Unusually scant annotation required for a Bradman puzzle, I felt; with most of the wordplay being nifty rather than nefarious. A flurry of geographic answers and elements, coupled with an absence of any literary allusions,played to my solving strengths today.
Across
1 CANADA – can a D[istrict[ A[ttorney].
4 RUMPUS – Rump (Parliament) + U/S.
8 FLEMISH – LEM (Lunar Excursion Module) in fish. The former came readily enough to me, as Apollo 11 is one of my favourite films. The answer itself came readily as my boss is from Flanders.
9 ALMANAC – man in (a lac).
11 BETTERMENT – term in (bet + ENT); ear/nose/throat.
12 EXIT – exi{s}t.
13 RAGED – r + aged.
14 JALOUSIE – jail{h}ouse*. Recall that Henry (=H) comes from the world of physics and not the from the Divine Right of Abbreviated Kings.
16 QUAESTOR – (to square)*.
18 NOTED – Eton< + d[aughter].
20 CHOU – hidden.
21 THEODOLITE – (he + I tootled)*.
23 SARDINE – Sar{k} + dine.
24 ENTENTE – hidden. I didn’t help myself here by inexplicably writing DETENTE into the grid!
25 TARZAN – tar + zan{y}.
26 WEASEL – w[eak] + easel.
Down
1 CALVE – L in cave.
2 NAME TAG – (gate-man)<.
3 DISCREDIT – disc +red + It.
5 UNLIT – “un lit” for those Francophone slug-a-beds.
6 PLATEAU – Plate + Au. River Plate (aka Rio Plata) is our geographic tidbit here – although the nominally derived Argentine football team may be more familiar to some!
7 SCARIFIED – (if + I) in scared.
10 NEW JERSEY – geographic/whimsical double def’n. The Garden State.
13 ROUGHCAST = homophone of “ruff” + cast.
15 LINE DANCE – cryptic def’n. I had just about forgiven Billy Ray Cyrus for inflicting the ’90s line dancing anthem Achy Breaky Heart on the world, when he went and inflicted his nauseatingly precocious daughter on the world. Back to the saltmines for you, Billy.
17 ECUADOR – E + Cu. + road*.
19 TALKERS – {s}talkers.
21 TONGA– double def’n. Although I wasn’t familiar with the latter def’n (“a light two-wheeled vehicle” , per Chambers). Never let it be said that Bradman doesn’t aim (and often succeed) in educating as well as entertaining.
22 TOTAL – tot + a + L.
Thanks Smiffy. The usual good stuff from Bradman.
> Apollo 11 is one of my favourite films.
I think you mean Apollo 13…
I’m just a little perplexed by 23a. The full clue is:
Going to island in the channel mostly eat fish (7)
I don’t see what “going to” is there for – it isn’t needed for the wordplay, is it? And more strangely, it doesn’t seem to do anything for the surface either. In fact I don’t really see what the surface means. I wonder if it’s a typo or something.
Dine is going to Sar(k) — legitimate padding grammatically sound which serves to give a surface meaning of a holiday maker going to an island mostly eating fish. The alternative Island in the channel — mostly eat fish would have been OK but a tad more disjointed. Sorry if that doesn’t convince you. Anyway it could hardly be a typo!
No more to say except thanks for the blog
Sorry Bradman, I should have looked at it for longer. The padding is more than legitimate; I was misparsing. I was only a little perplexed but thanks for putting me straight. I did get the answer right though!
No apology needed, I can assure you!
Did anyone else notice that this puzzle was pangrammatic (had all the letters of the alphabet)?
(Which actually helped me when I was left with the “Y” and 10d)
An enjoyable solve…