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Hi all. This started well for me, but I was held up for longer that I’d like to admit by a few in the NE. Got there in the end and enjoyed it – as expected when the excellent Filbert is the setter.
24a, GLAZED, is my favourite clue today; I also appreciated ASTRONOMER ROYAL (5d) and sighed an “if only we could” at FORBEAR (7d). Thanks Filbert!
Definitions are underlined in the clues below. In the explanations, most quoted indicators are in italics, specified [deletions] are in square brackets, and I’ve capitalised and emboldened letters which appear in the ANSWER. For clarity, I omit most link words and some juxtaposition indicators.
| Across | |
| 1a | Eccentric newspaper hack everyone follows about (3-3-4) |
| OFF-THE-WALL — FT (newspaper), HEW (hack) and ALL (everyone) follows OF (about) | |
| 7a | Appear keen to serve venison one day? (4) |
| FAWN — A double definition | |
| 9a | Watch dog, say, beginning to splash through wee in Paris (3-3) |
| PET-SIT — The first letter of (beginning to) Splash going inside (through) PETIT (wee in Paris) | |
| 10a | Patient alert, not wandering (8) |
| TOLERANT — ALERT, NOT anagrammed (wandering) | |
| 11a | Spooner’s family all named after original matriarch, a queen (4,2,6) |
| ANNE OF CLEVES — A spoonerism of CLAN OF EVE’S (family all named after original matriarch) | |
| 13a | Hunting trip mostly free of risk and very dry (6) |
| SAFARI — All but the last letter of (mostly) SAFe (free of risk) and ARId (very dry) | |
| 14a | Facing out (2,6) |
| ON STRIKE — Two definitions, the first cricketing: according to Chambers, “(of a batsman) facing the bowling” | |
| 16a | Mathematician telephoned Euler’s number after delay (8) |
| LAGRANGE — RANG (telephoned) and E (Euler’s number) after LAG (delay) | |
| 18a | Stormy piece by Joplin with one sharp? (6) |
| RAGING — RAG IN G (piece by [Scott] Joplin with one sharp?). The key of G has one sharp, F♯ … | |
| … which gives me an excuse to link to this piece by the wonderful Tim Minchin | |
| 20a | Hunt traitor with likely winner outside kept apart (12) |
| SEQUESTRATED — QUEST (hunt) plus RAT (traitor) with SEED (likely winner) around (outside) | |
| 23a | Royal Marine crosses Roman road in high spirits (8) |
| JOVIALLY — JOLLY (Royal Marine) goes around (crosses) VIA (Roman road) | |
| 24a | Was an idler after golf given coat then fired? (6) |
| GLAZED — LAZED (was an idler) after G (golf) | |
| 25a | In centre of Paris, level area for Notre-Dame? (4) |
| ISLE — In centre of ParIS, LEvel is our answer | |
| 26a | Peel apart, eat lime and bananas (10) |
| DELAMINATE — An anagram of (… bananas) EAT LIME AND | |
| Down | |
| 2d | Move supply of iron by crossing lake (4) |
| FLEX — FE (iron) and X (by) around (crossing) L (lake) | |
| 3d | Fried tortilla drunk flipped with cry of accomplishment (7) |
| TOSTADA — SOT (drunk) reversed (flipped) + TA–DA (cry of accomplishment) | |
| 4d | E.g. more time for homework available after turning sixteen (9) |
| EXTENSION — ON (available) after an anagram of (turning) SIXTEEN | |
| 5d | A starry role, with moon involved? (10,5) |
| ASTRONOMER ROYAL — A STARRY ROLE with MOON anagrammed (involved). | |
| An improvement on the classic ASTRONOMER/MOONSTARER anagram, giving a neat &lit clue | |
| 6d | Shade of flowering tree in India, during visit to north (5) |
| LILAC — I (India) in (during) CALL (visit) reversed (to north, in a down entry) | |
| 7d | Avoid terror gripping globe (7) |
| FORBEAR — FEAR (terror) around (gripping) ORB (globe) | |
| 8d | Women given orders by nice young wizard (10) |
| WUNDERKIND — W (women) + UNDER (given orders by) + KIND (nice) | |
| 12d | Gaunt head of operations keeping rogue state and America apart (10) |
| CADAVEROUS — The first letter of (head of) Operations inside (keeping … apart) CAD (rogue), AVER (state) and US (America) | |
| 15d | Plan huge upset after kick-off, moving right up (9) |
| STRATAGEM — MEGA (huge) reversed (upset) after START (kick-off), moving R (right) up to an earlier position in the word | |
| 17d | Turn money into Euro abroad (7) |
| ROUTINE — TIN (money) goes into an anagram of (… abroad) EURO | |
| 19d | Hateful gin has one turning to rum in the morning (7) |
| GODDAMN — G[i]N has I (one) becoming (turning to) ODD (rum) plus AM (in the morning) | |
| 21d | Incredibly, cap’s all made of the same material (5) |
| SOLID — SO (incredibly) + LID (cap) | |
| 22d | Attend course for police (4) |
| BEAT — BE AT (attend) | |
Thought this was Filbert at his best. Wonderful stuff. Didn’t know the cricketing meaning for ON STRIKE but the answer was clear. Wasn’t sure of the definition for SOLID either but one of the definitions in Chambers seems to fit.
Couldn’t parse the ‘one sharp’ = IN G element of RAGING but everything else fell smoothly into place. Some of the short solutions were particularly neatly clued – FLEX, FAWN, ISLE and BEAT all made my list of faves.
Thanks both
And all wrapped up in a pangram as well – thanks to Filbert and Kitty!
Awesome!! Loved the crossword, loved the hilarious Tim Minchin link (made me feel, maybe I do have a future in music)…
Thanks Filbert and Kitty
Beaten by FLEX. Had ‘feel’ unparsed. Top marks for ON STRIKE, GLAZED and I liked PET SIT. Wishing I had read some Harry Potter for 8d until I saw the error of my ways. Bravo to Filbert and thanks Kitty.
I took LILAC to be two definitions plus wordplay: the shade of light purple for the first, and the flowering tree that is not actually that color (its flowers can be) for the second.
I held off entering SOLID for ages because I couldn’t see “so”=”incredibly”. But I guess they’re equivalent in most cases where you put the stress on the word “so.” For example, “I’m so tired–I haven’t slept a wink,” per John Lennon.
SEQUESTRATED is an odd word–feels like just an unnecessary extra syllable added to the more familiar sequestered.
[There are lilac bushes in the front yard of our building; their flowers are incredibly fragrant, but closer to white than purple. Now I’m looking forward to lilac season, which is still perhaps another month off. And yes, that’s the American sense of yard, the kind with a lawn.]
Thanks both. All very good on reflection, but an enormous struggle for me in places, notably the South West corner, wherein I sought just a little help for SEQUESTRATED which looks like a malapropism – ‘seed’ as ‘likely winner’ strikes me as odd, given there are 32 of them at Wimbledon each year.
Thanks all. 🙂
Universal★Rundle @3 – a pangram didn’t occur to me, so thanks for noting it.
Undrell@4 – glad you liked the TM link! Not only is he one of my top two favourite Tims of all time, it’s actually a song of his that I didn’t need to preface with a content warning.
Chris Talyor at 3 – I had similar worries about 8d for some time (though I do know my HP).
TFO @8 – you could perhaps look at it this way: it is likely that the winner will be a seed, even if it is not so likely that any individual seed will win.
TFO @8. If you take the whole tournament, that’s true, but seeds tend to win most of the matches along the way.