Am I more stupid than normal…?
…or was this tricker than it usually is? Found myself struggling with this set of clues more than I usually do. I fear the grey-cell-preserving qualities of this hobby may be overstated
| Across | ||
| 1 | SLEEPYHEAD | Inattentive person in shelter arrested by agent with brain (10) |
| LEE (shelter) in SPY (agent) then HEAD (brain). | ||
| 6 | TSAR | Ruler treats army partially (4) |
| Within (partially) treaTSARmy | ||
| 9 | BOARD | Panel uninterested in hearing (5) |
| Sounds like “Bored” (uninterested) | ||
| 10 | STROMBOLI | Soil freshly broken by instrument, not one for volcanic island (9) |
| Anag (broken) of SOIL around TROMBone (instrument, not one) | ||
| 12 | ABSOLUTE PITCH | Playing at pub, lose desire to show rare musical ability (8,5) |
| Anag (playing) of ATPUBLOSE, then ITCH (desire) | ||
| 14 | INFUSING | Popular chef’s conclusion, exploiting filling (8) |
| IN (popular) F USING (exploiting) | ||
| 16 | STEREO | Reset wobbly old record player (6) |
| Anag (wobbly) of RESET, then O (old). Nice surface | ||
| 18 | AGREED | Settled a craving (6) |
| A GREED (craving). I like these terse clues, that suck you into thinking they might be double definitions. | ||
| 19 | POSEIDON | Greek god’s present identification acceptable (8) |
| POSE (present) ID ON (acceptable) | ||
| 21 | COMPASSIONATE | Range, I note, a varied kind (13) |
| COMPASS (range) then an anagram (varied) of INOTEA | ||
| 24 | AUSTRALIA | Atmosphere around street connected with trouble back in country (9) |
| AURA (atmosphere) around ST, then AIL (trouble) backwards | ||
| 25 | PROWL | Move stealthily and softly, right beside bird (5) |
| P (softly) R OWL | ||
| 26 | FAST | Refrain from eating quickly (4) |
| Double def | ||
| 27 | APPARENTLY | Exercise involves a payment, it seems (10) |
| APPLY (exercise – not the most obvious definition but it works) around A RENT | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | SABBATICAL | Leave cab, alas, bit damaged (10) |
| Anag (damaged) of CABALASBIT | ||
| 2 | EXAMS | Medium in state having no time for tests (5) |
| M in tEXAS (state without T – time) | ||
| 3 | PADDLE STEAMER | Hesitation under pressure confuses crew in boat (6,7) |
| P (pressure) ADDLES (confuses) TEAM (crew) ER (hesitation) | ||
| 4 | HESITANT | <span>Remake of </span><i>The Saint</i><span>? That’s doubtful
</span> (8) |
| anag (remake) of THE SAINT | ||
| 5 | ABRUPT | Inclined to keep book on rugby union short (6) |
| APT (inclined) around B (book) RU (rugby union) | ||
| 7 | SMOTHERED | Most unruly man communist suppressed (9) |
| Anag (unruly) of MOST, HE (man) RED (communist) | ||
| 8 | RAID | Run and help attack (4) |
| R (run) AID (help) | ||
| 11 | MOTT THE HOOPLE | Time consumed by renovation of top hotel, home for rock band (4,3,6) |
| Anag (renovation) of TOPHOTELHOME around T (time), for this band. Very nice surface – alluding to some of the favoured recreations of groups in that era. |
||
| 13 | JOHN WESLEY | Enjoy Welsh broadcast in church leader’s name (4,6) |
| Anag (broadcast) of ENJOY WELSH. | ||
| 15 | FORECASTS | Predictions about cutting wooded areas (9) |
| CA (about) in (cutting) FORESTS (wooded areas) | ||
| 17 | MOUSSAKA | Dish that’s first of many set before us in Japanese city (8) |
| M (first of many) then US in OSAKA | ||
| 20 | WALLOP | Hit barrier, getting over operation (6) |
| WALL (barrier) OP (operation) | ||
| 22 | ADOPT | Embrace and fuss, then part (5) |
| ADO (fuss) PT (part) | ||
| 23 | CALF | Part of leg from young elephant (4) |
| DD | ||
*anagram
Thanks Matt
Even allowing for the Guardian website problems with this puzzle, I agree that this was a notch more difficult that the average Everyman. Psst – in 4D your HTML is showing (this seems to be another recent problem on the Guardian site).
Thanks Everyman and Matt.
I also found this more trickier than usual. There were many clues with good surfaces, in addition to STEREO I liked PROWL, RAID, BOARD, AGREED, SABBATICAL, ABSOLUTE PITCH and PADDLE STEAMER!
I didn’t find this one any more difficult than most weeks. Favourites were AUSTRALIA, PROWL, PADDLE STEAMER, HESITANT and MOUSSAKA.
Thanks, Everyman and Matt.
Agreed, a little more difficult than par. 10ac was my last in, pleased to guess correctly from the cryptic part.
Enjoyable puzzle, as always. 5 in a row unaided, and today’s makes 6! As always a steady solve, and then a few where I need to put the puzzle down and go make a cup of tea.
I found it was about the same difficulty level as the recent ones, Didn’t get 11 d nor 27 ac. In fact I’ve never heard of 11d.
Good puzzle.
yes, slightly harder than last week’s and the obligatory geographical reference I’d never heard of, but I knew the rock band and figured out the rest – once I’d shaken off the fact that there was no anagram of ‘payment’ in ‘apparently’ .
I liked ‘pose’ for ‘present’.
I found that this puzzle is of similar difficulty as those of the last few weeks. I solved it after a few attempts. I knew of Mott the Hoople. I had an album of theirs, All the young dudes, that I played on my old stereo.
Thanks to Matt for explaining how I should have gone about solving it.
Never heard of Mott the Hoople or Stromboli, couldn’t fathom 27a, suppose I’m showing my age and mental obtuseness. Enjoyed the rest though, I think it was a bit harder than usual. Thanks to Matt and Everyman
Definitely on the hard side. Needed to resort to a wildcard dictionary to get “moussaka”
(17 down). Kept trying things like Yokohama until cross letters ruled out that idea.
Was not able to parse 27 across (“apparently”). Liked 21 across (“compassionate”) once
I got it. Needed to use a thesaurus to get “compass” as a synonym for “range”, then it
clicked into place. Also liked “Mott The Hoople” (11 down).
Got it all out – but with quite a lot of electronic assistance. Stromboli was familiar but Mott the Hoople needed the full force of Nr Google even though we had all the crossing letters and the ones to anagrind up (if I can use anagrind as a verb).