Very Entertaining, and a good level of difficulty for the IoS. Thank you Hypnos.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | RULE |
Enticement to switch directions in government (4)
|
| LURE (enticement) with L and R (left and right, directions) switched – LURE is also a possible answer, but does not fit the crossers | ||
| 3 | LUMBERJACK |
Burden put on Jill’s partner, one in the logging industry (10)
|
| LUMBER (to burden) with JACK (Jill’s partner) | ||
| 10 | BASSIST |
Book to support one wielding an axe? (7)
|
| B (book) ASSIT (to support) – an axe is an electric guitar | ||
| 11 | REDFORD |
US actor embarrassed beside US film director (7)
|
| RED (embarrassed) with FORD (John Ford, US film director) – Robert Redford, though there are other less famous Redfords too | ||
| 12 | EAGLE |
Some traverse a glen to see bird of prey (5)
|
| found inside traversE A GLEn | ||
| 13 | REAPPEAR |
Gather before conference, maybe, to show up again (8)
|
| REAP (gather) then PEAR (a Conference pear maybe) | ||
| 16 | BRAISE |
Two cups I notice shortly for stew (6)
|
| BRA (something that consists of two cups) I SEe (notice, shortly) | ||
| 17 | WOLF DOWN |
Eagerly devour US novelist, we hear, away from college (4,4)
|
| WOLF sounds like (we hear) “Wolfe” (Tom Wolfe, American novelist) and DOWN (away from college) | ||
| 19 | NORMALLY |
Number right to be taken by Frenchman with friend in the usual fashion (8)
|
| NO (No. number) R (right) with (to be taken by) M (monsieur, a Frenchman) and ALLY (friend) | ||
| 21 | APOLLO |
A head linked to old US space programme (6)
|
| A POLL (head) and O (old) | ||
| 24 | WALKOVER |
Pedestrian exercise completed in easy victory (8)
|
| WALK (pedestrian exercise) and OVER (completed) | ||
| 25 | SURGE |
Source of spectators’ impulse to create powerful rush (5)
|
| Spectators (first letter, source of) and URGE (impulse) | ||
| 27 | AGITATO |
A cottage’s interior I renovated in a restless fashion (7)
|
| anagram (renovated) of I cOTTAGe (interior of) and I | ||
| 29 | TORPEDO |
Explosive charge shown by Australian swimmer after leaving hotel party (7)
|
| ThORPE (Ian Thorpe, Australian swimmer) missing H (hotel) then DO (party) | ||
| 30 | ON THE BLINK |
Ninth bloke needs sacking, not reliably working (2,3,5)
|
| anagram (needs sacking) of NINTH BLOKE | ||
| 31 | EYOT |
Defy youth at regular intervals in small island (4)
|
| every other letter (at reular intervals) of dEfY yOuTh | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | RUBBER BAND |
Group supporting bridge game has flimsy piece of stationery (6,4)
|
| BAND (group) following (supporting) RUBBER (a game of Bridge) | ||
| 2 | LASAGNA |
Italian dish showing a decline in Latin and North America (7)
|
| SAG (decline) inside LA (Latin) and NA (North America) | ||
| 4 | UPTURN |
Posh prince before performance shows sign of improvement (6)
|
| U (posh) P (prince) then TURN (performance) | ||
| 5 | BARBADOS |
Drinking haunt attended by awful sailor in holiday destination (8)
|
| BAR (drinking haunt) with BAD (awful) OS (Ordinary Seaman, sailor) | ||
| 6 | RID |
Free characters stuck in Bridlington (3)
|
| found inside (characters stuck in) bRIDlington | ||
| 7 | AVOCADO |
A largely noisy director with love for green food (7)
|
| A VOCAL (noisy, missing last letter) D (director) with O (love) | ||
| 8 | KIDS |
Slide, first to last, for children (4)
|
| SKID (slide) with first letter moved to last place | ||
| 9 | TIGER SHARK |
Danger for surfers? Gather risk has to be reviewed (5,5)
|
| anagram (has to be reviewed) of GATHER RISK | ||
| 14 | PUFF PASTRY |
Plug by old railway for baked item (4,6)
|
| PUFF (plug) with PAST (old) RY (railway) | ||
| 15 | IN SOME SORT |
Senior most in trouble, as it were (2,4,4)
|
| anagram (in trouble) of SENIOR MOST | ||
| 18 | OLIVE OIL |
Chef right away on counter dropping fine liquid (5,3)
|
| OLIVEr (Jamie Oliver, chef) missing R (right) then fOIL (counter) missing F (fine) | ||
| 20 | REALIST |
Unsentimental type about a set of items (7)
|
| RE (about, concerning) A LIST (set of items) | ||
| 22 | LARCENY |
Crime nearly out of control around Cuba (7)
|
| anagram (out of control) of NEARLY contains (around) C (Cuba) | ||
| 23 | CRETAN |
Portion of land missing a sign of sun for Mediterranean resident (6)
|
| aCRE (portion of land) missing A then TAN (sign of sun) | ||
| 26 | TACO |
Firm after sign of appreciation supplies Mexican food (4)
|
| CO (company, firm) following TA (thanks, sign of appreciation) | ||
| 28 | ACE |
Expert type of service (3)
|
| double definition |
Pleasant solve.. not too much trickery.. altho enjoyed the misdirection of AXE in 10ac…
Thanks Hypnos n Peedee
YES! First one ever (and I started in December) completed with no need for reveal letter or google (I took a bit of a flyer on BRAISE based on the clue and the crossers, excellent use of two-cups) and agree with Undrell @1 that 10ac was clever and was my last one that I just stared at until it appeared! (I was trying to think of a biblical book for much of it)
I suspect most contributors solve them on a regular basis – but this has cheered me up for the day!
Thanks to Hypnos for the great puzzle
Thanks to PeeDee for the excellent blog and filling in the gaps
Thanks to all bloggers and all contributors on FifteenSquared because without you I would have never learned all the skills to complete the puzzle
Off for a celebratory dog walk!
Congrats Tombsy on your achievement (sounds like less of a test for Undrell); I was beaten by BASSIST – simply couldn’t see it and never made the axe connection. I guess I think of lead guitarists as the archetypal axemen but then one thinks of Lemmy from Motorhead and, yep, he wielded an axe and there are plenty more where he came from. So no complaints.
1ac can be justified either way round so, of course, I confused myself at the beginning by plumping for the wrong option. Once that was sorted, a steady solve until that final downfall. I liked BRAISE, TORPEDO, RUBBER BAND, BARBADOS and CRETAN. I’m less familiar with the equation of ‘as it were’ and ‘IN SOME SORT’.
Ah, that’s interesting – Live News Update having just re-read PeeDee’s blog: I was defeated by OLIVE OIL too! I had entered CLOVE OIL with the first word as a bung and shrug to be revisited later which I then forgot to do! It must have corrected when I checked all at the end and I didn’t notice the alteration of the two unchecked letters. Bah!
Thanks Hypnos and PeeDee – who has bee very busy this weekend.
Congratulations to Tombsy from me too
A very enjoyable crossword – thanks to Hypnos and PeeDee
Very nice – light but good fun.
I have never heard of the expression IN SOME SORT but it couldn’t very well have been anything else.
Many thanks to Hypnos and to PeeDee, and congratulations to Tombsy.
A gentle Sunday solve, thanks Hypnos and PeeDee. I was held up a little at 15D, as I had never heard ‘in some sort’ before (‘of some sort’, yes) but it had to be that and I shall remember it for future use.
Thoroughly enjoyed this solve. Not too taxing but enough to get the grey matter going.
Thanks Hypnos and PeeDee.
Congratulations Tomsby! Well done.
Fortunately, I remembered the axe man but have to admit that I haven’t previously come across 15d and I did also have to check up on the Australian swimmer.
PUFF PASTRY was my smile of the day.
Thanks to the twinkly-eyed one and to PD for the review.
Jane @9. The useless fact that has stuck in my mind about Ian Thorpe is his shoe size – 17! It must have given him quite an advantage having natural flippers permanently attached to his feet!
Rabbit Dave @10. Good grief, he must have to get his shoes specially made!
He was also commonly known as the “Thorpedo”, which possibly adds another layer to the clue.
Thanks to PeeDee and Hypnos
An enjoyable solve today. I raced through about half the answers then slowed down, and unlike @Tombsy I’ve still not managed an Independent without use of reveal, but was closer than usual today. (And I’ll get there someday!)
I felt like kicking myself for forgetting axe = guitar making 10A and 4D my LOIs , assumed at first 30 across ended with the more american FRITZ and made a few other errors but overall liked the cluing.
Nice and relatively easy. Both larceny and lasagna spelt with an “a” seem like US terms to me, but I guess they are used here too. But using Tom rather than Virginia for the wolf homophone makes me think there is indeed a US influence. “In some sort” new to me too.
Went in remarkably easily. I’d been doing the Azed all evening and I’d hit a roadblock. So I went and made a cup of coffee and had a look at this. Since my stay in hospital, I’ve not been solving as well as I used to, but I finished this in about 20 minutes.
Sheepish @13 – the day will come! Keep plugging away (Note I suspect normal service for me will be resumed)
Thanks everyone for the congrats 😉