[If you’re attending York S&B please see comments 32&33] - here
Fairly straightforward, except for…
…the fact that there are a couple of solutions I couldn’t parse (11ac and 21dn). For the second time this week, Muffyword came to my rescue.
The rest of the answers went in quickly and without giving much hesitation, but I was left with these two clues that gave me pause. I couldn’t see the wordplay for CONCORDANT and thanks to Muffyword, I now see what the setter intended for FLAWS, but as I’m Scottish, the homophone doesn’t work, as FLAWS and FLOORS sound completely different (one reason I dislike many homophone clues is down to the letter R which English people just don’t pronounce, whereas we Scots do (after all there is an R at the end of the word – why not use it?)).
| )Across | ||
| 1 | DOCTOR | Interfere with odd bits from CCTV in entrance (6) |
| C(c)T(v) in DOOR | ||
| 4 | AMUSED | Sue’s worried after mother, returning to the centre of Guildford, gets diverted (6) |
| <=AM + *(sue) + (guil)D(ford) | ||
| 8 | ENGAGED | Already in use by English artist before the last retrospective (7) |
| Eng. + <=DEGA(s) | ||
| 9 | FATTEST | Most profitable for fellow witness (7) |
| F + ATTEST | ||
| 11 | CONCORDANT | Odd talk going around about my daughter being in agreement (10) |
| ON + COR(“my” + D) in CANT – Thanks, Muffyword! | ||
| 12 | AMOS | Book of letters from Bianca Mosca (4) |
| Letters from (ie hidden in) BiancA MOSca | ||
| 13 | POLKA | Dance with President Arthur at first (5) |
| POLK + (A)rthur
James K Polk was the 11th President of the USA |
||
| 14 | KNICKERS | Bit of knavery to pinch Cockney woman’s underwear (8) |
| K(navery) + NICK ‘ER’S | ||
| 16 | LONG SHOT | Biblical figure penning song about Hebrew leader being an outsider (4,4) |
| *(song) + H(ebrew) in LOT | ||
| 18 | SPIKE | Reject small fish (5) |
| S + PIKE
“To spike” means to “refuse to publish something” |
||
| 20 | FAUN | Druid’s heart captured by devotee of rural deity (4) |
| (dr)U(id) in FAN | ||
| 21 | FORBIDDING | Dangerous female doing bird gets licked into shape (10) |
| F + *(doing bird) | ||
| 23 | LATERAL | Subsequently Pacino’s seen in Sideways (7) |
| LATER + AL (Pacino) | ||
| 24 | WALLABY | Al goes to party in extremely wacky jumper (7) |
| AL + LAB in W(ack)Y | ||
| 25 | ENLIST | Recruit listens without a hint of suspicion surprisingly (6) |
| *(listen) (enlists – s(uspicion)) | ||
| 26 | DELETE | Remove obstruction found in river (6) |
| LET in DEE | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | DINGO | Dog pee discovered on bottom of bed at home (5) |
| (be)D + IN + GO(“pee”) | ||
| 2 | CHANCEL | Discontinue storing heroin in part of church (7) |
| H in CANCEL | ||
| 3 | OVERREACH | Outwit remaining soldiers before start of attack on church (9) |
| OVER + R.E. + A(ttack) + Ch. | ||
| 5 | MEANT | Largely opposed to taking on Peto’s intended (5) |
| ME(“Peto”) + ANT(i) | ||
| 6 | SETBACK | Reverse unlikely to change support (7) |
| SET + BACK | ||
| 7 | DISCOURSE | Speech day is gross by the sound of it (9) |
| D(ay) IS + homophone of COARSE | ||
| 10 | BACK STORY | It may be revealed in recollections of the past by southern Conservative (4,5) |
| BACK + S + TORY | ||
| 13 | PROPAGATE | Reproduce pages featuring gold mounting on semi precious stone (9) |
| <+OR in PP(“pages”) + AGATE | ||
| 15 | INSTIGATE | Start of sit-in organised by those attending game (9) |
| *(sit-in) + GATE (“those attending game”) | ||
| 17 | GENTEEL | Well-bred fellow seen with a slippery customer (7) |
| GENT + EEL | ||
| 19 | INDULGE | Favour eluding Dicky (7) |
| *(eluding)
I’m not a huge fan of the anagrind here. Dicky without the capital is fine, so it would be better at the start of a sentence. Could have been clued as “Dicky eluding favour” as a quick fix. |
||
| 21 | FLAWS | Defects when defeat’s reported at close of polls (5) |
| Homophone of FLOOR + (poll)S. This doesn’t work for me as I am Scottish and FLOOR and FLAW are not pronounced alike up here. | ||
| 22 | NOBLE | Magnanimous knight left without honour? Just the opposite (5) |
| N + L in OBE | ||
*anagram
Thanks loonapick and Peto,
concordant could be cant around on+cor+d.
Flaw is a homophone of floor + (poll)s
Great surfaces e.g. 21a
Thanks Muffyword.
Second time this week you’ve helped me out.
I’m not convinced by the homophone FLOOR/FLAW.
Thoroughly enjoyable, thanks Peto. I completed without too much difficulty, but doesn’t Peto stretch things a bit sometimes? 10dn BACK = past? 16ac LONG SHOT = outsider? And what tells us that ‘ongs’ is an anagram? Or am I being thick?
Thanks, loonapick (by the way, being in the Scottish Borders like me one has to be bilingual)
Thanks Peto and loonapick
Hornbeam @3:
10dn: BACK can be taken as clued by “of the past”. Chambers 2008 gives “belonging to the past” among the meanings of back adj. It can be argued that the clue is weak in using the same meaning for BACK in the charade as it has in the answer.
16ac: For the definition, think of a horse which is not considered likely to win a race. The anagram indicator is “about”.
Thanks loonapick and Peto.
Thanks in particular for explaining the parsings of both ENGAGED and CONCORDANT – both of which were beyond me.
I thought that OUTWIT = OVERREACH in 3 was a bit of a stretch – but then, it could only be that, so I suppose no cause for quibbles.
Thanks Peto and loonapick
Its the weekend … there’s a backlog puzzle and today it is this one. Dunno about being too easy … this one kept me busy for over an hour in a couple of sittings – maybe I just wasn’t on his wavelength. Was able to parse everything in that time though.
Apart from being slow work, there were no real holdups. First in was FATTEST as a write in – last in was SPIKE that I hadn’t seen in the context of ‘reject’ before.
I liked ENGAGED when I had worked it out … and didn’t know of President POLK previously.