At first I thought there might be a King Lear theme since he showed up along with one of his daughters. But then it petered out. 25A (TELAMON) was new to me and I could do with some help deciphering the wordplay for 13A and 18D.
Across
| 5 | ASP,HALT – I think this clue would have been improved immensely if it had just read: ”Stop after snake makes pitch” |
| 10 | DO,MINI,CAN – at first I didn’t think of a nun (“sister”) as being a DOMINICAN – but that was just sexism on my part. |
| 12 | C,LEAR – our first King Lear reference. |
| 13 | HARROW-ON-THE-HILL – I’ve been doing a fair bit of riding the tube (tubing?) and I recognized this Metropolitan line station. However I can’t parse the wordplay completely: ”Husband has quarrel about film of Tube station”. |
| 15 | CHARACTER,S KETCH |
| 20 | ELABORATE – two meanings |
| 23 | A,MIG,O – a fine clue since AMIGO happens to be friend in Spanish as well. Note “latest from MexicO” indicating the final letter. |
| 25 | TELAMO,N – (A motel)* followed by “back of NelsoN” (as in “latest of…”). I had T?L?M?N and then looked up the permutations to find TELAMON which indeed is a type of column. |
Down
| 2 | N,I,GER – nice clue since there’re various short German rivers to mislead (e.g. Oder, Elbe…). The country is named after the river it turns out. |
| 3 | O(REGAN)O – Our second Lear clue and our first cricket clue (ducks). |
| 4 | MIDDLE-OF-THE-ROAD – double/cryptic def for moderation that I’ve run into before (but never crossed). |
| 5 | A,X,MINSTER, C,ARP(E)T – no longer have an excuse for not knowing that AXMINSTER CARPET is v. familiar Brit rug. I saw the answer well before I parsed the wordplay but I can’t account for the leading A yet: ”Floor covering in a church beneath cross – note part damaged round end of aisle” . So, X for “cross”, MINSTER for “church”. C for “note” and [aisl]E in part*. Offers? |
| 8 | TEN,DRIL=”drill” – rev(net=catch) |
| 14 | REAR,RANGE – I always get nervous when I see standard cryptic terminology in clues (e.g. anagram, palindrome, cryptic…) and of course I naively tried to make an anagram of “bottom row” for about 2 seconds. |
| 15 | COPY,CA,T – Nice clue since COPY also means (to) mimic. |
| 17 | KNOW-A(L)L – [e]L[y] in (on walk)* |
| 18 | HOEDOWN – def is “dance”. Wordplay? ”Dance floor – see weed coming over?”. Is there a cathedral city involved? |
| 21 | TERSE – hidden in “BatTERSEa” |
13A h + arrow + on + The Hill (Sean Connery film)
5D a + X + minster etc
18D to weed = to hoe, to floor = to down
Yup – a quarrel is an arrow, a square-headed crossbow bolt, in fact, although I’m not sure how many ‘everyday’ dictionaries carry the less well-known meaning.
Quarrel is also ‘row’, and seeing possibilities for A+ROW round the spare R stopped me for a bit.
Indeed — i couldn’t get past H,A,R(R)OW where R is R-[rated film]. but then i was stuck. and wrong.
5D A church = A + MINSTER?