Financial Times 15114 by ARMONIE

by

Pleasant Tuesday stroll.

I don’t have much to say about this – only one minor quibble with POKER FACE.

 

Across
1 SUPPRESS
Drink with the mob and black out (8)

SUP + PRESS
5 STROPS
Ceases to be interrupted by Romeo’s fits of temper (6)

ST(R)OPS

Romeo is R in the phonetic alphabet.
9 TAKE FIRE
Catch kite and fear breakage (4,4)

*(kite fear)
10 HALTER
Henry gets change of riding gear (6)

H + ALTER
12 FIRST
Trees take time to become predominant (5)

FIRS + T
13 CORKSCREW
Irish port’s sailors use this to get to the drink (9)

CORK’S CREW
14 PASS ON
Will infect (4,2)

Double definition – (“will” is a verb (thanks Coby) here, meaning to “leave in one’s will”)
16 SCOURGE
Cat plague (7)

Double definition
19 OPEN AIR
Lovebird’s to display outdoors (4,3)

O + PEN + AIR

“Lovebird” has to be split into “love” = O + “bird” = PEN (female swan)
21 ON TAPE
Recorded somebody catching bug (2,4)

ON(TAP)E
23 ARROGANCE
Boasting of exotic orange car (9)

*(orange car)
25 LOOSE
Promiscuous sweetheart is after the toilets (5)

LOOSE + E (the heart of “SwEet”)
26 SCANTY
Inadequate lavatory in filthy place (6)

S(CAN)TY
27 PARAQUAT
Factor storing water and weedkiller (8)

PAR(AQUA)T
28 SATIRE
Father accepts a time for parody (6)

S(A T)IRE
29 REVEREND
Republican always gets motive of clergyman (8)

R + EVER + END
Down
1 SET OFF
Initiate display (3,3)

Double definition
2 POKER FACE
Cope with freak distribution giving nothing away (5,4)

*(cope freak)

Not sure the definition and solution match (“poker faced” = “giving nothing away”)
3 REFIT
Soldier qualified for overhaul (5)

R.E. (Royal Engineer) + FIT
4 SARACEN
Active ethnic group in Senegal is Arab (7)

S(A RACE)N

SN is the International Car Registration indicator for Senegal
6 TRANSPORT
Team leader supervised recreation in ecstasy (9)

T + RAN + SPORT
7 OTTER
Excessive hesitation of fish- eater (5)

O.T.T. (over the top) + ER
8 SCRAWLER
School head has sycophant who writes badly (8)

S + CRAWLER
11 ARTS
A group of subjects found in retirement in Australia (4)

Hidden backwards in AuSTRAlia
15 SLAUGHTER
Son has convulsions seeing carnage (9)

S + LAUGHTER
17 REPRODUCE
Copy for spin doctor entering contract (9)

RE(P.R.O.)DUCE

P.R.O. stands for “public relations officer” ~”spin doctor”
18 MOLASSES
Doctor the girls’ sweet treat (8)

M.O. + LASSES
20 RANT
Loudly scold scoundrel without the last bit of contrition (4)

RA(N)T
21 OPERATE
Perform works by Lawrence (7)

OPERA =  T.E. (Lawrence)
22 HEATED
Passionate earl in dance of death (6)

E in *(death)
24 ROAST
Criticise a society involved in corruption (5)

RO(A S)T
25 LEAVE
Surrender the French way (5)

LE + Ave.
*anagram

7 comments on “Financial Times 15114 by ARMONIE”

  1. Yes, a pleasant wake-up exercise, thanks Armonie. And thanks loonapick — I think you’re being a bit strict on POKER FACE. I enjoyed OPEN AIR

  2. Hornbeam

    I don’t think I am being strict – pedantic, possibly, but not strict.

    Were I being strict, there are a couple of clues that the Ximenean in me would disapporve of. For example the “the” in 1ac is superfluous, as is the “‘s” in 19ac. These are standard nowadays, so I don’t comment on them.

  5. Thanks Armonie and loonapick

    Nice, straightforward and good to get one like this sprinkled in the mix of puzzles. Didn’t get the O bit of PRO in 17d and didn’t parse ON TAPE at all.

    PARAQUAT was previously unknown to me andwas the last one in.

  6. Thanks Armonie and loonapick.

    I had the same concern as Brucew about the O in REPRODUCE and I don’t really believe that RANT = scold in 20dn.

    I did play with OPEN OUT for a while at 19ac on the basis of ‘display’ doing double duty until the SLAUGHTER made things clear.

    On POKER FACE I had the same concern as you to start with but then decided that it worked in the possessive rather than the descriptive – i.e. If you have a Poker Face you are giving nothing away vs if you are Poker Faced you are giving nothing away.

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