 9ac had W = ‘with’ too.
But, hey, nice puzzle which – for me – outshone the ones in The Guardian and the Indy.
Thanks Grant & Jason.