A very nice puzzle I thought. Thank you Tees.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | HARDPAN | Tricky to wash gravel through subsoil layer (7) |
| HARD (tricky) PAN (to wash gravel through) | ||
| 5 | ANAGRAM | Gelding niggled by this horse a sheep defends (7) |
| NAG (sheep) inside (that…defends) A RAM (sheep) – definition by example | ||
| 9 | RESAW | Swear outrageously being cut again (5) |
| anagram (outrageously) of SWEAR | ||
| 10 | PROBATION | Testing time for son escaping stronghold (9) |
| PRO (for) then BAsTION (stronghold) missing S (son) | ||
| 11 | IMMORALITY | Staying alive but losing heart is wrong behaviour (10) |
| IMMORtALITY (staying alive) missing middle letter (heart) | ||
| 12 | ALAS | Sadly Liberal placed in sober group ultimately drinks (4) |
| L (Liberal) inside AA (Alcoholics Anonymous, sober group) then drinkS (last letter, ultimately) | ||
| 14 | LABOUR PARTY | Work hard, play hard in purportedly socialist group (6,5) |
| LABOUR (work hard) PARTY (play hard) | ||
| 18 | GIN AND TONIC | Jar containing drunkard’s ultimate drink (3,3,5) |
| anagram (jar, disturb) of CONTAINING with drunkarD (last letter, ultimate) | ||
| 21 | SPRY | Quick look across river (4) |
| SPY (look) contains (across) R (river) | ||
| 22 | INTERLEAVE | One never let a loony put in blank pages (10) |
| I (one) then anagram (loony) of NEVER LET A | ||
| 25 | EXPLOSIVE | Fiery old flame has power: love is renewed (9) |
| EX (old flame) then anagram (renewed) of P (power) LOVE IS | ||
| 26 | PLATE | Silver penny no longer in circulation? (5) |
| P (penny) LATE (no longer in circulation, dead) | ||
| 27 | LUDDITE | Rum diluted for machine-wrecker (7) |
| anagram (rum, in an odd way) of DILUTED | ||
| 28 | THERAPY | Cut reversed during solver’s treatment (7) |
| PARE (cut) reversed inside THY (the solver’s) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | See 19 | |
| 2 | RESUME | Continue to suppose parking unavailable? (6) |
| pRESUME (suppose) missing P (parking) | ||
| 3 | POWER PLANT | Juice producer mountain climbing in rocky Newport (5,5) |
| ALP (mountain) reversed (climbing) in anagram (rocky) of NEWPORT | ||
| 4 | NEPAL | Page in Cassady perhaps reveals republic (5) |
| P (page) inside NEAL (Neal Cassady perhaps, beat generation chappie) | ||
| 5 | ABOUT-TURN | On roll call for military revolution (5-4) |
| ABOUT (on) TURN (roll) | ||
| 6 | AJAR | King on the rise and partly open (4) |
| RAJA (king) reversed (on the rise, in a down-light) | ||
| 7 | RAILLERY | Bookless characters felt line should be banter (8) |
| bRAILLE (lines felt, by the fingers) missing B (book-less) and RY (railway, line) | ||
| 8 | MIND’S EYE | Imagination Disney transformed in me (5,3) |
| anagram (transformed) of DISNEY inside ME | ||
| 13 | APOCALYPSE | Short ballad a mysterious writer pens is revelation (10) |
| CALYPSo (ballad, short) inside (that…pens) A POE (mystery writer) | ||
| 15 | BETE NOIRE | Wager Ireland should brook no abomination (4,5) |
| BET (wager) EIRE (Ireland) contains (should brook, to bear) NO | ||
| 16 | EGGSHELL | Finish Spurs nightmare (8) |
| EGGS (spurs) HELL (nightmare) – a paint finish, as opposed to gloss or matt | ||
| 17 | INTREPID | Bold print splashed across English papers (8) |
| anagram (splashed) of PRINT contains (across) E (English) then ID (papers) | ||
| 19/1 | KAMALA HARRIS | Karma has liar beaten: here’s elected female (6,6) |
| anagram (beaten) of KAMALA HARRIS – Vice President Elect of the United States | ||
| 20 | VENERY | Looking for it, but dead round Tyneside region (6) |
| VERY (dead) contains (round) NE (Tyneside region) – the pursuit of sexual gratification | ||
| 23 | EVENT | Magnate at last opening show (5) |
| magnatE (last letter of) then VENT (opening) | ||
| 24 | LOKI | Mischievous god restrained in conversation (4) |
| sounds like (in conversation) of “low key” (restrained) | ||
I’m still liking them more than I used to,GIN AND TONIC and APOCALYPSE were nicely worked.
VENERY came from the clue-not familiar with the word which almost sounds as if it comes with a warning
Thanks PeeDee and Tees
Another fine Sunday puzzle from Tees – my favourite was 5d
Thanks to him and PeeDee
Found this harder than usual for Tees, and DNF as I entered unparsed ‘sere’ at 21A – very silly not to think of ‘spry’. Otherwise much enjoyed so thanks Tees and PeeDee.
Took longer than the usual Sunday with a few breaks required along the way. I ended up missing LOKI which seems a bit of an iffy homophone; I may well be wrong but I thought the stress was on the first syllable for the ‘Mischievous god’ but not for ‘low-key’.
Anyway two new words in VENERY and HARDPAN. Plenty of clues I liked, including the ‘drunkard’s ultimate drink’, the ‘call for military revolution’ def. and especially the ‘Gelding niggled by this’ ANAGRAM.
Thanks to Tees and PeeDee
Another very enjoyable experience with Tees. Beaten by VENERY which was a dnk and I didn’t see the dead=very trick – which I’ve missed before! Grrr! Several clues that were a real delight to figure out including HARDPAN, INTERLEAVE, POWER PLANT and EGGSHELL. APOCALYPSE was very cleverly done and I share the appreciation for ABOUT TURN. RAILLERY, though, is my favourite today for that delightful use of Braille. LOKI was one I filled in from the crossers without parsing I’m ashamed to say but I think it works as a homophone (and do any of us know exactly how the ancient Norse pronounced it?). The definition of LABOUR PARTY brought a wry smile.
Tatrasman @3: you weren’t the only one to enter SERE. I knew it meant dry rather than quick but I often discover unusual meanings for common words in crosswords and wrongly assumed I was about to learn another.
Thanks Tees and PeeDee
Unusually for me I whizzed through it. Not often I manage a Tees in one go. LOKI was a facepalm moment, I tend to think of Greek and Roman gods in Cryptics. VENERY was a favourite. Clever stuff.
Thanks to Tees and PeeDee
Another lovely puzzle from Tees.
VENERY was a new word for me but I did manage to work it out and I’m quite happy with the homophone @24dn – it was one of my favourites.
Ticks, too, for ANAGRAM, GIN AND TONIC, LUDDITE, POWER PLANT, RAILLERY, INTREPID, APOCALYPSE – all for surface, definition and / or construction, Double ticks for KAMALA HARRIS for all three.
Many thanks to Tees for a highly enjoyable puzzle and to PeeDee for the blog.
Thanks PeeDee for the parsing of GIN AND TONIC which we missed completely. VENERY was our LOI which was a bit of a guess so we were pleased to find that it was correct. We ended up looking for synonyms for restrained and then (like ScottieJan) kicked ourselves when we realised the god was LOKI.Thanks Tees for today’s amusement.
Another SERE here.