Solved last week before I left for Sicily. Solved again today as I write this up upon return from Italy – where my only exposure to crosswords, let alone cryptics, was Un Mot Croisee from an old Le Monde uncovered in a café (OK, a bar) in Palermo. Really just sets of definitional clues as far as I could tell. Though the Sudoku was remarkably similar. Even in French.
A few clues that I struggled with: 12A, 21A, 15D.
Across
| 5 | [a,r]KANSAS – Nice clue: too bad that Montana and “A River Runs Through It” couldn’t have been referred to somehow as well. |
| 10 | CAR(R.O.)T – what would we do without cricket clues: R.O.=run out. |
| 12 | S,TIFF – I struggled with this a bit since I didn’t know that pet also means a sulk. |
| 14 | RUB SHOULDERS – double/cryptic def for how a masseuse gets to know her customers. |
| 18 | ILLUSTRATION – clever double definition though a question-mark is in order since a “plate” is really a type of ILLUSTRATION. |
| 21 | SWEET GALE – another clue I struggled with: I had SWEET ?A?E and had to do a bit of dictionary searching to find the plant (I’m more familiar with her as Gail). |
| 25 | LET ALONE – two meanings: “much less” nicely shifting from its literal (opposite of more) meaning to the idiomatic phrase. |
| 26 | DON,KEY – I think this was my last clue: obviously not familiar enough with the various Brit epithets for thickness. |
| 27 | STITCH UP – two meanings: more Brit slang. I knew the “incriminate” sense but not the “swindle” sense though they are perhaps too close etymologically to be a good double definition: see Collins STITCH UP. |
Down
| 1 | COARSE=”course” – Hard to separate “inferior race” because I obviously had racism on my brain. |
| 3 | PLUS, FOUR,S – Does anyone wear these other than that late American golfer who died in a plane crash (Payne Stewart I think). I suppose FOUR is “a number”. There are lots of others. I discovered this counting to infinity when I was about four. |
| 4 | CENTRE SPREAD – another instance of the answer being the wordplay since CENTRE is recent* (i.e. a SPREAD of CENTRE). |
| 7 | STREAKER – Cryptic def for the guy (almost never a girl) showing his stuff when he knows he’s got a large captive audience. |
| 11 | SIX OF THE BEST– one clue with two Britishisms: a cricket over of six balls and a caning of six of the best (though I remember that they came in threes in my school). |
| 15 | LOOK SMART – My final struggle: I fell in love with LOOK SHARP which I think is as acceptable in both senses: ”Be quick to appear fashionable and upmarket” so I needed 27A to disambiguate. |
| 19 | BROOCH=”broach” – (does this homophone work in Scotland I wonder?). Good clue because both “on the radio” and “to speak about” can be homophone indicators. |
| 21 | TERSE – hidden in “BatTERSEa” |
I do this one only occasionally and would find it generally a good deal easier than the Indy daily cryptic.
My biggest difficulty was with 21 Across which I pencilled in, as SWEET Rose, Jane and, finally, GALE. Always a bit weak with the plants.