A riveting challenge from WANDERER that left me feeling short on both my solve as well as my vocabulary. Needed help from the interwebs to bring this home.
FF: 9 DD: 9
Not sure if brexit is becoming a farce or already is one, but atleast it serves as interesting fodder for a crossword.
| Across | ||
| 1 | CUSTOMS UNION | Second marriage, by tradition, is a feature of 8 (7,5) |
| [ S (second) UNION (marriage) ] after CUSTOM (tradition) – 8 refers to 8d – eu | ||
| 10 | UNICORN | High-value startup company: a French one with my name (7) |
| UN (french, a) I (one) COR (my) N (name) | ||
| 11 | BARNIER | Ha-ha, perhaps that’s new for centre-right 8 official (7) |
| BARRIER (ha-ha, recessed landscape design element, as wiki tells me) with the centre R (right) being replaced with N (new) | ||
| 12 | ORGAN | Complain along with Romania: backstop one of 4 on this? (5) |
| NAG (complain) RO (romania) all reversed (back), stop one of many (4d) refers to the organ stops | ||
| 13 | SCHMOOZE | Gossip comes home half drunk, after drinking unknown quantity (8) |
| COMES hoME (half)* containing Z (unknown quantity) | ||
| 15 | EUPHEMISMS | Inoffensive substitute words in current text on 8 soft border (10) |
| [I (current) SMS (text)] after { EU (8, answer to 8dn) P (soft) HEM (border) } | ||
| 16 | WEAR | Current point in conflict (4) |
| E (point) in WAR (conflict) | ||
| 18 | NITS | Fools from 6 counties with borders on Thames (4) |
| NI (6 counties, northern ireland) TS (borders i.e. end letters of ThameS) | ||
| 20 | CHANNELLED | Acted as medium for natural border, when English showed the way (10) |
| CHANNEL (natural border, english) LED (showed the way) | ||
| 22 | NUISANCE | Bother 8? Northern Ireland’s can, potentially (8) |
| EU (answer to 8d) NI’S (northern island’s) CAN* | ||
| 24 | NINTH | Selection of libation in the interval (5) |
| hidden in “..libatioN IN THE..” | ||
| 26 | OREGANO | Cook’s content, when about to get back all but one herb (7) |
| OO (cOOk’s content) containing REGAiN (get back, without I – one) | ||
| 27 | LUGSAIL | Some crafty rigging by those listeners commonly able to sense trouble (7) |
| LUGS (listeners, commonly) AIL (trouble) | ||
| 28 | SINGLE MARKET | E-book set in one-time 8 area, perhaps (6,6) |
| E-MARK (e-book) in [SINGLE (one) T (time)] | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | USING UP | Is gunrunning at an end? It’s exhausting (5,2) |
| IS GUN* (running – anagrind) UP (at an end) | ||
| 3 | THORNIER | It’s more troublesome having row about erection (8) |
| TIER (row) about HORN (erection) | ||
| 4 | MANY | “Brexit-seeking Remainer” describes unspecified number a lot (4) |
| MAY (brexit-seeing remainer, touché!) around N (unspecified number) | ||
| 5 | UNBECOMING | Large body getting far from attractive (10) |
| UN (large body) BECOMING (getting) | ||
| 6 | IN REM | Against a property of “bloomin’ Remainers” (2,3) |
| hidden in .. “..bloomIN REMainers” | ||
| 7 | NOISOME | Disgusting various Moonies (7) |
| MOONIES* | ||
| 8 | EUROPEAN UNION | Body of Jesus partaken of reguarly (8,5) |
| cryptic def; expansion of jEsUs (regularly) | ||
| 9 | FREE TRADE HALL | Felt real, heard playing in old concert venue (4,5,4) |
| FELT REAL HEARD* | ||
| 14 | HIGH SCHOOL | Where one might see 17 getting off train (4,6) |
| HIGH (getting off) SCHOOL (train) | ||
| 17 | TEENAGER | Support anger management for one that’s 18 perhaps? (8) |
| TEE (support) ANGER* | ||
| 19 | TRICEPS | Moment a rider shows muscle (7) |
| TRICE (moment) PS (rider) | ||
| 21 | LINKAGE | Joint leaking badly (7) |
| LEAKING* | ||
| 23 | AL AIN | UAE city with everyone apart from one Leaver originally 50% Remain (2,3) |
| ALl (everyone, without an L [Leaver, originally]) remAIN (50% of) | ||
| 25 | PLUM | Choice left for all to see in May? (4) |
| [ L (left) U (for all to see, movies) in PM (may) | ||
*anagram
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs.
I found this quite difficult but managed to complete it in the end. Enjoyable and topical.
The blog for 13a should read “COMES HOme”. The puzzle defeated me – I only solved 11 clues! Thanks for the blog Turbolegs.
Thanks to Wanderer and Turbolegs. I sent most of today struggling with this one. I did not parse everything – and I stuck with barrier rather than BARNIER – but eventually, with help from Google, I did get AL AIN, UNICORN, LUGSAIL, and FREE TRADE HALL. I was surprised that UNION occurred twice.
I would have like 9d to be “free trade area” given the other clues around the edge, perhaps with luggage and ninja crossing…
But this was fun. Took an hour.
Thanks to Turbolegs and Wanderer
Nice to see NI properly defined in 18a. And a very nice crossword overall.
Looking for an alternative to a Guardian on Monday, I was drawn in to this by Turbolegs’ preamble … And well worthwhile the puzzle was too!
Thanks to blogger and setter.
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
Found this one of the toughest puzzles by this setter that I have done, taking almost 2 hours to nut it out across three sittings on Sunday. There were more than the usual number of terms and people that I did not know – CUSTOMS UNION, UNICORN (in that sense), BARNIER, SINGLE MARKET, IN REM, FREE TRADE HALL and AL AIN. There were others where the tricky definitions made life more harder – WEAR (current), CHANNEL (natural border when English), HIGH (getting off) and MAY (Brexit-seeking Remainer, so clever). Thought that the surface of 12 with the troublesome ‘backstop’ in the Brexit negotiations put into play without having anything to do with Brexit.
It’s good to see that the setters are starting to give some respect to Northern Ireland by clueing it more accurately with the 6 counties and not just loosely calling it Ulster. Must admit to not expecting HORN as the definition of ‘erection’ in my last clue in.
Another very fine crossword from Wanderer, who is perhaps the FT’s flagship.
I only wasn’t fully happy with the gateway clue at 8d (EUROPEAN UNION). Only with the clue, though, not the answer itself!
The clue gives us ‘eu’ while the answer is EU (or at least, if you split European & Union) gives us Eu. Sometimes, capitals do matter, in my opinion.
Many thanks to Turbolegs & Wanderer.
Thanks, Wanderer and Turbolegs. I found this difficult also. Many clues figured from crossers but not parsed and five I didn’t get at all. I was held up for a while on 24a – thought it was “fifth” (a libation bottle size and an interval) till I saw the hidden word. Clever!