A mostly easy challenge from BRADMAN today, sprinked with a couple of clues that I thought were uncharacteristically harder than the rest. Thanks to the Don for a pleasant workout.
FF: 8 DD : 7
| Across | ||
| 1 | SHERPA | Seraph, possibly one ascending to a great height (6) |
| SERAPH* | ||
| 4 | PRATES | One out of the clutches of buccaneers talks freely (6) |
| PiRATES (buccaneers, without I – one) | ||
| 8 | COMPOSE | Firm beginning to make model from design (7) |
| CO (firm) M (beginning to Make) POSE (model) | ||
| 9 | PISMIRE | One of 20 is stuck in soft mud (7) |
| IS in [P (soft) MIRE (mud) ] – new word for me | ||
| 11 | BEAUJOLAIS | One in USA job involved with ale and wine (10) |
| USA JOB ALE* containing I (one) | ||
| 12 | AQUA | Eagle ignoring island lake, water being blue (4) |
| AQUilA (eagle, without I – island L – lake) | ||
| 13 | SUDRA | Lowly Hindu misconceived as rude, ignoring English (5) |
| AS RUDe* (without E – english) | ||
| 14 | See 25 | |
| 16 | OCCUPIER | Resident to be found eating food (8) |
| OCCUR (~be found) containing PIE (food) | ||
| 18 | VIPER | Hesitation to meet bigwig, a poisonous type (5) |
| VIP (bigwig) ER (hesitation) | ||
| 20 | ANTS | Workers restricted by arrogant seniors? (4) |
| hidden in “..arrogANT Seniors” | ||
| 21 | FANCY GOODS | What souvenir shops offer – so dog could come from that (5,5) |
| cryptic def; FANCY can be an anagram indicator , and when applied on GOODS can yield “SO DOG” | ||
| 23 | ERRANDS | In tasks goes wrong – and gets given detention (7) |
| ERRS (goes wrong) containing AND | ||
| 24 | TRAPEZE | Pater dancing with enthusiasm, not half a swinger (7) |
| PATER* with ZEal (enthusiasm, half of) | ||
| 25, 14 | WARREN HASTINGS | Statesman establishing underground network by place of battle (6,8) |
| WARREN (underground network) HASTINGS (place of battle) | ||
| 26 | OSPREY | Bird seen by seaman with its victim? (6) |
| OS (ordinary seaman) PREY (victim) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | SPOKE | Talked with son needing prod (5) |
| S (son) POKE (prod) | ||
| 2 | EXPOUND | Present old lover with money (7) |
| EX (old lover) POUND (money) | ||
| 3 | PASTORALI | Musical compositions in evidence when minister meets Muslim? (9) |
| PASTOR (minister) ALI (muslim) | ||
| 5 | RAIDS | King helps attempts to gain territory (5) |
| R (king) AIDS (helps) | ||
| 6 | TIMPANI | Percussion instruments making tiny boy take fright almost (7) |
| TIM (tiny boy, singer by the name of TINY TIM) PANIc (fright, almost) | ||
| 7 | SCROUNGER | College room has someone idling, not the first one expecting something for nothing (9) |
| SCR (college room, Senior Common Room) lOUNGER (somoene idling, withot first letter) | ||
| 10 | GATHERING | Assembly starts to get animated before Wagner’s work (9) |
| GA (starting letters of ‘..Get Animated..’) THE RING (wagner’s work) | ||
| 13 | SECOND ROW | Some in a scrum using nasty words once (6,3) |
| WORDS ONCE* | ||
| 15 | SAVOYARDS | Certain performers needing to be sad vary so (9) |
| SAD VARY SO* | ||
| 17 | UPSTAIR | A purist working at a relatively high level (7) |
| A PURIST* | ||
| 19 | PROSPER | Do well as Shakespearean character with nothing to lose (7) |
| PROSPERo (shakespearean character, without O – nothing) | ||
| 21 | FUDGE | Sweet duck (5) |
| double def; second meaning referring to the shortened name for FERRUGINOUS DUCK .. could be wrong about this .. | ||
| 22 | DIZZY | Light-headed PM of yesteryear (5) |
| double def; latter referring to benjamin disraeli, pm of uk twice) | ||
*anagram
Re 21d: FUDGE can mean to avoid or to duck.
A pangram.
Kudos to anybody who knew PISMIRE. I tried PISMURK first which sounds better. “Help! My kitchen is teeming with pismurks!”
Couldn’t parse AQUA, having not heard of the eagle. Agree with passerby on FUDGE, though I had to look up this particular meaning.
Lots to learn today. Thanks to Bradman and Turbolegs.
Perhaps the Don didn’t notice the puzzle number. I waited in vain for a palindrome to appear, or have I missed something?
I suppose someone will put me right, but I don’t think that 21d Fudge means to duck or avoid. More usually it is used to obscure or blur the truth. “He fudged the issue.”
However, very enjoyable puzzle. So proud I got PISMIRE while not knowing it is another name for an ant.
Ta awfully Bradman and Turbolegs.
Re 6d: Apart from the late American singer, “Tiny Tim” is Bob Cratchit’s son in A Christmas Carol by Dickens.
Re 21d: Chambers does give FUDGE as “to dodge”, which would fit with “duck”.
tilloubill@4. Certainly that was the meaning of ‘fudge’ that I was previously aware of, but, both my Chambers and Collins give ‘avoid’ as another meaning.
I parsed PISMIRE but hardly believed it when I found it existed. Thats a lie as its a Don puzzle.
Loved BEAUJOLAIS (still do). A good Don puzzle.
Thanks S&B.
For information, Aquila was the pseudonym of Bert Danher in Independent puzzles. He set as Hendra in the Guardian. (and was Paul McCartney’s godfather).
Thanks to Bradman and Turbolegs. I knew PISMIRE from long ago (maybe from US puzzles) but not DIZZY – Disraeli or SUDRA (I had to work out the anagram via Google) and had forgotten SCR = Senior Common Room from previous puzzles. FUDGE was once a slang term among US students for changing or sidestepping the results of an assigned lab experiment to make it fit with the desired result.
Sorry to be late here, but a couple of queries about cryptic syntax occured to me:
8a, COMPOSE uses [wp] from [def], but I’ve seen that construction disparaged elsewhere, on the basis (I thought) that it was non-Ximenean, so would be avoided by the Don?
In 15d, SAVOYARDS is the anagrind “needing”?
Thanks Bradman and Turbolegs
Found this one pretty challenging – caused by a mix of unknown terms and some unusual definitions.
It took a number of dictionaries to finally track down PASTORALI as the plural of PASTORALE. Didn’t know of WARREN HASTINGS nor AQUILA.
Hadn’t seen PISMIRE for decades in a crossword and it was my last one in, preceded by SCROUNGERS (SCR for student rooms was new) and that AQUA.
Tony@11, I think that the padded word ‘from’ causes the concern at 8a – definition is clearly ‘design’ with the word play ‘firm beginning to make model’ – then ‘from’ just seems to be used for surface purposes. Had “needing to be” as the anagrind at 15d – and didn’t think that it was very good – actually took me a while to recognise that there was anagram fodder in the clue.