April and it’s usual for people’s attention to turn to spring. Not this year. A puzzle from Tees to distract from the disaster unfolding throughout the planet.
A very pleasant diversion from Tees. Not overly difficult, but plenty of humour in the clue surfaces. And what exemplary surfaces they are. I did like 30ac, perhaps more so because I find most of Rice and Webber’s output hard to listen to. 23dn was masterfully original.
Many thanks Tees from the banks of the Tyne.
Key: underline definition; * anagram; DD double definition; Rev. Reversed.
Across
9 Haiti cops dressed in pale green (9)
(Haiti cops)* = PISTACHIO
10 U-boat moving around (5)
(Uboat)* = ABOUT
11 Skin layer pinched in powder magazine (5)
Hidden powDER MAgazine
12 Desperate to survive drop (4-5)
last (survive) + ditch (drop) = LAST DITCH
13 Attack unnamed Bahamian port officer (7)
Nassau (Bahamian port) – n (unnamed) + Lt (officer) = ASSAULT
14 Draw attention from cuts in European energy (7)
EE (European energy) around clips (cuts) = ECLIPSE
17 Down current unseen in Egyptian port (3)
Said (as in Port Said) – i (current) = SAD
19 Fault is mended in narrow pipe (7)
(Fault is)* = FISTULA
21 Woods monarch must leave to find game (3)
Tiger (as in Tiger Woods) – Er (Monarch) = TIG
22 Lover‘s note penned by one seeking divorce? (7)
parter (one seeking divorce) around n (note) = PARTNER
23 Very friendly alien seen in copse (7)
Thick (very friendly) + Et(aien) = THICKET
25 Selling rights his in continental country (9)
his in France (continental country) = FRANCHISE
27 Frozen for example returning to top (5)
Rev. eg (for example) + lid (top) = GELID
29 Farm animals slowly escape — hard to stop that (5)
seep (slwly escape) around h (hard) = SHEEP
30 Musical by Rice one knocked back as unoriginal (9)
Rev. Evita (Musical) + Tim (Rice) + i (one) = IMITATIVE
DOWN
1 Small and sweet: that’s Murphy (4)
s (small) + pud (sweet) = SPUD
2 Old man respected is ruler restored (6)
o (old) + sir (man respected) + is = OSIRIS
3 Urchin and fish served up with a cake (10)
Rev, Gar(fish) + a + muffin (cake) = RAGAMUFFIN
4 Talk about the French in Swiss Cottage? (6)
Chat (talk) about le (the French) = CHALET
5 Writer doing philosophy the French way so to speak (8)
Homonym of Rue (French way) + so = ROUSSEAU
6 Almost entirely lecherous American writer (4)
randy (lecherus) – y = RAND
7 Yielding second prize showing fondness (4,4)
soft (yielding) + s (second) + pot (prize) = SOFT SPOT
8 Sorceress losing head causes irritation (4)
witch (sorceress) – w = ITCH
13 Fabulist initially adopted revolutionary attitude (5)
a (initially adopted) + Rev. pose (attitude) = AESOP
15 Hero old flame accepting a ring (7,3)
leman (old flame) around a + ding (ring) = LEADING MAN
16 Maybe stone wife shed to reveal figure? (5)
weight (maybe stone) – w (wife) = EIGHT
18 Unenlightened period without Sun and Times? (4,4)
dark (without Sun) + ages (times) = DARK AGES
20 Siren’s beginning song with noise in island (8)
s (siren’s beginning) + aria (song) around din (noise) = SARDINIA
23 Which letter is doubled in dissertation? (6)
There are 2 s’s in dissertation s the answer is The ‘S’ is = THESIS
24 Water sprite that is lurking under seaweed (6)
Kelp (seaweed) + ie (that is) = KELPIE
25 Large having consumed seconds: restrict diet (4)
fat (large) around s (seconds) = FAST
26 Lord who ran to seize power deal (4)
Coe (Lord who ran) around p (power) = COPE
28 Sea bass (4)
DD DEEP
What a delight! Tees at his absolute best I thought. Not the hardest of setters but more than makes up for that in ingenuity, surface construction and humour. Loved it, especially the wonderful THESIS clue.
Thanks to Tees and twencelas.
Excellent, though I put unparsed Tag at 21A becuae I didn’t know Tig and didn’t think of Tiger Woods. Not sure about Osiris: I know the story of revival after being cut into pieces, but I thought he was a god, not a pharaoh/ruler. Thanks Tees and Twencelas.
A proper treat – thank you very much Tees Hovis’s second sentence sums it up nicely – I didn’t know the American writer but the wordplay was very helpful, it couldn’t have been anything else.
Thanks also to Twencelas
Tatrasman @2 – this is the second appearance of TIG the game this week – only in crosswordland of course in these social-distancing times
An enjoyable solve, with some nice penny-drop moments along the way. LOI was RAND; it had to be from clue and crossing letters but we had to google for confirmation that there was a writer of that name.
Favourite was THESIS.
Thanks, Tees and Twencelas.
Very entertaining stuff, LOI was the brilliant THESIS. Also admired IMITATIVE and FRANCHISE among others.
5D there is no homonym; nor, in my book, is the “Rou” in Rousseau, which is decidedly not pronounced as the French “rue”, a homophone (though “sseau” is fine for “so”).
Thanks To Tees and twencelas.
A short but very sweet solve. Particularly liked EIGHT and IMITATIVE. Thanks all.
I got stuck with a couple and had to cheat a bit. I was sure there wasn’t a superhero called LEARING MAN but I had to check. And I’m annoyed about FISTULA. When I was a teenager I absolutely loved Isaac Asimov’s novelisation of the film Fantastic Voyage, a medical fistula played a part in the plot, a direct connection between a vein and an artery caused by an injury in that case.
RAND I had heard of. Many American science fiction fans are Libertarians who treat her as a god.
a joy, many thanks Tees (& twencelas)
I remember when reading Atlas Shrugged & The Fountainhead as a teenager that I was impressed that Rand’s heroes always studied Physics and Philosophy. To this day that strikes me as a pretty good combination, and it may well have helped form my art=science and science=art views.
Thanks all, esp twencelas. Most kind.