Independent 6840/Dac

by
Across
1 L,O,ON – which is another name for a diving bird.
3 NIGH,(HORNET)* – NIGHT HERON.
9 initial letters of “With Unusual Relish, So Tasty”.
11 A in TINGLING – a good clue I thought; simple but effective.
13 POPEYE – sounds like “pop aye”.
15 ART in (PRECEDING)* – CARTRIDGE PEN. Excellent choice of anagrind in “review”.
22 EP,(HEAR ME)* – EPHEMERA. The answer at 2 is ON RECORD, which becomes part of the wordplay here.
24 P,[-v]ICTORIA,L
26 (TEN SECRETS)* – SCREEN TEST.
 
Down
1 WREN in LACE – LAWRENCE.
4 IN,TIM,I DATE
5 hidden in “rubbisH IN This” – very cleverly disguised.
6 HE,A,DOVER,HEELS – “HEELS” sounds like “HEALS” (“is cured”)
7 RAIDER – the definition is “one charges” but I don’t understand “clergyman’s assistant to enter”.
10 (WHO LET VISITOR)* – TO SIR WITH LOVE, a film directed by James Clavell and starring Sidney Poitier.
14 METRO,POLIS[-h] – another film, this time one directed by Fritz Lang. METRO is the free paper which you can’t fail to miss if you live in and around London but I’m assuming it’s available in other cities as well otherwise this wouldn’t really be a fair clue.
16 SU(PERM,A)N
17 RE(MAINE)D
19 SUP,MAC (going up) – St Andrews being a university as well as a golf course.
20 hidden in “vigiLANCE Rarely”
23 P(IT)T – a reference to Brad PITT. PT is an abbreviation of “part”.

5 comments on “Independent 6840/Dac”

  2. Metro is indeed printed in other cities, as I discovered once when I had a letter which was printed in the Leeds and Manchester editions, but not the London one!

  3. I though 24a was excellent.

    I’m not convinced by 19d. St Andrew’s is not what I’d call a campus university. Like Oxford and Cambridge it is woven through the whole town with no single area that could be called a campus.

    I can get the Metro when in Durham and Dundee.

  4. The doubt that Colin has raised about 19dn (St Andrews not being a campus) is the worst blemish I can remember in a Dac crossword. Another very very slight blemish, I thought, was in 10dn: ‘To Sir With Love’ is not what I’d call an old film: OK not a modern one, but hardly a black-and-white silent.

  5. Rightly or wrongly, “campus” has come to be a synonym for “university”, useful for headline writers maybe.
    Metro is also found elsewhere in Europe – Barcelona for instance.
    I liked 16 dn, though it had me on the wrong track for a while thinking it might somehow have AN in FT. 12 ac was clever, too.

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