Witty & ingenious
Across
1,5 STEWART GRANGER actor (TARTS GREW)* ANGER (rage)
9 AILED was suffering DELIA<
10 CHINATOWN cultured part of city CHIN (feature) A (article) (WONT)*
11 LAMPOONED sent up A MP (politician) in LOO (can) N (and) ED[ward]
12 CHEAT do E (English) in CHAT (talk)
13 YESES ayes hidden in [a]YES ES[sentially]
15 QUADRUPLE four times as much D[entist] R[ather] U[pset] in (PLAQUE)*
18 BLASPHEMY curses L[ost] ASP (snake) HEM (border) in BY (X = times maths)
19 AZTEC language AZTEC TWO STEP runs
21 LEPER person with skin disease L[if]E PER (for each)
23 BOSSA NOVA dance BOSS (stud) A NOVA (star)
25 WILSONIAN foreign policy US WILSON (ex-PM) (INA)*
26 SPROG infant GORPS<
27,29 NEEDLES AND PINS Dave Clark Five
([ba]N[d] PAID)* in NEEDLESS (uncalled-for)
Down
1, 18 STANLEY BALDWIN politician (WIND BEST ANALLY)*
2 ECLAMPSIA condition of some pregnant women (A[rticles] MISPLACE)*
3 AUDIO sound AUDI (car) O (wheel)
4 TECHNIQUE proficiency (QUICHE [chees]E [onio]N [mea]T)*
5 GUILD association for mutual aid sounds like GILD (gloss over)
6 ARAUCARIA monkey puzzle tree A in A CUR< in ARIA (song) (cur – dog)
7 GROPE touch up G (good) ROPE (guy)
8, 20 RING THE CHANGES campanology (HER TING)* changed
14 SUPER BOWL sporting event SUPERB (great) OWL (flyer)
16 ABYSSINIA country sounds like I’LL BE SEEING YOU
17 POT POURRI mixed stew (RIP UP ROOT)*
22 PULSE we all have one PAUL’S (letter writer’s minus A) E (tab of ecstasy)
23 BLISS dd
24 ASSAD Syrian leader – AS SAD (deplorable)
( )* = anagram [ ] = omit dd= double definition < = reverse
Many thanks Jed & Wanderer for an enjoyable puzzle.
Thankfully, I am old enough to remember STEWART GRANGER.
It occurs to me that ARAUCARIA would be a great pseudonym for a Cryptic Crossword setter.
I wonder why nobody has thought of that?
Thanks Wanderer for an enjoyable puzzle and Jed for the blog. I would mark both 13ac and 24dn as “& lit”.
19ac: I guessed ATTIC here, but I cannot justify this, and AZTEC is clearly correct.
27ac: Small error in the blog: [ba]N[d] is used twice in the internal anagram.
22dn: This was also a guess on my part. I am happy with the wordplay, which is eminently reasonable, but I do think “We all have one!” is a bit weak as a definition.
A thoroughly enjoyable puzzle, and blog. I was pleased to finish after my abject failure with yesterday’s Alberich.
Lots to admire here: 2, 7 and 16 down, and 15, 21 and 26 across. I must admit 1D gave me the biggest laugh though and I hope Wanderer enjoyed the moment when the clue fell into place as much as I enjoyed the moment when I saw how he had done it. Excellent stuff.
Aztec isn’t a language; the language of the Aztecs was Nahuatl. I had Attic for this reason, without justification from the wordplay.
The whole thing felt dated. Granger died in ’93, “Needles and Pins” is from ’63, and not by the DC5, according to Wiki at any rate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needles_and_Pins_(song). When did you last use “Aztec Two-Step” (or “Montezuma’s Revenge”) to describe the runs?
I agree also that the word play for “Pulse” was weak.
@Neb
Re pulse I don’t think there’s anyone here for you to agree with! Not so far anyway. The only comment on the wordplay was positive, and I also think it’s good.
Montezuma’s revenge was the Guardian crossoword blog’s setting challenge a few months ago, and his choices tend to be pretty modern (“omnishambles” was another recent one). People used “Aztec Two-Step” in their clues/comments, so it’s still out there, clearly. But I agree he’s plundered the past a bit – although 1d, for instance, though historical, is far from old-fashioned as a clue, and very funny. Why not use the past, so long as it’s not actually obsolete and still solvable?