Solid puzzle with good moments including a very pretty anagram and a spiffing &lit.
“It’s more fun” and “misfortune” make a nice pair and the ‘lamebrain’ &lit was neat. One can picture Slormgorm rubbing his hands as he came up with both. Many thanks to him.
| Across | ||
| 1 | DISOWN | Repudiate broadcast on dead Iranian leader (6) |
| D[ead] + I (1st of Iranian) + SOWN (PT, ‘broadcast’, ‘strewn’ of seeds &c). | ||
| 4 | PASS UP | Take no notice of idiot little dog bites (4,2) |
| P.UP around ASS. | ||
| 8 | ASSORTS | A song’s intro kind soprano arranges (7) |
| A + S (1st of ‘Songs’) + SORT (‘kind’) + S[oprano]. | ||
| 9 | MACABRE | Ghastly club visited by barbers regularly (7) |
| MAC.E (‘club’) surrounds alternate letters of ‘bArBeRs)’. | ||
| 11 | MISFORTUNE | It’s more fun to change bad luck (10) |
| Nice anagram (‘to change’) of ITS MORE FUN. | ||
| 12 | DEER | A buck? That’s pricey by the sound of it! (4) |
| Homophone of ‘dear’. | ||
| 13 | LARVA | Immature creature researcher finally found in rock (5) |
| LA.VA includes last letter of ‘researcheR’. | ||
| 14 | VENOMOUS | Very very fat shirking Republican leader is toxic (8) |
| V[ery] + ENOrMOUS (‘very fat’, minus R[epublican]). | ||
| 16 | AMORALLY | A flash political convention with no ethics? (8) |
| A + MO[ment] (‘flash) + RALLY (‘political convention’) | ||
| 18 | TRAPS | Little row over drinking first of red gins? (5) |
| SPAT (‘little row’), reversed, contains R (‘1st of Red’). | ||
| 20 | ABLE | Fit place to eat at if short of time (4) |
| tABLE minus T[ime]. | ||
| 21 | MONARCHIST | Playing it charms no Queen fan (10) |
| Anagram (‘playing’) of IT CHARMS. | ||
| 23 | CAMERAS | Snappers possibly found in river at times (7) |
| (River) CAM + ERAS. | ||
| 24 | COMMAND | Order of fish male servant tucks into (7) |
| CO.D surrounds M[ale] + MAN (coincidentally – or not – male ‘servant’). | ||
| 25 | NESBIT | One’s bitter about famous kid’s writer (6) |
| Inclusion (‘about’, i.e. ‘around’) in ‘oNES BITter’. (Edith) Nesbit, The Railway Children. | ||
| 26 | ASIDES | Assistants must withhold small, incidental remarks (6) |
| A.IDES (‘assistants’) around s[mall]. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | DASHI | Race to get last of Armani stock (5) |
| DASH + last of ‘armanI’. A seaweedy Japanese veg stock, from memory. | ||
| 2 | SCOFFER | One who mocks someone who eats greedily (7) |
| Double definition. | ||
| 3 | WATERFALL | A drop of Adam’s Ale? (9) |
| Cryptic def, Adam’s Ale = water (still ‘corporation pop’ in our house). | ||
| 5 | ADAGE | Proverb: all dogs are good eggs primarily (5) |
| 1st letters of words 2-6. | ||
| 6 | STARDOM | A famous state ministry informants set up (7) |
| Reversal of M[inistry] O[f] D[efence + RATS (‘informants’). | ||
| 7 | PARVENUES | Normal places to see female upstarts (9) |
| PAR (‘normal’) + VENUES (‘places to see’). | ||
| 10 | SURVEYING | Looking at very snug fits, I must be squeezed in! (9) |
| Anagram (‘fits’ i.e. has convulsions) of VERY SNUG includes ‘I’. | ||
| 13 | LAME BRAIN | Misbehaving male in bar could be one (9) |
| Anagram (‘misbehaving’) of MALE IN BAR &lit, & v. nice too. | ||
| 15 | NOTORIOUS | Widely known and bad attack I soon rout (9) |
| Anagram (‘attack’) of I SOON ROUT. | ||
| 17 | RIEVERS | Old robbers earl pushed into waterways (7) |
| RI.VERS includes E[arl]. | ||
| 19 | ASHAMED | Embarrassed when bad actor heads to exit drunk (7) |
| AS HAM + 1st letters of ‘Exit Drunk’. | ||
| 21 | MIAMI | Motorways orbiting a city abroad (5) |
| 2x M1 around ‘A’. | ||
| 22 | SENDS | Gets off ship to tour ruin (5) |
| S.S (‘ship’) surrounds END (‘ruin’). ‘Sends’ as in ‘Make sure he sends/gets off that letter’. | ||
*anagram
I liked LAME BRAIN too; very apt as it was my last in and I took ages to work out the anagram. I thought WATERFALL and the surface for AMORALLY were also very good.
“The Railway Children” – a classic for kids both young and very, very old. It was interesting that ‘IBSEN’ was also there as a reverse (‘about’) hidden.
I fully agree with the sentiments expressed in the wordplay for 5d.
Thanks to Slormgorm and Grant
Sorry, Slormgorm & GB, but in the Reiver Country where I come from (the Borderland) Reiver is spelt thus. I’ve never come across ‘Riever’. Doesn’t matter — a very fine crossword. Thanks to you both.
17d surprised me as well. I think it is just plain wrong. Only spellings I found were “reaver” and “reiver”.
Collins has: riever [?ri:v? noun, archaic] A robber or thief.
My Collins doesn’t but I shall certainly take your word for it.
Have to confess I put ‘rievers’ in without pause but, checking now, Chambers does give it.
GB Chambers is strange on this. I used my iPad app and, although it lists “riever” as an alternative to “reaver”, if you click on the link to “reaver” it only specifies the “reiver” spelling.
We are also Border Reivers. Sorry, we live here so we should know! It slowed us down getting able….
Thanks to Grant and Slormgorm
Some very nice clues.
In my experience Chambers often contradicts itself e.g:
In the free on-line cut down version, the only spelling of “carthorse” is unhyphenated. In the word wizard in the same app it is given only with a hyphen.
Just one example of many I’ve come across.
13d is a good clue but I don’t think it qualifies as an &lit – “could be one” takes no part in the wordplay.
Thanks Slormgorm and Grant
Just getting to one I missed whilst on holidays away from a printer (some old dudes must still have pen and paper, seemingly) ! Found it relatively straightforward although there were some pause to look up and check a few – PARVENUES (didn’t realise that they actually sexed these upstarts), RIEVERS (where the word play told me it was so … and had to check that it was – fortunately with Collins and their version of it) and DASHI (new word as well).
Did tick off LAMEBRAIN as cute when I went passed that.
Finished in the SW corner with that RIEVERS and CAMERAS (not sure why that held out for so long, probably cluing the device rather than the bod who was using it) as the last couple in.