An enjoyable crossword with a nice mixture of clues, generally on the easy side. My only quibbles with with 3 and 17
| Across | |||
| 1. | Setting forth out of the post office, then south, then first right (10) | ||
| Expository | EX + PO + S + I(=first, I think, as in number 1) + tory | ||
| 6. | Parts of play audience compelled to shave heads (4) | ||
| Acts | First letters of “audience compelled to shave” | ||
| 9. | Jean’s so upset not knowing the way here? (3,4) | ||
| San Jose | (Jean’s so)* – ref to the song Do you know the way to San Jose? | ||
| 10. | Fidgety about guitarist’s neck? (7) | ||
| Fretful | CD/DD referring to fret on a guitar | ||
| 12. | Lester surprisingly takes part in Disney film (4,6) | ||
| Wall Street | Lester* in Walt – Adrian Lester is a well known actor, so the surface works | ||
| 15. | Everything that’s down is on the same side (6) | ||
| Allied | All + i.e. + d(own) | ||
| 16. | British graduate confined in barred cell gets the last of various vegetables (8) | ||
| Cabbages | B(ritish) BA in Cage + [variou]s | ||
| 18. | Talk about Polish zloty being brought back in Austria (8) | ||
| Salzburg | (Gas + rub(=polish) + zl(oty))< | ||
| 20. | Note-books journalist coloured (6) | ||
| Tinted | Ti(=note on sol-fa scale) + NT (New Testament) + ed | ||
| 23/13. | Aim to have priest stop American Dad!(6) | ||
| Aspire | P(riest) in A(merican) sire | ||
| 24. | Greek island’s leader goes back to this place for the ambience(10) | ||
| Atmosphere | Patmos with P moved to the end + here. | ||
| 26. | Kelvin looks round the home counties for emperors (7) | ||
| Kaisers | K + airs around SE. | ||
| 27. | Some misfortune qualifies as not being fair (7) | ||
| Unequal | Hidden in “misfortUNE QUALifies”. | ||
| 28. | Disheartened explorer gets some work (4) | ||
| Ergs | E[xplore]r g[et]s. | ||
| 29. | How champion was rated has no relation to serious complaint (10) | ||
| Asbestosis | As best (=how champion was rated) + O sis (zero sister) | ||
Down |
|||
| 1. | Sometimes Neil asked for a usually unpleasant alternative (4) | ||
| Else | Alternate letters in “Neil Asked” | ||
| 2. | Spooner’s throwaway shroud an amusement (7) | ||
| Pinball | Spoonerism of bin pall | ||
| 3. | If the Queen took up roller-skating, might she break this? (8,5) | ||
| Shoulder blade | CD. Not entirely clear I follow this – seems to relate to the Queen knighting people with a sword (blade) pressed to the shoulder blade and possibly to roller-blading (although I think that’s different to skating). | ||
| 4. | Turkey food gifts (6) | ||
| Treats | Tr (Turkey) + eats | ||
| 5. | Soldier right to inflame riot (8) | ||
| Rifleman | (R + inflame)* | ||
| 7. | Playing snooker possibly includes very loud hitting (7) | ||
| Cuffing | Cuing around FF | ||
| 8. | Cut makes fish reflective (10) | ||
| Silverside | DD – I suppose having a silver side is what makes fish reflective. | ||
| 11. | Involving me in battles over quiet beginning (13) | ||
| Establishment | (Me in battles)* around sh | ||
| 14. | Disorganised sheep restraint (10) | ||
| Ramshackle | Ram + shackle | ||
| 17. | Professor beginning to be negligent about fifth-rate 11 (8) | ||
| Premises | P[rofessor] + remiss around E. Being picky, this does look like remiss is being clued as “to be negligent”, which implies a verb, whereas remiss is an adjective. | ||
| 19. | Suggestive sort of dancing with popular German bird (7) | ||
| Lapwing | Lap(-dancing) + w(ith) + in G[erman] | ||
| 21. | Twists lectures given orally (7) | ||
| Torques | Hom of talks | ||
| 22. | Clever old king drowned in turbulent sea (6) | ||
| Astute | Tut (King Tut = Tutankhamun) in sea* | ||
| 25. | Friend’s head drops in the mountains (4) | ||
| Alps | Pals with P moving down | ||
I think 3D is “If the Queen” = “should ER” + blade, which can perhaps be a verb these days meaning to roller-skate
17D perhaps better clued as “Professor initially negligent … “.
19D With for the “w” in LAPWING inadvertently omitted.
Re 8d. “makes fish reflective” = “silvers ide”
For once, the fact that this is a pangram actually helped, as my LOI was 8d (which I think Geebs has parsed correctly) and I was looking for a “v”.
NICE!
Very enjoyable today; thanks to both.
I enjoyed this puzzle. I needed the wordplay for EXPOSITORY, I parsed 3dn the same as gwep@1 and 8dn the same as Geebs@4, and ELSE was my LOI.
Nothing too difficult for a Monday, but some of the parsing took time to work out. Great. My CoD was 18ac for its deceptive surface.
Thanks, Alchemi and NealH
But ‘in Austria’ does not define SALZBURG. SALZBURG is a proper noun.
The top left held me up but I got it all eventually.
Re 18ac, the dead-tree version has “somewhere in Austria”, which makes more sense.
I only got around solving this puzzle a couple of days ago.
Before and after the York do I was sort of cut off from the real world.
I enjoyed this puzzle (apart from the weak cd at 10ac).
I missed the pangram (which wouldn’t have made much difference) and I agree with the ones who didn’t like 18ac – but we’ve seen this many times before, many setters do it.
But then I got to 1d.
On October 16, Alchemi criticised a fellow setter for the use of “an irregular sequence of” to indicate a random choice of what follows.
Here we have “Sometimes”, to indicate what?
The even letters?
Don’t think so.
He does exactly the same thing as his fellow setter.
So Alchemi, why tell him off?
Thansk, NealH for the blog.