As usual, an immaculate little crossword from Dac, with elegant well-constructed clues. The explanation of one of the answers defeats me, but it will almost certainly be immediately made clear. (As I did the blog I overcame my problems. So blindingly obvious in fact that I’m not even going to let on which one it was.)
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | CHANCE L — I was less than comfortable with ‘to use’ as a juxtaposition indicator |
| 5 | F(LAPP)ED |
| 9 | TURNING OVER — 2 defs, one of them relating to what one may do after retirement, i.e. after one has gone to bed |
| 10 | RAN{k} — I suppose you could argue that a car or a swimmer doesn’t actually run, but on the other hand to take part in a race is perhaps to run in a wider sense |
| 11 | BEAR PITS — b (parties)* |
| 13 | TH(R ON)E — wordplay with definitions at each end |
| 15 | bEARPits — I only did 15 and 11 in conjunction with each other |
| 16 | NOWHERE MAN — no w her (name)rev. |
| 18 | MONEGASQUE — (agen{t})rev. in mosque |
| 19 | IN C{olombi}A |
| 22 | SEE THE{m} or just as possibly SEE THE{y} |
| 23 | A (F FLU) ENT |
| 25 | {m}A{t}C{h}E{s} — I’m not absolutely sure about this: it seems to be a straight clue, with one=ace as the definition, but it’s also an &lit. so long as you can accept that an ace takes part in matches regularly, which I suppose he does |
| 26 | ACCOUNTS FOR — (fun co-actors)* |
| 28 | DATA SET —DA (state)* |
| 29 | ELECT RA — def ‘complex female’, ref the electra complex |
| Down | |
| 1 | C.I. TABLE |
| 2 | chAIRman |
| 3 | CHIPPY — 2 defs |
| 4 | LIGHTHOUSE — (the oil gush)* |
| 5 | FIVE — “fave” |
| 6 | A YR’S HIRE |
| 7 | PER FOR(MAN)CE |
| 8 | DUNG EON |
| 12 | ARRANGEMENT — 2 defs |
| 14 | CH(A)UFFE{d} USE |
| 17 | EG(G HE)ADS — 6.00 most days on BBC2, marginally addictive because the eggheads just go on and on winning |
| 18 | M(ISL{and})AID |
| 20 | ASTOR I A — ref Nancy Astor — I hadn’t realised the theatre no longer existed |
| 21 | CLOT HE |
| 24 | S{inging} CAT — nice &lit. |
| 27 | F IT — another excellent clue |
Yes, excellent puzzle and blog. Read the ACE as being alternate letters in MATCHES as you suggest. Favourites, BEAR PITS, ARRANGEMENT, CLOTHE.
Thanks, John. Entertaining and cleverly clued stuff from Dac, which as usual was just stretching enough for me at the moment. The less well known words like MONEGASQUE and CHAUFFEUSE were fairly signalled; and I liked AYRSHIRE and DUNGEON as well.
I took 25ac at face value, but if there’s an &lit in there as well we’ll give Dac a bonus point. For 10ac, I assumed it was RAN as in ‘took part in race’, not quite being RANK as grade. (Guessing that this was the senior moment you referred to, but forgive me if not: I have several each day.)
And if Eileen pays us a visit this afternoon, then she might have something to say about the regional accent homophone in 5dn. For me, an okay clue because it couldn’t be anything else once you’d got the crossing letters, but I’m easily pleased most of the time.
As John says, it’s a very nice puzzle. A couple of harder words, but actually I liked MONEGASQUE the best.
Agree with all these positive comments. For sheer elegance DUNGEON was my favourite.
Quite easy apart from monegasque which I’ve never heard of. Am I the only one to spend longer looking for ninas than on the crossword?
I think that, with Dac in the Indy, Ninas are very rare, tho not entirely unknown.
Another early morning solve for me – I seem to have got into the habit of having a quick peek at midnight,only to end up finshing the puzzle before bed!
Loved 6 down,didn’t paticularly like the homophone at 5 down,but then not living within the sound of Bow bells it’s outside of my range of knowledge!
Last to go in was ‘Monegasque’,which I didn’t know, but it was gettable from the wordplay.
All in all,an enjoyable puzzle.
Now for a quick peek at today’s Indie …
Another sort of ace is always part of a tennis match.
Struggled with bottom half having done top half in quick time.Never heard of 18a,28a.17d no idea!