This was easily the toughest Beelzebub I can remember having come across. A first, unaided session yielded only three or four answers. Reinforcements were called in, and the remainder of the puzzle took two of us several hours. In a couple of places, entries seem to differ from anything I could find in Chambers, but I may simply not have been looking hard enough.
*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, cd=cryptic definition, dd=double definition.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | CRACKSMAN – SMACK* in CRAN. |
| 7 | AWK – AWK[ward]. I use Awk fairly regularly, so should have got this a lot sooner. The clue prompted some debate as to whether Awk is really a language per se. Chambers says it is though, and we eventually reached a consensus that it is indeed “quite languagey”. |
| 10 | HALLUCINOGEN – (UNHINGE LOCAL)*. |
| 11 | ANOA – AN OA[p]. |
| 13 | PROBE – PROB[lem] + E. |
| 14 | SUN DANCE – NC in SUNDAE. |
| 16 | EMESIS – [vehicl]E + ME + SIS. |
| 17 | SCHLIEMANN – MAN in LICHENS*. Heinrich Schliemann. |
| 18 | HODGEPODGE – HODGE + PODGE. |
| 20 | ELUTOR – (ROT ULE)<. |
| 23 | IATRICAL – 1 + (C in A TRIAL). We were slowed by not finding this in Chambers, though “-iatric” is there as an “adjective combining form”. |
| 24 | ISLET – I + (L in SET). |
| 25 | NAPA – NAP + A. |
| 27 | SEISMOGRAPHS – (1 SMOG) in PHRASES*. |
| 28 | EST – dd., the timezone being Eastern Standard Time. |
| 29 | SARVODAYA – (ARVO + DAY) in SA. |
| Down | |
| 1 | CHA – CHA[d]. Mr. Chad was the “wot no…” character with the large hooter who liked to peer over walls. I must admit I wasn’t aware of his wartime origins – he was still quite commonplace in my very early childhood days, perhaps as late as the early 80s. |
| 2 | RANUNCULUSES – R[oses] + A NUN + CUL[t] + USES. |
| 3 | ALONG – ALON[e] + G. |
| 4 | KUMARI – KUMAR[a] + [gnocch]I. |
| 5 | MINCEMEATS – lovely reverse cryptic, MEATS* being STEAM. |
| 6 | NORTEÑOS – RTÉ in NO-NOS. |
| 7 | AGOG – AG + GO[ld]<. |
| 8 | WEBLIOGRAPHY – (HOW I + P[repare] + BY + LARGE)*. |
| 9 | KNEE SWELL – K + SEEN< + WELL. This seems to be hyphenated in my Chambers, while the clue specifies two words. |
| 12 | INTEGRATOR – GRANITE* + TOR. |
| 14 | SYSTEMISE – (STEM + 1’S) in SYE . |
| 15 | PLOTLESS – (SETS POLL)*. |
| 19 | PER PRO – PERP + RO. |
| 21 | SCAPA – S + APAC[e]<. Alt. spelling of “scarper”. |
| 22 | ALIT – 1 in ALT. |
| 26 | ASA – A + SA. |