Gemelo has again produced a nice crossword with some very good clues. I don’t think there will be any problem with his taking over fully from Azed in due course.
My guess is that anyone who does these crosswords will have a copy of Chambers to hand and so won’t need everything to be spelled out. In the parsing I have confined myself to explaining when the wordplay is not immediately clear.
Definitions in crimson, underlined. Anagrams indicated *(like this) or (like this)*
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | TIPPEX |
Lean muscles, we hear, cover for a multitude of sins (6)
|
| “tip pecs” | ||
| 5 | JETTON |
Piece of better black fashion (6)
|
| jet ton — it’s a piece (ie a small token) that someone who bets uses | ||
| 9 | EBURNEAN |
Eastern tailless moth, one that’s creamy-white? (8)
|
| E burne[t] an | ||
| 10 | WOKE |
Animated western with Oklahoma energy (4)
|
| W Ok E — in its modern sense the word doesn’t seem to have reached Chambers, so Gemelo has had to make do with the old one | ||
| 11 | ASPORT |
Carry off unusually athletic wear (6)
|
| A sport — unusually because it’s rare | ||
| 12 | UTOPIA |
More work for religious in spun gold (6)
|
| (to pi) in (Au)rev. — nice definition but I’ve seen it several times: a work by Sir Thomas More | ||
| 14 | KNIGHT |
Lady’s man Bond injecting growth hormone (6)
|
| kni(GH)t | ||
| 16 | SNAIL |
Slowly move navy into ships (5)
|
| s(N)ail — I was surprised to see that snail can be a verb | ||
| 17 | ERASE |
Cycling garment that’s wrapped around scratch (5)
|
| Saree cycled and then reversed — ‘cycled’ etc is so common nowadays that when one sees it one knows | ||
| 19 | SITTER-IN |
One watches young son laughing internally (8)
|
| s [t]itterin[g] | ||
| 20 | CACHEPOT |
Ornamental container transformed cheap cot (8)
|
| *(cheap cot) | ||
| 21 | REFER |
Make mention of advance, after penny drops (5)
|
| [p]refer | ||
| 22 | SNEER |
Show contempt about being rejected (5)
|
| (re ens)rev. — ens = being | ||
| 23 | PERMED |
Waved through medicine (6)
|
| per med. — waved as in permanent wave | ||
| 25 | DIVALI |
Festival of gods just finishing early (6)
|
| di vali[d] | ||
| 27 | FLAMEN |
Priest dedicated 75% of dance (6)
|
| flamen[co] — a flamen is a priest serving one particular god, so in a sense is dedicated | ||
| 28 | ENEW |
Head of engineering taking fresh plunge into water (4)
|
| e[ngineering] new | ||
| 29 | ASTERISK |
Star players initially dismissed touch of Eden Hazard (8)
|
| [c]ast E[den] risk | ||
| 30 | NERNST |
North German artist who invented an electric lamp (6)
|
| N Ernst — ref Max Ernst, a German artist | ||
| 31 | ODDISH |
Slightly unusual to have too much food (6)
|
| OD dish | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | TEAR |
RIP – something often seen at funerals (4)
|
| 2 defs, a rip and at a funeral someone might shed a tear | ||
| 2 | IBSENITE |
Dramatic champion that is tackling best in ground (8)
|
| ie around (best in)* — Ibsen was a dramatist, so an Ibsenite could be called a dramatic champion | ||
| 3 | PROFITEER |
Perhaps overcharge for sex, which former spouse accepts (9)
|
| pro f(it)eer | ||
| 4 | ENROL |
Record from Scottish comedian on the way up (5)
|
| (Lorne)rev. — referring to Tommy Lorne (1890-1935) — record a verb | ||
| 5 | JAUNDICED |
Took risks to support tour, mostly unhealthy (9)
|
| jaun[t] diced | ||
| 6 | TWO |
Prime time that’s painful when recalled (3)
|
| t (ow)rev. — 2 is a prime number | ||
| 7 | TOP HAMPER |
Musical ultimately lost money, a burden for those on board (9, 2 words)
|
| Top Ha[t] m per — something I’d never heard of, but Chambers explains | ||
| 8 | NEAREST |
Most sparing attention inside lodge (7)
|
| n(ear)est — I can’t find an exact equivalence of ‘stingy, parsimonious’ [near] with ‘spare’, but it seems OK | ||
| 13 | GATE FEVER |
Condition of bird’s tail, mounted on vegetables stuffed with cheese (9, 2 words)
|
| (re ve(feta)g)rev. — the bird’s tail refers to the end of bird (a prison sentence), and Chambers explains | ||
| 14 | KARATEIST |
Northerner’s chest gaining A grade – she can defend herself! (9)
|
| k(A rate)ist | ||
| 15 | GREEN CARD |
US permit changing gender to claim estate? (9, 2 words)
|
| car in *(gender) | ||
| 18 | SHOELESS |
Unprotected below head, with not so much beneath top of shield (8)
|
| s[hield] Hoe less — Hoe as in Plymouth Hoe, a headland | ||
| 19 | SARSDEN |
Sanders destroyed grey stone (7)
|
| (Sanders)* — I’m not quite sure if there is a subtle reference to someone called Sanders — if not then perhaps Gemelo just about gets away with it because Sanders is a fairly common surname | ||
| 22 | SOLED |
Put foundation on in very good light (5)
|
| so L.E.D. | ||
| 24 | ANKH |
Cross section of bank holiday (4)
|
| Hidden in BANK Holiday | ||
| 26 | AWN |
Darwin regularly cut beard (3)
|
| [D]a[r]w[i]n |
Once again I felt the grid was rather empty after reading though the clues once, but a few checking letters helped me solve some more clues and the puzzle wasn’t as hard as I feared.
I somehow guessed EBURNEAN once I had all of the checking letters even though I didn’t know what it meant or what the moth was. Other choices for the unchecked letters make things I believe could be words so I feel that I must have seen this word somewhere, but I can’t think of where. I had also guessed JETTON and TOP HAMPER without knowing what they meant but I fully understood the wordplay in their clues.
My last entry was GATE FEVER which I only saw after returning to the puzzle after a break when I saw the possibility to FETA reversed in the answer. I had previously thought that “bird’s tail” or “tail” was part of the wordplay that needed to be reversed so hasn’t been looking for a reversed cheese. I then thought it must be a disease of birds until I looked in Chambers.
I’ve also ‘More work’ for UTOPIA before, but I was annoyed at myself for not guessing the answer before reading past the second word of the clue. I imagined 19d to be about some people overzealously sanding stone until there was nothing left.
Thanks, John and Gemelo.
Thanks for the blog , another very solid Plain puzzle , this is all we need and the occasional Special where the solver needs to do a bit extra .
TOP-HAMPER has a hyphen in Chambers93 so would be one word but it may have changed .
If I see More work one more time I will scream .
Thanks for the blog, level of detail just right. Enjoyed this one, as Roz says a “solid” puzzle with no shenanigans.
ERASE is interesting in that it utilises two indicators, cycling and reversal, combined. Unusual, in my experience, but perfectly fair.
Thanks to John and Gemelo