Thanks to Brummie for a pleasing weekend crossword, not too difficult.
The nine clues of a kind that lack definitions give dances, though in fact I can only find eight clues. This is either my oversight or else the instruction should read nine grid entries lack definition.
Edit: the missing dance is my mistake: “excuse-me” at 20dn. Thanks to various people for helping out.
Hold mouse over clue number to read a clue.
| Across | ||
| 7 | CONGRUOUS | CON (prisoner) with (SO GURU)* |
| 8 | SNEAK | SNAKE (to wind, verb) with letter E=enegry moving from the end to the middle |
| 9 | BAGUETTES | AGUE (fever) Temperature inside BEST* |
| 10 | FLING | Female LING (fish) – a dance |
| 12 | POODLE | Died in POOLE (town on south coast of England) |
| 13 | THUGGISH | HUG (to fit tightly) and Good inside THIS* |
| 16 | HOSIERY | OSIER (willow) in HenlY (outside letters) |
| 19 | FLUENCY | Force with UNCLE* (anagram=production) and VanYa (4th letter of 5) |
| 22 | PAGANINI | GAP (space) reversed AN (one) IN and I (another one) – one who wrote a musical scores |
| 25 | MUCKER | Double definition |
| 27 | LIMBO | Breadth in (restricted by) LIMO (big car) – a dance |
| 28 | PRESS STUD | Definition and cryptic definition |
| 29 | STOMP | Million in POTS (lots of money) reversed – a dance |
| 30 | UNDERMINE | Definition and cryptic definition |
| Down | ||
| 1 | See 25 | |
| 2 | AGNUS DEI | A (one) Good and UNDIES* – The Lamb of God |
| 3 | HUSTLE | ST (street, way) Length in HUE (colour) – a dance |
| 4 | MUSETTE | MUTE containing (boxing) SET (fix) – a dance |
| 5 | UNPLUG | UN (international body) with PLUG (publicity) |
| 6 | CANNES | New inside CANES (birches, corporal punishment) – resort venue of the famous film festival |
| 11 | CULL | CUre-aLL with missing heart – definition is ‘select’ |
| 14 | INN | IN (popular) Northern |
| 15 | HEY | tHEY (people mentioned earlier) with T=time missing – a weaving English country dance |
| 16 | HOP | Winnie the PoOH reversed, missing O=love (zero tennis score) – a dance |
| 17 | SAG | GAS (talk) reversed |
| 18 | REIN | pRE–INdustrial (housing=contains) – definition is ‘check’ |
| 20 | EXCUSE-ME | EX (former) CUES (sounds like queues=lines) and ‘EM (those people, casually) reversed (rising) – the clue is almost &lit. |
| 21 | VIBRANT | BRA (underwear) inside (TV IN)* for repair=anagram – definition is ‘pulsating’ |
| 23 | ARISTO | STAIR* (anagram=winding) O (ring) – definition is ‘noble, short’ |
| 24 | ALBUMS | AL Jolson with BUMS |
| 25,1 | MASHED POTATO | “TOO PAT” mashed = POTATO so the solution could be cryptic clue – a dance popular in the early 1960s |
| 26 | EQUINE | sEQUINEd (unhemmed=without edges) – an Arab is a breed of horse |
*anagram
Thanks PeeDee.
The missing dance is the Excuse-Me (with a hyphen) which appears in Chambers as a dance during which one may change partners.
And that common Scottish misprint Angus Dei makes an appearance in 2dn: should of course be Agnus Dei – A G UNDIES*
Um, you’ve got nine in there by my count PeeDee, 10, 27, 29a and 3, 4, 15, 16, 20, 25-1d.
Thanks for the extremely prompt blog,’PeeDee. I’ve been wondering about some of these all week (did get the theme, tho’).
Indeed, PeeDee, not too difficult, but even so very enjoyable.
The dance that’s missing is (as you already thought) EXCUSE-ME.
The ODE gives us: “a social dance in which participants may interrupt other pairs in order to change partners”.
Thanks to g larsen for spotting my blunder at 2dn! I solved this last weekend intending to blog it later at leisure then forgot about it, only realising a couple of hours ago, so all done in a bit of a panic.
I looked in Chambers for excuse-me but failed to spot any refernce to a dance. I’ll try looking it up again tomorrow, more carefully this time. Got to go to sleep now though…
Thanks to PeeDee for the blog. You explained 11d which I failed to get. Now that I look again it seems quite obvious.
I also failed to recognise 20d as a dance even though I did know the concept 🙁
Thanks PeeDee,
I found this a lot of fun and while I did know EXCUSE-ME, I hadn’t heard of HEY as a dance but assumed it to be one of the nine clues. The last one in was SNEAK which took me a while to get due to a wrong answer for CANNES.
I put in TRENES which fitted the clue perfectly but made 8a unsolvable. If you enter ‘trenes fest’ into Google, there are four references to festival but unfortunately it’s the wrong answer.
I particularly liked PRESS STUD, MUSETTE, REIN, VIBRANT and MASHED POTATO. Thanks Brummie.
Thanks for the blog. I enjoyed this. Made harder by putting in HURDLE as the first undefined and then HOP and FLING had me fixated on jumping … not so far off as it happens 🙂
Thanks Peedee and Brummie
An enjoyable puzzle with not too many problems. Musette held me up a bit as somehow of a different genre but was clear enough.
Thanks Brummie and PeeDee.
Once I got HOP, I thought of plants or jumps and didn’t get the dance theme until later.
An enjoyable puzzle.
this was a cracking puzzle to do . I really enjoyed it Thank you
Thanks, PeeDee.
Very entertaining puzzle which didn’t hold any terrors.
I was similarly short of dances, until I spotted that 25,1 was not only a comestible (I had solved it before getting the theme).