Lots of the usual inventive and frequently suggestive cluing from Punk. Some of the surfaces were a bit jerky but there were a lot of clever devices. I particularly liked 1 and 18.
| Across | |||
| 7. | Opening of chocolate bar, brilliant (6) | ||
| Clever | C[hocolate] + lever(=bar) | ||
| 10. | Shapeless hot clothing pinkish at the edges (9) | ||
| Amorphous | Amorous(=hot) around p[inkis]h | ||
| 11. | Good to poke eye, say, mostly, when back in trouble (5) | ||
| Aggro | G(ood) in orga[n]< | ||
| 12. | Drunkard taking stout regularly (3) | ||
| Sot | S[t]o[u]t | ||
| 13. | Weapon’s name recalled (3) | ||
| Gat | Tag< | ||
| 14. | Accent put on resources keeping cutback at its limits (7) | ||
| Mockney | Money around c[utbac]k. Mockney is a kind of faux cockney accent. | ||
| 15. | Bottom transformed is immaculate initially in Italian town (6) | ||
| Assisi | Ass (what the character Bottom became) + is i[mmaculate] | ||
| 17. | Young and sexy in blue pants (6) | ||
| Nubile | (In blue)* | ||
| 21. | Find another place to stir round what? (7) | ||
| Rehouse | Rouse around Eh | ||
| 23. | Architect drops in to see dog (3) | ||
| Pug | Pug[in] | ||
| 24. | Fixture around the neck? (3) | ||
| Tie | DD | ||
| 25. | Vulgar square? (5) | ||
| Gross | DD – a gross being 144 which is an example of a square (12 squared). | ||
| 26. | Those pressurised to ask for help during hospital investigations(5,4) | ||
| Spray cans | Pray in scans | ||
| 27. | Notedly dramatic explosion in apricot pie, not good (8) | ||
| Operatic | (Apricot [pi]e)* | ||
| 28. | Lift innards of calf as wild animal(6) | ||
| Jackal | Jack + [c]al[f] | ||
| … Down |
|||
| 1/7. | Sound to be a bitch as a means of escape (3-3,6) | ||
| Get Out Clause | Hom of “get out claws” | ||
| 2. | Italian barman hires drunk to catch sleazeball (8) | ||
| Respighi | Hires* around pig. Respighi was a composer, so bar refers to musical bars. | ||
| 3. | Pervert names upmarket place of entertainment (9,4) | ||
| Amusement park | (Names upmarket)* | ||
| 4. | Capital less quiet after translating a family of languages (6) | ||
| Altaic | (Ca[p]ital)*. The altaic language include Japanese and Korean, but it doesn’t seem to be a completely accepted categorisation. | ||
| 5. | Untouched instrument (8) | ||
| Virginal | DD | ||
| 6. | Opposite boy, maiden (7) | ||
| Antonym | Antony + m(aiden) | ||
| 9. | 20? (9,4) | ||
| Container ship | Bit of an odd one, this. It refers to 20, vessel, and I can only interpret it as a kind of reverse DD, the single word vessel giving rise to both container and ship, although it does also match the full solution, so doesn’t seem particularly cryptic on the face of it. | ||
| 16. | 9? (8) | ||
| Schooner | Slightly more conventional DD with schooner being both a drink container and a sea vessel. | ||
| 18. | Threat to children, poor golfer? (8) | ||
| Bogeyman | CD/DD. A bogey is a one over par shot so a golfer who got nothing but bogeys wouldn’t be winning many tournaments. | ||
| 19. | Inspiring love, witch mounted soldier (7) | ||
| Dragoon | Dragon around 0. The mounted is intentionally confusing is it implies reversal, but actually a dragoon is a cavalry soldier. | ||
| 20. | Boat nonetheless eventually capsizing, though not entirely (6) | ||
| Vessel | Hidden, reversed in nonetheLESS EVentually | ||
| 22. | Throw Austen out of joint (6) | ||
| Unseat | Austen* with out of joint as the anagram indicator. | ||
| 24/8. | Tom captivated by tongue on feline that’s very much appreciated (6,1,7) | ||
| Thanks a million | Hanks (as in Tom Hanks the actor) in Tamil + lion | ||
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Diverting stuff as usual from Punk, a bit less taxing than usual from him, so I guess therefore appropriate for Monday. I thought 24/8 was a good spot and amusingly constructed and that the dragon/witch synonym at 19 a bit strained. One of the explanations in my dictionary for dragon is “a fierce woman”, but the words really have different connotations.
Thanks to Punk and NealH.
I agree that this was Punk in Monday mode, but it was still a fun solve. The RHS went in far quicker than the LHS.
GET-OUT CLAUSE was excellent, and my LOI was CONTAINER SHIP once I had got the final checker from ASSISI. RESPIGHI was pulled from somewhere very deep in the memory banks, and without the anagram fodder I don’t think I would have got it.
Thanks Paul and NealH. I liked 25a, 26a, 21a.
New words for me were MOCKNEY, ALTAIC, RESPIGHI, GAT and the architect Augustus Pugin.
I couldn’t parse 24/8, 19d.
I was fine with 4d as my dictionary defined ALTAIC as “denoting or belonging to a phylum of languages that includes the Turkic, Mongolian, Tungusic, and Manchu languages. They are characterized by agglutination and vowel harmony.”
I was wondering if as 20 is hidden ie contained this leads to 9 and hence 16. Not convinced. Thanks Neal for confirming some of my doubts on this.
Ref 9D – A vessel is a container AND a ship. What’s the problem?
Poddy, my point is that a container ship is also a vessel (or an example of a vessel), so it could also be taken as a direct definition.
NealH – I agree, but I still chuckled as I filled it in, so we have a double definition AND a direct definition. Loved the puzzle and your blog.
Can’t say I had any real problem with the 20dn, 9dn, 16dn grouping.
My CoD has to be 7ac; it was, well, 7ac.
Thanks, Punk and NealH.