A mostly straightforward challenge from NEO today, a quick solve thwarted only by a couple of uncommon words. Thanks NEO.
FF: 7 DD: 6
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | FINISHING SCHOOL | Eating up some fish, females here instructed (9,6) |
| FINISHING (eating up) SCHOOL (some fish) | ||
| 9 | ROSSINI | Chaplain is sorry as holding composer back (7) |
| hidden reversed in “..chaplaIN IS SORry..” | ||
| 10 | IDIOTIC | Nuts, as linguistic expression, puts mother out (7) |
| IDIOmaTIC ( linguistic expression, without MA – mother ) | ||
| 11 | HEELS | Rotter succeeded in high shoes (5) |
| HEEL (rotter) S (Succeeded) | ||
| 12 | HISTORIAN | Adapted to an Irish Herodotus (9) |
| [ TO AN IRISH ]* | ||
| 13 | TITHE BARN | Two birds secure inside old building (5,4) |
| [ TIT HEN (two birds) ] containing BAR ( secure ) | ||
| 15 | NEEDS | Can’t do without Tyneside newsmen? (5) |
| NE (tyneside, North East england) EDS (newsmen, editors) | ||
| 16 | MOSES | Liberator frees fifty as from thick treacle (5) |
| MOlasSES [thick treacle without L (50, roman numerals) AS ] | ||
| 18 | HAILSTORM | Greetings to Royal Marines – violent shower? (9) |
| HAILS (greetings) TO RM (Royal Marines) | ||
| 20 | BEAU MONDE | Suitor with style enthralling new society types (4-5) |
| BEAU (suitor) [ MODE (style) containing N (new) ] | ||
| 23 | ATE IN | Finding energy in a can, dined at home (3,2) |
| E (energy) in A TIN (can) | ||
| 24 | IMMERSE | Plunge in Mersey cut short after one minute (7) |
| I (one) M (minute) MERSEy (cut short) | ||
| 25 | DOGCART | Carrier taking feline across river tail first (7) |
| DOG (tail) [ CAT (feline) containing R (river) ] | ||
| 26 | GENTLEMAN FARMER | Occupation for man of good breeding? (9,6) |
| cryptic def | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | FOR THE TIME BEING | Breaking free, I might not be currently (3,3,4,5) |
| [ FREE I MIGHT NOT BE ]* | ||
| 2 | NASCENT | Just beginning new climb (7) |
| N (new) ASCENT (climb) | ||
| 3 | SPINSTERS | As women they were never matched (9) |
| (not so) cryptic def | ||
| 4 | IRISH | One Murdoch hailing originally from Dublin (5) |
| IRIS (murdoch, irish novelist) H (Hailing, originally) | ||
| 5 | GLISSANDI | Moves perhaps from A to B without stopping? (9) |
| cryptic def; refers to sliding finger along keyboard with the clue referring to musical notes, new word for me. | ||
| 6 | CAIRO | Carbon monoxide with breathable gases inhaled in city (5) |
| AIR (breathable gases) in CO (carbon monoxide) | ||
| 7 | OUTLINE | Public calling for schematic plan (7) |
| OUT (public) LINE ( calling ) | ||
| 8 | LOCH NESS MONSTER | Apparition left Scots horsemen rattled as knight invades (4,4,7) |
| L (left) { [ SCOTS HORSEMEN ]* containing N (night) } | ||
| 14 | ATHENAEUM | Club menu the AA changed (9) |
| [ MENU THE AA ]* | ||
| 15 | NOSTALGIA | Giant also upset in homesickness (9) |
| [ GIANT ALSO ]* | ||
| 17 | SWAGMAN | Drifter catches wave in southern isle (7) |
| WAG (wave) in [ S (southern) MAN (isle) ] | ||
| 19 | OVERARM | Delivery where one might find furled umbrella? (7) |
| cryptic def, referring to the game of cricket | ||
| 21 | MURAL | Picture motorway over Russian river? (5) |
| M (motorway) URAL ( russian river ) | ||
| 22 | END ON | Head from London suburb — or edge towards one? (3,2) |
| hEND ON (london suburb, without starting letter) | ||
Did this with one eye on the US Open. Like football, tennis is a strange beast without the crowds. Alas for Andy Murray, it was a one-sided affair so I soon returned to this teasing grid from Neo.
Took an age to discover the reversed hidden clue for the composer at 9ac and kept thinking Rosetti till SPINSTERS came along (glad to see the past tense in that clue!)
A number of good clues here of which my favourite was 8d. MOSES, IDIOTIC and GLISSANDI were others I enjoyed. 26ac didn’t seem so cryptic either.
Got stuck in the SE corner finally trying to understand 22d and so was outfoxed by the wily DOGCART. Though ‘cat’ and ‘F’ were at the back of my mind, I was too busy trying to fit in ‘tiger’.
Thanks to Neo and Turbolegs for the clear blog.
Thanks for the blog, Turbolegs.
I enjoyed this puzzle a lot. Some super clues – my favourites were 12ac HISTORIAN (doesn’t it need a question mark, as dbe?), 4dn IRISH (not sure about the need for ‘one’ – without it, it would definitely be &lit: she did!) 5dn GLISSANDI, 6dn CAIRO and 15dn NOSTALGIA.
Many thanks to Neo.
I don’t know if ‘(were) instructed’ to indicate the past tense, was understood for 1a, as opposed to being made explicit in the gender-related 3d, as pointed out by Diane B@1. Surely such places don’t exist any more. Or do they?
I enjoyed a few less than common words/terms such as TITHE BARN and BEAU-MONDE and some of the trickier parsing as in DOGCART. I did remember GLISSANDI from past appearances, but have learnt (and will most likely promptly forget) that ‘Herodotus’ was an HISTORIAN.
Thanks to Neo and Turbolegs.
That’s an interesting point you make, Wordplodder @3. Hopefully not!
What Eileen said.
My lack of GK — SWAGMAN, DOGCART, TITHE BARN, and BEAU MONDE — made this a DNF but I enjoyed IDIOTIC, HISTORIAN, and MOSES in particular. I could not parse OVERARM but I can parse little that uses cricket. Thanks to both.
@Turbolegs: I wonder how you solved 5d without knowing the meaning. There was no wordplay to help! I was stuck at this and then just gave up and checked the solution here at 225. SWAGMAN was also unknown to me, but guessing and googling did it 🙂
Astridian @7 – re 5dn: you might well be happier with Neo’s clue (with his Tees hat on) in the Indy, a year ago practically almost to the day:
What in music can be represented as sliding? (9)
Thanks Neo and Turbolegs
A crisply clued puzzle which I thoroughly enjoyed getting to yesterday. It didn’t take as long as usual to complete but still there were many times when real satisfaction happened as the answer dawned, especially with the long perimeter clues.
SWAGMAN didn’t take as long as it probably would have for British solvers, as it, and the more common SWAGGIE, were used frequently when I was growing up – they were originally men walking around the country, carrying their belongings, looking for work after the Great Depression, makes one wonder if this will ever be repeated post-COVID.
Finished in the SW corner with that SWAGMAN, BEAU MONDE (which was harder than it should have been) and END ON (with the unknown London suburb) the last few in.