Post number 350 for me, and a tough week indeed. I made a very quick start, but ground to a halt with about a dozen entries down. Even taking Beelzebub to the pub midweek—often a boon for solving, is my excuse—resulted in little more than a grid liberally doused with Anchor Summer Beer. Still, I got there in the end, somehow. 16ac defies my best attempts at explanation, however.
*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, cd=cryptic definition, dd=double definition.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | RAJA – AJAR<. “To” as in “pull the door to”. |
| 5 | CHAMADE – CHA + MADE. |
| 11 | WATERSEAL – (A TERSE) in LAW<. |
| 12 | COUNTERSINK – COUNTERS + INK. |
| 13 | PEEN – [gat]E in PEN. |
| 15 | HETEROCHRONY – (THE CORE)* + + HR + O + NY. |
| 16 | ASIA – an interesting one, presumably &lit, but I think I’m failing to spot the cryptic aspect: A large amount of Earth’s crust. |
| 17 | ICEBLUE – (E in CLUB*) in IE. |
| 20 | MAN-MADE – MAD in MANE. |
| 21 | LIMN – (MI in NL)<. I think MI=”me” is just from alternate spellings if the musical note. |
| 22 | FIGURECASTER – (STAR CUE + GRIEF)*. A new word for me, but easily deduced from the anagram and checking letters. |
| 23 | ADRY – from DRAY, with the A (“one”) moved forward. |
| 26 | LOGISTICIAN – A[rmy] in SOLICITING*. |
| 27 | SHORELINE – [m]OREL in SHINE. |
| 28 | CAMERAS – CAME + RAS. |
| 29 | DREE – D + E’ER<. |
| Down | |
| 1 | RACKHAM – RACK + HAM. Arthur Rackham, an illustrator, and a name I recall from my childhood, probably via The Wind in the Willows. |
| 2 | AFORESAID – (FORE in (A + S)) + AID. |
| 3 | AWNY – W in ANY. I don’t recall seeing “transfixed” as an insertion indicator before, but I’m sure it’s perfectly valid. |
| 4 | WATER CARRIER – CARTER* in WARIER. |
| 5 | CTENOID – I in (DON + ETC)<. |
| 6 | HERB – HER[e] + B. |
| 7 | ARSPHENAMINE – HEN in (MAN + PARESI[s])*. Apparently the first effective treatment for syphilis. |
| 8 | AENEOLITHIC – (HOT ICE A LINE)*. |
| 9 | ELAN – E + LAN. |
| 10 | CUTTING ROOM – T in (CUT IN + GROOM). |
| 14 | ENUMERATE – MENU* in (E + RATE). |
| 18 | CECITIS – C + (SIT + ICE)<. |
| 19 | ENRANGE – N in ENRAGE. |
| 23 | AESC – SEA< + [a]C[t]. |
| 24 | ISLA – IS LA[x]. |
| 25 | ICED – [d]ICED. |
16ac is A + SIA(L) where sial means a mixture of silica and alumina, which forms part of the earth’s crust. (I did an O-level in geology in the sixties.)