A fairly straightforward Monday puzzle, except . . .
NOTE: In the original published version of this puzzle, there appears to be an error in the clue for 20d – more details below. For technical reasons it hasn’t (yet!) been possible to update the puzzle online, but Tees has provided a correction in his comment below.
But apart from that, there’s lots to enjoy here. My last one in was 26a, where the definition worked but I couldn’t see the wordplay at all; it came to me later after a break. I’m not always a fan of cryptic definitions but I liked 17a, and there are some good misdirections. Thanks to Tees.
Definitions are underlined; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.
| Across | ||
| 1 | PAUL SIMON | Lions with puma savaged musician (4,5) |
| Anagram (savaged) of LIONS + PUMA. One half of Simon & Garfunkel. | ||
| 6 | BASS | Low born idiot (4) |
| B (born) ASS (idiot). Bass = low in musical pitch. | ||
| 10 | OMEGA | Old and excellent letter to Greeks (5) |
| O + MEGA (slang for very good). Last letter of the Greek alphabet. | ||
| 11 | NARCISSUS | Drug agent is attracting suspicion in plant (9) |
| NARC (US slang for a narcotics agent) + IS + SUS (suspicion). | ||
| 12 | OLDSTER | Eros Ltd corrupted senior citizen (7) |
| Anagram (corrupted) of EROS LTD. A word presumably formed by analogy with “youngster”, though I can’t help feeling both terms seem somewhat patronising. | ||
| 13 | ATHEISM | Sceptic’s position at border saving lives (7) |
| AT HEM, containing (saving) IS (lives, as a verb). | ||
| 14 | EDGAR ALLAN POE | Writer producing horror working alone with large pad (5,5,3) |
| Anagram (working) of ALONE + LARGE PAD, for the writer of macabre stories. | ||
| 17 | BARGAIN HUNTER | Might one look for cheap timepiece? (7,6) |
| Cryptic definition: a hunter is a type of pocket-watch. | ||
| 21 | AIRLIFT | Boost to follow express delivery? (7) |
| LIFT (a boost) following AIR (express, as in to air one’s opinion). Airlift = delivery by military aircraft to an otherwise inaccessible area. | ||
| 22 | AWKWARD | Uncomfortable week in a hospital room (7) |
| WK (abbreviation for week) in A WARD. | ||
| 24 | CRIME WAVE | Busy time for law breaker after lip given in church (5,4) |
| WAVE (breaker, on the sea) after RIM (lip = edge) in CE (Church of England). Law = the police; I liked the misdirection of “law breaker”. | ||
| 25 | AROMA | Perfume discovered in Emilia-Romagna (5) |
| Hidden answer in [emili]A ROMA[gna]. | ||
| 26 | REED | Vibrator‘s given benefit though losing charge (4) |
| REWARDED (given benefit), minus WARD (=charge =a child for whom one is responsible). Vibrator as in a woodwind instrument. | ||
| 27 | TEST DRIVE | Shot in cricket match for decisive run? (4,5) |
| DRIVE (shot in cricket, golf etc) in a TEST (international match in cricket, rugby etc). Test drive = taking a car out for a run when deciding whether to buy it. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | PROMOTER | Concert lover spurning first impresario (8) |
| PROM (promenade concert) + [d]OTER (lover without the first letter). | ||
| 2 | UPEND | Drastically affect completed objective (5) |
| UP (completed, as in “time’s up”) + END (objective). | ||
| 3 | SCATTERBRAINED | Disorganised broadcast on genius news boss (14) |
| SCATTER (broadcast, as a verb) + BRAIN (genius) + ED (editor). “Broadcast” usually acts as a homophone or anagram indicator, so it’s good to see it used literally for a change. | ||
| 4 | MONGREL | Masculine one left to bed Greek bastard (7) |
| M + ONE L, containing (bedding) GK (Greek). Bastard in the sense of a mixture. | ||
| 5 | NIRVANA | North country area includes very serene place (7) |
| N (north) + IRAN + A (area), including V (very). | ||
| 7 | ABSTINENT | Restrained element breaks away (9) |
| TIN (a chemical element) breaking (inserted into) ABSENT (away). | ||
| 8 | SESAME | Case for Shakespeare with identical opening word? (6) |
| S[hakespear]E + SAME. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Sesame_(phrase) | ||
| 9 | BISHOP AUCKLAND | Man somewhere in New Zealand — or town in Durham? (6,8) |
| BISHOP (chess piece = man) + the NZ city. | ||
| 15 | GABERDINE | Crudely darn beige twill (9) |
| Anagram (crudely) of DARN BEIGE. Gaberdine (or gabardine) is a type of twill-woven fabric. | ||
| 16 | GRADUATE | Alumnus from brilliant university seen in crowd (8) |
| RAD (abbreviation for radical = slang for very good) + U, in GATE (the size of the crowd at a sports match). | ||
| 18 | ATTRACT | Interest in a time zone (7) |
| A T + TRACT (zone, as in a tract of land). | ||
| 19 | NEATENS | Cleans up under chickens, wasting two hours (7) |
| ‘NEATH (poetic form of “beneath”) + HENS, minus H H. | ||
| 20 | DANCER | (original clue) Scandinavian right to entertain new ballerina? (6)
(corrected clue) Scandinavian right to cover cold reindeer? |
| See preamble. The wordplay in the original clue gives DANE R + N, but there’s nothing to provide the C. The corrected version gives DANE R with an inserted C. Dancer is one of the team of reindeer in the Christmas poem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Visit_from_St._Nicholas | ||
| 23 | AIOLI | Garlic sauce Danilo Alvim had regularly (5) |
| Alternate letters (regularly) of dAnIlO aLvIm. I didn’t know who he was (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danilo_Alvim) but that’s not necessary for the wordplay. |
Enjoyable, but a lot easier than I would expect (and wish) from Tees. REED was the only clue that needed much thought. Shame about 20d though.
Being an ailurophile, I did like the anagram at 1a. The anagram at 14a was pretty neat too.
Never seen that spelling for gabardine before but checked it out.
Thanks to Tees and Quirister.
Apologies for 20D – this was a replacement clue which I nodded through without checking that it worked. Unfortunately it can be difficult to get an amended version up when the mistake is discovered at the weekend and the puzzle hosting site is in the US.
Hello, it was my fault actually.
First clue sent in relied on Nureyev being a Rudolph, which he wasn’t, and the second one as evidenced above was wrong. Third one, which was submitted but didn’t make the cut as stipulated by Indy-tech (although Mike had done his level best to get Hal 9000 to accept the new version), is as follows:
Scandinavian right to cover cold reindeer?
I think it has the right letters in it …
Apologies to all concerned.
Thanks Tees – that works, and I’ve updated the blog accordingly. Thanks too to Gaufrid and Eimi, for finding the error and battling with the technology in an attempt to fix it!
What’s happenng today? There’s a mistake in The Times (printed copy) as well (actually they haven’t admitted as such, and who knows if they will, but they’ve apparently changed their online version to be correct). I’m not going to look, but is there a mistake in the Guardian as well? These mistakes are very rare. Good of Tees to be so straightforward about it
Nice crossword. Now that’s what a CD should be like, 17ac. There is the most pathetic one in The Times today: ‘Support for underground workers’, with the answer PITPROP.
Thanks Tees and Quirister
The 20D error is ironic: I followed the original wordplay and, on checking, discovered that there was once a Danish ballet dancer called Countess Danner. Not then being able to make a lot of sense of 24A soon sorted that out.
Dancing lightly over 20d, I liked this.
I didn’t check the anagram fodder thoroughly enough to not enter GABARDINE. Also gave up on trying to figure out the charge removed to give REED. So obvious once seen, but I don’t always see, you see.
As Hovis @1 says, a couple of neat anagrams, though I did feel sorry for poor PAUL SIMON!
Thanks Tees and Quirister.
Thanks to Quirister and Tees
I came here to discover how NEW can now indicate a C, only to find that Nureyev was not a Rudolph. A couple of swift ones and off to bed I think.