Typical Hamilton offering with a few iffy-looking constructs but a lot of fun.
I used to get a bit huffy with H’s devil-may-care approach to The Great Game but now I cut him a bit of slack because he is always amusing. Thanks to him once more.
(P.S. I did wonder, looking at the second row across, whether he might have been having a few delivery problems recently…)
| Across | ||
| 1 | THINGAMY | Girl is attached to it but what’s its name! (8) |
| AMY after THING (‘it’). A little close, perhaps. | ||
| 5 | LIBIDO | Urge party to give consent (6) |
| LIB[eral] ‘party’ + I DO (said when ‘giving consent’). | ||
| 8 | See 12 | |
| 9 | BADCOMPANY | Seventies rock band no-one should be seen with (3,7) |
| Double def. BC were a popular beat combo whose hits included “Can’t Get Enough (of your Love)”. | ||
| 10 | PERFECTO | Cigar producing a flawless smoke ring (8) |
| PERFECT + O (‘ring’ smoky or otherwise). | ||
| 11 | OFFING | Don’t start undressing until some future time (6) |
| dOFFING (‘undressing’ without start letter). As in ‘change is in the offing’, although I can’t find an exact substitution. | ||
| 12 ,8 | TURN-UPS | Surprises that come with some trousers! (4-3) |
| Double def. | ||
| 14 | DELINEATED | Described badly; need detail (10) |
| Anagram (‘badly’) of NEED DETAIL. | ||
| 17 | DEBASEMENT | Specks of dirt everywhere below stairs; it’s a disgrace (10) |
| 1st letters of ‘Dirt Everywhere’ + BASEMENT (‘below stairs’). | ||
| 20, 26 | TOSS OUT | Cast of sots? (4,3) |
| Reverse anagram: TOSS might be clued as ‘sots out’. I had this as TOSS POT at first, which admittedly doesn’t quite work, but one never knows with Hamilton. | ||
| 23 | ICE BAG | Two reserves for the cooler (3,3) |
| ICE + BAG, both meaning ‘reserve’ (2nd as in bagging, say, a deck-chair). | ||
| 24 | DE GAULLE | 40% of delegation toured his old country to find president (2,6) |
| DE.LE(gation) (1st 4 of 10 letters) includes GAUL (old name for France). | ||
| 25 | STENOTYPES | Old word processors having misleading notes on models (10) |
| Anagram (‘misleading’) of NOTES + TYPES (‘models’). As used by stenographers in Amercan court-rooms. | ||
| 26 | See 20 | |
| 27 | FRIDAY | The guy you need when assistance is required one day (6) |
| Man Friday from Robinson Crusoe, of course. | ||
| 28 | GRANDEUR | Under a new regime, monarch is without splendour (8) |
| Anagram (‘new regime’) of UNDER A, surrounded by GR (King George, old ‘monarch’). | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | TRUMPETED | Not fully entertained when president first proclaimed (9) |
| President TRUMP first, then fETED (incomplete ‘entertained’). | ||
| 2 | INSURER | Irish admit new nurse who provides security (7) |
| IR[ish] around anagram (‘new’) of NURSE. | ||
| 3 | GIBBET | Put up large wager on where old felon’s last station may be (6) |
| BIG reversed + BET. | ||
| 4 | MIDSTREAM | Timers attached to dam repositioned away from the banks (9) |
| Anagram (‘repositioned’) of TIMERS + DAM. | ||
| 5 | LAMPOON | A politician gripped by crazy parody (7) |
| A + MP in LOON (a ‘crazy’). | ||
| 6 | BEANFEAST | Annual dinner to appeal most to vegans? (9) |
| Cryptic definition. | ||
| 7 | DOYENNE | Romantic poet accepting the old leading lady (7) |
| (Jonn) DO.NNE includes YE (old form of ‘the’). | ||
| 13 | NAAN BREAD | Band earn a fresh side order (4,5) |
| Anagram (‘fresh’) of BAND EARN A. | ||
| 15 | INNKEEPER | Essential job description for Winnie! (9) |
| ‘wINNie’ might be said to be ‘keeping’ the letters of INN. The ‘essential’ looks to have wandered a bit, but heigh-ho. | ||
| 16 | DISSENTER | Protestor will infiltrate Norfolk town first (9) |
| DISS (‘Norfolk town’) before ENTER (‘infiltrate’). | ||
| 18 | EXCUSER | He absolves ten in rescue tragedy (7) |
| X (10) in anagram (‘tragedy’) of RESCUE. | ||
| 19 | EGG COSY | What keeps the place warm before soldiers enter? (3,4) |
| Whole-clue cryptic, ‘soldiers’ being the toast dippers. Haven’t seen an egg-cosy in years. ‘Place’ being a table-setting. I suppose. | ||
| 21 | ONLY ONE | The last is just United (4,3) |
| ONLY (‘just’) + ONE (‘united’). As in, perhaps, The Last of the Mohicans. And, appropriately, my last in, but only because of the ‘tosspot’ debacle. | ||
| 22 | PARSON | Individual given new second calling (6) |
| PeRSON (‘individual’) with ‘new second’ letter. | ||
*anagram
Donne a romantic poet? Metaphysical surely?
To Steven:
Metaphysical sointinly but ‘Busy Old Sun’ will do until a romantic poem comes along.
This one was harder than Brummie over there.COD 1d.
Very hard for me
Thanks Hamilton and Grant
Found this quite tough going, taking 4-5 sessions across a couple of days – a combination of tricky definitions and tricky wordplay.
Liked clues such as DE GAULLE and TRUMPETED. Others like ONLY ONE were a bit obscure.
Finished with BEANFEAST (which I hadn’t seen for a while), OFFING (tricky word play) and PARSON (which took about the quarter of the solve time to finally understand).