A fun solve with some tricky parsings. My favourites were 8ac, 9ac, and 5dn. Thanks to Brockwell for the puzzle.
…there is a theme around 8ac BREAD (and several references to the US and TV shows)
| ACROSS | ||
| 7 | JEHOVISTS |
Plane’s carrying company of 8 biblical authors (9)
|
| JET’S=”Plane’s” around/carrying HOVIS=a British bread company=”company of [8 across]” | ||
| 8 | BREAD |
Walter White finishes Breaking Bad making money (5)
|
| definition: ‘bread’ is slang for money
the end letters (“finishes”) of [Walte]-R [Whit]-E, breaking into BAD for the surface, Walter White is a character from the TV series Breaking Bad |
||
| 9 | MINT SAUCE |
Terrible miscue at the end from Allan Lamb’s partner? (4,5)
|
| definition: mint sauce is a common accompaniment/partner for lamb dishes
anagram/”Terrible” of (miscue at n)*, with the n as “the end from Alla-n” for the surface, Allan Lamb was a cricketer, so the surface could describe a miscue from his batting partner |
||
| 10 | FLOUR |
Student tucked into square meal (5)
|
| definition: meal as in ground grains such as flour
L (Learner, “Student”) inside FOUR=a “square” number (two squared is four) |
||
| 12 | BAKERY |
Shop window broken by king and queen (6)
|
| BAY=type of “window”, around (broken by): K (king, chess abbreviation) + ER (Elizabeth Regina, “queen”) | ||
| 13 | TWINSETS |
Suspect ending in Silent Witness reveals matching threads (8)
|
| for definition, “threads” as in pieces of clothing
anagram/”Suspect” of (t Witness)*, with the t from “ending in Silen-t) |
||
| 14 | GRANARY |
Old lady wasting money in Virgin store (7)
|
| GRAN=”Old lady”, plus ARY [the Virgin M-ary, minus ‘m’ for money] | ||
| 17 | PALAVER |
Every year, Wimbledon champion makes a fuss (7)
|
| PA (per annum)=”Every year” + Rod LAVER the “Wimbledon champion” | ||
| 20 | CORNETTO |
Wind octet entertaining men with new instrument (8)
|
| definition: a wind instrument [wiki]
anagram (“Wind” as a verb) of (octet)*; around/entertaining OR (other ranks of soldiers, “men”) + N (new) |
||
| 22 | DOLLAR |
American 8 lying about in Balmoral Lodge (6)
|
| definition: American money (8ac is bread, slang for money)
hidden and reversed in (lying about in): [Balmo]-RAL LOD-[ge] |
||
| 24 | AGAMA |
A Trump supporter going round The Lizard (5)
|
| definition: a type of lizard
A (from surface) + MAGA (Make America Great Again, “Trump supporter”); all reversed (going round) |
||
| 25 | BAR MAGNET |
Rolling Stone possibly cutting hair to become object of attraction (3,6)
|
| definition refers to magnetic attraction
MAG (magazine, for example Rolling Stone music magazine), cutting into BARNET=”hair” |
||
| 26 | DAILY |
Spooner’s mistress delivers paper (5)
|
| Spoonerism of the two syllables from ‘lady’=”mistress” | ||
| 27 | SOURDOUGH |
Son with money belonging to us is 8 (9)
|
| definition: a type of bread, 8ac
S (Son) + OUR DOUGH=”money belonging to us” (dough is slang for money) |
||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | REGINA |
Queen of Hearts in unreal PGA final (6)
|
| some central letters (“Hearts”) from [un]-RE-[al] [P]-G-[A] [f]-INA-[L] | ||
| 2 | SOUTHERN |
Ten hours lost below the equator (8)
|
| anagram/”lost” of (Ten hours)* | ||
| 3 | BINARY |
Kind of star to reject amateur lines (6)
|
| definition refers to binary star systems [wiki]
to BIN=to “reject” + A (amateur) + RY (railway, “lines”) |
||
| 4 | STICK TO |
Comply with Klingon on the telephone (5,2)
|
| the word “Klingon” sounds like (on the telephone) ‘cling on’, which can mean STICK TO | ||
| 5 | TROLLS |
Offensive posters from Tesla introducing luxury car (6)
|
| definition: internet trolls post online to create offense
first letter from (introducing) T-[esla]; plus ROLLS (Rolls Royce, “luxury car”) |
||
| 6 | BAGUETTE |
8 stone (8)
|
| double definition: 8ac bread; or a baguette cut of a precious stone such as a diamond | ||
| 11 | PITA |
Food served up in Emirati Palace (4)
|
| reversed (served up) and hidden “in”: [Emir]-ATI P-[alace] | ||
| 15 | RIOT GEAR |
City great arranged police protection (4,4)
|
| RIO=”City” in Brazil + anagram/”arranged” of (great)* | ||
| 16 | ROTI |
Filling of hot Caribbean sandwich (4)
|
| definition: ROTI can refer to a Caribbean style of wrap or sandwich [wiki]
inner letters (“Filling”) of [e]-ROTI-[c]=”hot” |
||
| 18 | ALLEGROS |
Austin Powers finally in pieces (8)
|
| definition refers to “pieces” of music
ALLEGRO (the “Austin” Allegro was a model of car [wiki]); plus final letter of [Power]-S |
||
| 19 | SODA POP |
Drink of Manhattan stirs up American Dad (4,3)
|
| definition has “Manhattan” to indicate a US phrase
ADOS=”stirs” (an ado = a fuss, a stir) reversed/”up”; plus POP=”American [word for] Dad” |
||
| 21 | NIMBLE |
Writer is almost drained by conclusion of Jonathan Swift (6)
|
| I’M=I am=”[this] Writer is”; plus BLE-[d]=”almost drained”; all after/”by” conclusion of [Jonatha]-N | ||
| 22 | DEMARK |
Country scrapping nuclear limit (6)
|
| DE-[n]-MARK minus n for “nuclear” | ||
| 23 | AWEIGH |
No longer hooked on holidays we hear (6)
|
| definition: aweigh describes an anchor no longer hooked to the bottom
sounds like (we hear) ‘away’=”on holidays” |
Brockwell is now one of my favourite setters and I really enjoyed his BREAD theme last night. I included (JE)HOVIS(TS), FLOUR, BAKERY, DOLLAR, GRANARY, DAILY, SOURDOUGH, STICK, (T)ROLLS, BAGUETTE, PITA, ROTI, SODA and NIMBLE, which is made by HOVIS. I completed the east side first, finding the west more chewy. I also liked MINT SAUCE, PALAVER, CORNETTO and BAR MAGNET.
Ta Brockwell & manehi.
Don’t forget (PA)LAVER bread, CORN(ETTO) bread, BARM(AGNET) bread! Also a reference to bread riots at 15.
Great puzzle!
Tricky but fun. I failed to parse GRANARY (I had GRANDMA for ages, which didn’t help), BAR MAGNET, ROTI (I am routinely useless at identifying synonyms for subtraction clues: see also mARY in GRANARY…)
The JEHOVISTS were new, though I liked the “company of bread”. Lots of other bread-y answers beside the 8 references: GRANARY, PITA, SODA, FLOUR, BAKERY, SOURDOUGH, tROLLS, BAGUETTE, ROTI and even LAVER bread (which isn’t bread at all but a Welsh seaweed dish). Thanks Brockwell and manehi.
Favourite: BAR MAGNET.
I could not parse 1d, 16d.
New for me: BINARY star; JEHOVISTS/yahwist/yahvist (but I have heard of Jehovah’s Witnesses); Austin ALLEGRO – the dozens/hundreds of car brand names elude me and I wish that the setters could clue these words differently 😉
BREAD BIN(ary), BREAD SAUCE, and give us this day our DAILY BREAD…
The wife jokes bread is my specialist subject, the food version rather than the money unfortunately.
Thought JEHOVISTS was a really great clue.
Thanks Manehi and Brockwell
Weighing anchor is common; aweigh as adjective is quaint. But then language is quirky — nothing less like a cut gemstone than the baguette you eat. Meanwhile, Hovis bread we did have downunder, though haven’t seen it for years. And Allegro, another tempo-named piece to go with Larghetto, yesterday was it?
Very digestible, thx Brockwell and manehi.
Like Alan C @1, I found the LHS more chewy. Got lucky with ALLEGROs. Guessed it was a make of Austin cars, which were very popular in Oz. Had a couple Austins, but not that one. Also old enough to remember TWINSETS and Rod LAVER. 8 stone was a kind of benchmark for young women back in the day, but not if you ate baguettes, or wore them round your neck.
Great puzzle! It was fun finding the breads and learning some new ones – as listed by previous commenters. There could also be SOUTHERN Bread, breads typically cooked in the US South. Maybe a US solver could confirm.
New for me similar to Michelle#4: HOVIS bread company (and their NIMBLE bread); JEHOVISTS (LOI, guessed); Austin ALLEGRO; BINARY star. But I could work them out.
I did not parse ROTI or the Virgin bit of GRANARY.
Favourites: REGINA, MINT SAUCE. I also liked the Aus reference in PALAVER, the surface for BREAD and the brevity of BAGUETTE.
Thanks to Brockwell and manehi.
GIF@7: “Anchors aweigh!” is a familiar expression and was enough to give me confidence in the answer.
Much fun and brilliant use of the theme. Many thanks Brockwell and manehi.
Yep, now you mention it JOFT, of course!
An excellent puzzle. Strange how the memory works. Hovis and Laver both took some time to emerge, even though I see the name Hovis almost every day on this site.
I thoroughly enjoyed this and unusually finished a Friday puzzle (although 16d was unparsed before reading this blog).
I’m a bit uncertain about the definition for 7a though. I thought JEHOVISTS were those who read the original Hebrew in a certain manner, not the authors?
Thanks to Bracewell & Manheim.
Me@13 *Brockwell *manehi. Sorry, autocorrect got me… 🥺
By sheer happenstance I revisited an old episode of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue last night, wherein GRANARY is defined as “an old people’s home”.
Is 26a really a Spoonerism? The strict definition would seem to require at least two words (cf. both Chambers and Wikipedia).
Well, each to his/her own. There was indeed a lot to enjoy in the cluing; but for my taste there was too much obscurity for its own sake (I think ROTI and NIMBLY were the worst offenders) coupled with an utterly vile grid (twelve lights with a majority of unchecked letters).
Thanks, both, for the bits that I enjoyed and for the explanations of the bits I didn’t get.
poc #15. It doesn’t answer your question about the ”strict definition”, but we had this kind of 1 word/2 syllable Spoonerism not so long ago. I can’t remember it exactly, but it also involved a diphthong like /eɪ/ as in “day”.
PS . AI told me this.
While spoonerisms usually occur between two separate words, they can also happen within a single two-syllable word. In linguistics, this internal swapping of sounds or syllables is technically known as metathesis.
Here are examples of single words where swapping the initial sounds of the two syllables creates a different common word:
Kitchen / Chicken (the most famous example) ………
paddymelon @18: thanks, that would be Chitken surely.
I really enjoyed that, company of bread made me smile.
Gosh, NEILH @16, you can’t have much interest in Indian cuisine – even my curry house round the corner in a provincial town in eastern England offers Tawa ROTI. It was borrowed into Caribbean cuisine from South Asia. And I think most of the older British-based commentariat here will remember a young woman ascending skyward under a hot air balloon while Honeybus sang ‘I can’t let Maggie go’, advertising NIMBLE. Are you too young, or were / are you domiciled overseas? Neither, certainly, gave me a moment’s pause.
GiS @ 13
Chambers:
”Jehōˈvist noun
1. A person who held that the vowel points attached by the Masoretes to the Hebrew word YHWH are the proper vowels of the word (obsolete)
2. A writer of passages in the Pentateuch in which the name applied to God is Yahweh, a Yahwist”
The OED has similar.
Alan C. @19. It needs to be read/sounded as tchi ken / ki tchen.
The Jehovist, now usually called the Yahwist, was one of the four postulated primary sources of the pentateuch. So I’m not sure that JEHOVISTS in the plural is appropriate for “biblical authors”.