Independent on Sunday, 1,216/Raich

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I haven’t blogged a Raich puzzle for a while, but always good to see him popping up on a Sunday. I liked this one a lot. Some tougher words took a while to crack, but everything was perfectly clued

Across
1 CASK – C(ollege) on ASK
3 PELLUCID – ELL in (CUPID)*
10 ECONOMIC MIGRANT – (ACCRINGTON + [-h]OME + I’M)*
11 IMPROMPTU – 1 MP + ROMP + T(ime) + U (classy)
12 TOLL – Double def.
13 LACTOSE – (LOCATES)*
15 HARARE – Initial letters of Hears About + RARE
17 DANISH – IN rev. in DASH
19 ATHEIST – AT HEIST!
20 NAIL – Even letters od iN-lAw IdLe
21 REMINISCE R.E. + MINIS + C(of)E
24 SHRINKING VIOLET – (GIRL HONKS INVITE)*
25 ILL USAGE – E.G. + AS + [-b]ULL[-y] + I(taly), all rev.
26 BYRD – BY R(oad)
Down
1 CHENILLE – (HELLENIC)*
2 SCOOP – S(mall) CO-OP
4 EXMOUTH – EX MOUTH
5 LIGHTER-THAN-AIR – (HIGH ALERT + TRAIN)*
6 CHARLEROI – CHA + (ORIEL)*
7 DUTY – DUT[-ch] + [-da]Y
8 SOLOMON ISLANDS – SOLO + MON(day) + IS + LANDS
9 TIPPLE – TIP + P (quiet) + LE (the French)
14 CHAPARRAL – CHAP + ARRA[-s] + L(eft)
16 ATTESTED – A T(ense) TEST (game) + ED[-gbaston]
18 HARDING – HARD IN G(overnment)
19 ARMAGH – Hidden in cAR MAG Hype
22 SALLY – Double def.
23 OSSI – [-f]OSSI[-l]

5 comments on “Independent on Sunday, 1,216/Raich”

  1. A pleasant mixture of fairly easy clues and a few that needed some thought. The long anagrams took a bit of unscrambling. CoD has to be REMINISCE – very easy but such a superb surface.

    Thanks, Raich and Ali

  2. Thanks, Ali.

    A bit tougher than your usual Raich, imho; but it’s all there if you go looking for it.

    I thought ECONOMIC MIGRANT was a lovely tongue-in-cheek and contemporary clue, and like Allan, I also liked REMINISCE (with shades of my long-gone Catholic upbringing, it made me smile). ILL-USAGE isn’t a term I’d heard of or have ever used, but since it’s Raich, I’m not even going to bother looking it up in dictionaries, because it’ll be there.

    Thanks to today’s setter as well.

  3. I enjoyed all of the anagrams and long clues in this puzzle by Raich, and I really love it when I think that I have parsed ALL of the clues.

    I especially liked 7d, 9d, 10a, 21a, 25a, 19a, 5d & 23d and I think that my favourite was 24a SHRINKING VIOLET.

    New words for me were CHENILLE & CHARLEROI.

    Thanks for the blog, Ali.

  4. Quite enjoyed this, ossi held me up, guessed correctly from the wordplay but didn’t know it. Ta ali and nms.

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