A fun challenge from BUCCANEER to round up the week.
FF: 9 DD: 8
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | ROBOCOP |
Film lawman from Britain in little jumper with collar (7)
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[ B ( britain ) in ROO ( little jumper, kangaroo ) ] COP ( collar ) |
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| 5 | BETROTH |
Promise to marry Liz, eating rhubarb (7)
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BETH ( liz, elizabeth ) containing ROT ( rhubarb ) |
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| 9 | THRUM |
Drone in personnel engaged by corporation (5)
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HR ( personnel, human resources ) in TUM ( corporation ) |
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| 10 | OUTDOORSY |
Keen on leaving home, stood your ground (9)
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[ STOOD YOUR ]* |
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| 11 | PREDATORY |
Exploiting weakness of leftie, a rightist’s after power (9)
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P ( power ) RED ( leftie ) A TORY ( rightist ) |
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| 12 | LASSI |
Heroic canine wanting energy drink (5)
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LASSIe ( heroic canine, without E – energy ) |
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| 13 | WORKING CAPITAL |
Disagreement about leader with great assets (7,7)
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WOR ( disagreement = ROW, reversed ) KING ( leader ) CAPITAL ( great ) |
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| 18 | CHARLIE CHAPLIN |
Guy on cocaine given line, popular film star (7,7)
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CHARLIE ( cocaine ) CHAP ( guy ) L ( line ) IN ( popular ) |
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| 20 | EPSOM |
European and Brit touring southern English town (5)
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E ( european ) [ POM ( brit ) around S ( southern ) ] |
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| 22 | DIRT CHEAP |
Act hired to perform with piano obtained for a song (4,5)
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[ ACT HIRED ]* P ( piano ) |
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| 24 | COUNTDOWN |
Game show not unknown in part of Ireland (9)
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COUNTy DOWN ( part of ireland, without Y – unknown ) |
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| 25 | UDDER |
Place to get milk shake Jack’s put away (5)
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jUDDER ( shake, without J – jack ) |
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| 26 | POETESS |
Maybe Sappho, needing to pee badly, given vessel (7)
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[ TO PEE ]* SS ( vessel ) |
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| 27 | EMBARGO |
Ban therefore restricting degree of business (7)
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ERGO ( therefore ) containing MBA ( degree of business ) |
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| DOWN | ||
| 1 | RE-TYPE |
Run Jaguar, getting key in again (2-4)
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R ( run ) E-TYPE ( jaguar, a model of the car ) |
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| 2 | BARCELONA |
Club and watering hole about to host billionaire (9)
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BAR ( watering hole ) [ CA ( about ) containing ELON ( billionaire, musk ) ] |
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| 3 | COMMA |
Unconscious state overwhelms male butterfly (5)
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COMA ( unconscious state ) around M ( male ) |
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| 4 | PRONOUNCE |
One like me or her by church, say (9)
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PRONOUN ( one like me or her, both of which are pronouns ) CE ( church ) |
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| 5 | BOTTY |
Behind in races, caught by child (5)
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TT ( races ) in BOY ( child ) |
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| 6 | TOODLE PIP |
I’m leaving Spooner’s dog-end (6-3)
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spoonerism of POODLE ( dog ) TIP ( end ) – i hadnt come across this before but getable from the clue |
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| 7 | OGRES |
Conger eels, periodically big monsters (5)
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cOnGeR eElS ( periodically i.e. alternate letters ) |
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| 8 | HAYFIELD |
Loudly greeting hunters in meadow (8)
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HAY ( sounds like HEY, greeting ) FIELD ( hunters ) |
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| 14 | KILOMETRE |
See Buccaneer wearing outfit with soldiers in unit (9)
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{ [ LO ( see ) ME ( buccaneer ) ] in KIT ( outfit ) } RE ( soldiers ) |
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| 15 | COHERENCE |
Logic of criminal, admitting present case of crime (9)
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[ HERE ( present ) in CON ( criminal ) ] CE ( case of CrimE i.e. end letters ) |
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| 16 | TAIL-ENDER |
Great starter of lamb wrapped in soft batter finally (4-5)
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[ AI ( great ) L ( Lamb, starting letter ) ] in TENDER ( soft ) – referring to cricket |
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| 17 | SCREW CAP |
Second team better to show a bit of bottle (5,3)
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S ( second ) CREW ( team ) CAP ( better ) |
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| 19 | OPORTO |
Nothing left over in wine-producing area (6)
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O ( nothing ) PORT ( left ) O ( over ) |
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| 21 | SOUSE |
Like eg Paul McCartney leaving clubs drunk (5)
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ScOUSE (like e.g. paul mccartney, from liverpool without C – clubs ) |
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| 22 | DROSS |
Rubbish date with one of six friends (5)
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D ( date ) ROSS ( one of six friends, from the tv show 'friends', played by david schwimmer ) |
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| 23 | CRUMB |
Small quantity of alcohol ingested by vacuous celeb (5)
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RUM ( alcohol ) in CB ( CeleB, vacuous i.e. without inner letters ) |
Thanks Turbolegs and Buccaneer!
Terrific puzzle.
PREDATORY, OUTDOORSY, POETESS, TAIL-ENDER, PRONOUNCE are favs.
I agree with Turbolegs – the fun factor was high with this grid and helped lift the spirits today.
Like illipu, I enjoyed PRONOUNCE and add the following as my top picks: ROBOCOP, SOUSE, TOODLE PIP (for ‘dog end’), DROSS and COUNTDOWN.
Thanks for a great puzzle, Buccaneer, and for a solid blog, Turbolegs.
Well, I did manage to finish and now see that all of my answers were correct but it took me ages to reconcile “Barcelona” with a club – obvious now that it refers to football.
I didn’t know the “comma” butterfly, nor the “Ross” in “Friends”, nor the “Lassi” drink. 5D also gave me pause as the only answer that I could fit into the cross letters was “Booty” as in the KC and the Sunshine Band.
Not being a fan of cricket, 16D was my last one in as I read “batter finally” to indicate the letter “R”.
Thanks, Turbolegs, for the explanations.
A great challenge.
Many thanks to Buccaneer and Turbolegs
A nice way to think about happier things after waking up to the sad news this morning. Most went in without too much trouble but then I became becalmed in the SW corner before realising I had entered the American spelling for KILOMETRE and had “top”, not CAP, at 17d. Once these were sorted out, POETESS and COUNTDOWN weren’t as difficult as they had at first appeared.
Favourites were the old-fashioned TOODLE-PIP expression and the misleading surface and def for TAIL-ENDER.
Thanks to Buccaneer and Turbolegs
I admit that I also entered SCREW TOP at first. Thinking about it, SCREWTOP is one word and usually describes a type of bottle but can refer to the top/cap itself. Whether a screw cap is ‘a bit of bottle’ or something you put on a bottle, I’ll leave to others to argue.
Thanks for the blog, what a great set of clues. It is much quicker for me to list the ones I did NOT like.
Another screw top. Can outdoorsy really be a word? I know its in the dictionary, but really!
A puzzle of two halves in a way – about half the answers went in on our first pass but then we had to wait for inspiration – or realising we had to read clues differently – for instance seing ‘ground’ as an anagrind and ‘batter’ as the gender-neutral term for a cricketer at the wicket – to finish. No real favourites – they were all good.
Thanks, Buccaneer and Turbolegs.
I found this difficult and gave up with 5 to go.
Those I didn’t get don’t seem so hard now.
Some great clues
Failed on tail ender. Seems most of my posts here seem to carp about gender neutrality in cricket reportage. I’m trying to get with the times, honest.
A wonderful puzzle to get me out of the slough of despond. Many beautiful clues. Countdown a favourite (was a contestant back in the 80s. Got scunnered by the conundrum: ‘Wordthing’. How long will it take you to get it? I didn’t.)
This was ok apart from lassi = drink, Barcelona = club, and outdoorsy – none of which I’d ever heard of.