A pleasant crossword from Radian: all semed straightforward enough and there were some nice clues. I have my doubts about one of them, but perhaps that’s just me being fussy.
Definitions in maroon, underlined. Anagram indicators in italics.
As is Radian’s wont, he has picked a well-known speech from Shakespeare and fitted many of its words into the grid (which justifies, I suppose, the rather poor checking). FRIENDS, ROMANS, COUNTRYMEN, LEND me YOUR(selves) EARS, from Julius Caesar. Some other words like INTERRED and UNKINDEST also appear in Julius Caesar and no doubt there are more.
| Across | ||
| 1 | TONGUE | Wait on guests eating meat (6) |
| Hidden in WaiT ON GUEsts | ||
| 4 | HONSHU | Island hard on footwear, so I hear (6) |
| h on “shoe” | ||
| 8 | PRIVATE | Go on to enlist fourth ranker (7) |
| pr(iv)ate | ||
| 9 | STREAKY | Beef about rare variable sort of bacon (7) |
| st(r)eak y | ||
| 11 | COUNTRYMEN | Show up north adopts a foreign test for rustics (10) |
| (co(un try)me N) — a foreign = a in French = un | ||
| 12 | LEND | Advance large target (4) |
| l end | ||
| 13 | BOSUN | Box office star who controls crew? (5) |
| BO sun — Collins gives BO = Box Office | ||
| 14 | INTERRED | Italian team, embarrassed, stuck in ground (8) |
| Inter [Milan] red | ||
| 16 | DISRAELI | PM‘s detective touring state (8) |
| D(Israel)I | ||
| 18 | EXACT | Cut back court demand (5) |
| (axe)rev. Ct | ||
| 20 | EARS | Auditors get across all except odd features (4) |
| {g}e{t} a{c}r{o}s{s} — all except odd features is the even features | ||
| 21 | YOURSELVES | Puzzle fans and chop suey lovers (10) |
| *(suey lovers) — if you’re trying to solve the crossword then presumably you’re a puzzle fan, although it’s not I suppose strictly necessary: I follow Portsmouth’s attempts to win but to call me a Portsmouth fan would be a travesty. | ||
| 23 | DIURNAL | Ring about vessel moving about in daylight (7) |
| di(urn)al | ||
| 24 | FRIENDS | Intimates following one in tears (7) |
| f r(1)ends | ||
| 25 | ROMANS | Book gypsy with Poles (6) |
| roma NS — book of the Bible | ||
| 26 | ORATOR | He addresses men twice at breaks (6) |
| OR(at)OR — breaks is a verb, and ‘at’ is breaking OROR | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | TORSO | Funny sort of female leaving trunk (5) |
| *(sort o{f}) | ||
| 2 | NOVENAS | Services range between Norway and Middle East (7) |
| N(oven){E}as{t} — oven = range — as is meant to be middle east, but is middle east the same as the middle of east? Not in my opinion, although some would disagree, as is evident. This is a novena. | ||
| 3 | UTTERANCE | Complete a new church statement (9) |
| utter [= complete] a n CE | ||
| 5 | OFTEN | One managed to collect paper – a lot (5) |
| o(FT)en, the oen being (one)* — FT = Financial Times | ||
| 6 | STELLAR | McCartney, king of the stars (7) |
| Stella R — Stella McCartney, not Paul for once | ||
| 7 | UNKINDEST | Most uncharitable type occupies posh birthplace (9) |
| (U n(kind)est) | ||
| 10 | AMBITIOUS | Seeking success, limits debts (9) |
| ambit [= limits] IOUs | ||
| 13 | BRIGADIER | Officer‘s new bride investing capital (9) |
| b(Riga)dier, the bdier being *(bride) | ||
| 15 | TREASURER | Book-keeper bound to bring up reserves after a short time (9) |
| t rea(sure)r — ‘bound’ is reserved by ‘to bring up’ | ||
| 17 | ROSTRUM | Where to conduct or conversely play banjo? (7) |
| (or)rev. strum | ||
| 19 | AILMENT | Ace left crew to crack IT problem (7) |
| A I(l men)T | ||
| 21 | YEARN | Long story involving European (5) |
| y(E)arn | ||
| 22 | ELDER | Bush‘s foreign articles (5) |
| el der [the in Spanish and German] | ||
*anagram
Thanks Radian and John
Both INTERRED and AMBITIOUS appear in Marc Antony’s speech, not merely elsewhere in the play, and he is giving a fine example of how to be an ORATOR.
As an aside, 16 20 is almost an album by Cream.
Thanks, John.
As Simon S says, the speech continues beyond the most familiar ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen…’ extract, as Antony is interrupted / pauses for effect. Another familiar extract begins, ‘If you have tears, prepare to shed them now’ and contains PRIVATE griefs, UNKINDEST cut of all and, after another interruption, the ironic
‘I am no ORATOR, as Brutus is,
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Action, nor UTTERANCE, nor the power of speech,
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
To stir men’s blood: I only speak right on;
I tell you that which you YOURSELVES do know …’
And the speech was delivered from the ROSTRUM. [And there’s probably more.]
Another tour de force from Radian – and from another of my favourite plays. Huge thanks to him – I loved it, of course.
Apologies for the superfluous fourth line in the above – my cut and paste went awry!
See https://youtu.be/7X9C55TkUP8 – one of my Brando favourites.
A fuller clip at https://youtu.be/0rkJUvQ6PQE
I finished this pretty quickly and even saw the theme, though only when I looked at the end and saw ears and countrymen. Even I couldn’t miss that. Thanks Radian and John.
Having just completed this, I was about to come here when I remembered today is Theme Tuesday so I had another look and quickly spotted it. Incidentally, my favourite performance of Julius Caesar was given in Dutch by a Dutch theatre group where the actor playing Mark Anthony had broken his leg the previous week and did the whole performance in a wheel-chair.