Good Sunday cryptic stuff from Hypnos once again.
Last one in was 6 down, where the wordplay took me a moment to spot, but raised a smile once I did.
| Across | ||
| 1 | MAHREZ | Leicester City footballer starts to make all his runs exceptionally zigzaggy (6) |
| M[ake] A[ll] H[is] R[uns] E[xceptionally] Z[igzaggy]. Riyad Mahrez, the midfielder currently working wonders for both Premiership leaders Leicester, and my own fantasy football team. | ||
| 4 | OFF BREAK | Delivery not working to stop, we hear (3,5) |
| OFF + homophone of “brake”. Some sort of cricket bowling manoeuvre, I think. | ||
| 9 | RANDOM | Irregular actor, contemporary of Marvin L, bringing book out (6) |
| [b]RANDO, Marlon. Reference to Marvin, Lee. | ||
| 10 | TRUANTRY | Hear about worker in old city creating offence in schools (8) |
| (ANT in UR) in TRY. I’d only heard of “truancy”, but that didn’t seem to cause a problem here. | ||
| 12 | DROLL | Amusing duo’s opening turn (5) |
| D[uo] + ROLL. | ||
| 13 | EPITOMISE | Sum up fantastic times I hope with no end of relish (9) |
| (TIMES I [h]OPE)*. | ||
| 14 | WASTE GROUND | Scrap guard’s first patrol in unused land (5,6) |
| WASTE + G[uard] + ROUND. | ||
| 18 | THE REVENANT | Temporary resident entertaining man with priest in film (3,8) |
| (HE + REV) in TENANT. Solved from wordplay, but the intenet tells me there may have been several films by this name, including this recent one featuring Leonardo DiCaprio. | ||
| 21 | DALAI LAMA | A country boy taking in a revolutionary religious leader (5,4) |
| (A in (A + MALI + LAD)), all reversed. | ||
| 23 | MEDIA | Papers etc covered by some diaries (5) |
| Hidden in [so]ME DIA[ries]. | ||
| 24 | UP-TO-DATE | PA touted possibly for knowing the latest (2-2-4) |
| (PA TOUTED)*. | ||
| 25 | FORMAT | Arrangement in support of friend largely (6) |
| FOR + MAT[e]. | ||
| 26 | TWOPENNY | Worthless type now working around North (8) |
| N in (TYPE NOW)*. | ||
| 27 | STICKY | Unpleasant moment in confines of study (6) |
| TICK in S[tud]Y. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | MARK DOWN | Note the position of Phillips, say, in a depressed state (4,4) |
| Captain MARK Phillips + DOWN. | ||
| 2 | HENHOUSE | Place full of layers? (8) |
| Fairly straightforward cryptic definition, referring to the laying of eggs. | ||
| 3 | EMOLLIENT | Sam, maybe, in book brought up as conciliatory (9) |
| (Sam NEILL in TOME), all reversed. | ||
| 5 | FURNITURE VAN | Fool you are told is in coat by Welshman moving transport? (9,3) |
| (NIT + UR) in (FUR + EVAN). | ||
| 6 | BEANO | Vote against party (5) |
| BE A NO. A lovely clue, once you see it. | ||
| 7 | ENTAIL | Bring on section of hospital before trouble (6) |
| ENT + AIL. | ||
| 8 | KEYNES | Important foreign currency on reflection for economist (6) |
| KEY + SEN<. John Maynard, of course. The Sen occurs in a few different currency systems. | ||
| 11 | GEORGE MARTIN | Rota emerging with shift for record producer (6,6) |
| (ROTA EMERGING)*. | ||
| 15 | DREAMBOAT | Dish – what one might have at night with packet, maybe (9) |
| DREAM + BOAT. | ||
| 16 | PANDEMIC | Major health problem producing short protest amid fear (8) |
| DEM[o] in PANIC. | ||
| 17 | STEALTHY | Covert bargain of yours once (8) |
| STEAL + THY. | ||
| 19 | ADJUST | Tune from a joint in shabby condition (6) |
| A + (J in DUST). | ||
| 20 | BLOTTO | Beer principally left by German helplessly drunk (6) |
| B[eer] + L + OTTO. | ||
| 22 | INDIE | Popular bar that’s seedy boycotting very non-mainstream company (5) |
| IN + DI[v]E. | ||
* = anagram; < = reversed; [] = removed; underlined = definition; Hover to expand abbreviations
Thanks Simon and the Big Sleeper.
I wonder if a dream team is being assembled here, or whether it is just a coincidence.
Mahrez, the Dalai Lama, Keynes and George Martin. You could probably save the world with that lot. 🙂
Thanks, Simon and Hypnos. While 1A may be in your fantasy team, Simon, I think he’s in Hypnos’s real team who took another big step today towards winning the Premier League for which they were a 5000-1 chance when the season began.
I hate football so the lockdown has the advantage that there is none. The first clue had me flummoxed for a while. I thought ‘pandemic’ prescient.