Solving time: 16:49.26
I usually don’t time myself down to the split-second but I have a new desktop timer gadget thingy, with hundredths of a second which will be useful at the next Olympics. I got held up by the NW corner: 1A seemed a bit of a… well… stretch. And all my hard earned cricket knowledge suddenly vanished, making 4D a challenge.
Across
| 1 | A,C(RE)AGE – Not too happy about ACREAGE for “stretch” where spread would have been more appropriate (but would have hurt the surface). |
| 9 | C(A,LAM)ITY – Is there some factoid about “York” that makes this a good clue? ”A strike in York, say, would be a catastrophe”. |
| 12 | GREASEPAINTS – (As in pre-stage)*. Good anagram. |
| 19 | NEE – Not the world’s most Ximenean clue, “Backing the poetic use of stillborn”, but I still like it: “born” is the definition and wordplay is: rev(still=e’en). Reminds me of the recent use of Putin to indicate putting “in” in. |
| 20 | STAGNATION – (not against)*. Nice simple anagram with a good consistent surface. |
| 28 | SYN=”sin”,ODS=”odds” – not a bad homophonic semi-&lit clue for what the Church has been saying for years. |
Down
| 1 | ARCS – my last clue. Maybe there’s something else going on but the penny never dropped for me here: ”They go round in circles”. |
| 2 | RO(L)E – A case of “X Y in” meaning “Y in X” which always seems a bit forced to me. |
| 3 | ARMS RACE – Clever cryptic definition… almost an &lit but there are members of the nuclear club all round the world. |
| 4 | EXTRA – it’s about time for me to immediately think of cricket but this took me ages… |
| 7 | BRAIN DRAIN – thinly veiled cryptic definition. Though you’d think they’d be coming back now given the strength of the pound sterling (hint to my father!). |
| 13 | SCANDALOUS – I like this clue: cryptic def ref. Sheridan’s “The School for Scandal”. |
| 14 | PAPER CHAIN – double/cryptic def. It takes some time for even a “press baron” to build up his CHAIN. I like this clue – I’m betting there’s some dig at the kind of “decoration” that the typical press baron would prefer to get. |
| 24 | EG,OS – “I say nothing” about this clue. Actually it’s quite good. |
| 25 | MEAN – 2 MEANings: quite different etymologically neither of which mean mean (miserly and average). |
9ac I suppose the lightning strike on York Minster a few years ago could be a reference for this clue.
Re 1d, in mathematics, an arc is the segment of a circle, so the arcs forming a circle would go round.
1d arcs is also an anagram of cars which can go round in circles, not really defined as such but a thought none the less