The love affair with Klingsor continues. He must be wondering if there are any other bloggers. But as I have said before from my point of view this is fine. As always he has given us a nice sound crossword with consistently good clues.
My apologies. I am without broadband at present and have done all this on my phone, so it is rather terse. Definitions underlined.
| Across | ||
| 1 | ANTECHAPEL | Article by college lecturer on primate shows part of place of worship (10) |
| An tech ape L | ||
| 7 | WAND | Rod Stewart’s middle name features in bill (4) |
| {Ste}w{art} a(n)d | ||
| 9 | TWEENAGE | Cute Jade’s last to become prematurely adolescent (8) |
| Twee nag {becom}e | ||
| 10 | GDANSK | Desperate fellow’s hiding in Greek port (6) |
| G(Dan’s)k. Desperate Dan. | ||
| 11 | GENTRY | Posh folk regularly avoided green tax (6) |
| g{r}e{e}n try | ||
| 13 | NARRATOR | One relates to breaking rule island brought back (8) |
| to in (r Arran)rev. | ||
| 14 | SHORT-SIGHTED | New shirt got discarded outside? That’s improvident (5-7) |
| shed round (shirt got)*. | ||
| 17 | EVEN-TEMPERED | Calm influence at last prevented me freaking out (4-8) |
| ({influenc}e prevented me)* | ||
| 20 | PARAFFIN | Fuel container filled by pilots if on the way back (8) |
| pa(RAF (if)rev.)n | ||
| 21 | CARBOY | Seat for one lad showing bottle (6) |
| Car [Seat for one] boy. See-at, the car manufacturer. | ||
| 22 | MAI TAI | Sounds like fancy Bond cocktail (3,3) |
| “my tie”. My = fancy as in ‘fancy that’. | ||
| 23 | ARMCHAIR | Stay-at-home Archie mostly is out on a limb (8) |
| arm (Archi{e})*. I’m not quite clear why armchair = stay-at-home. Connected no doubt and perhaps I’m just ignorant. | ||
| 25 | BEER | Busy sort’s given right wallop (4) |
| bee r. Wallop = beer. | ||
| 26 | DEDICATION | Treatment initially 50% off, as a tribute (10) |
| medication with its initial m changed to d. M = 1000, D = 500. | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | NEW DELHI | According to Spooner, owed foolish person capital (3,5) |
| “due Nellie” Spoonerised | ||
| 3 | EXE | In case of earthquake cross river (3) |
| X in e{arthquak}e, the case of “earthquake” | ||
| 4 | HEADY | Violent thug gets day for victory (5) |
| heavy with its v replaced by d. Again my possible ignorance : so heady = violent then? | ||
| 5 | PFENNIG | Bit of old spirit returning after fellow’s put in prison (7) |
| p(f)en (gin)rev.. Bit of old is coin of old. | ||
| 6 | LOGARITHM | Mathematicians use it to record a recurring pattern, reportedly (9) |
| “log a rhythm” | ||
| 7 | WEAR AND TEAR | Sport’s about money and drink, resulting in deterioration (4,3,4) |
| wea(rand tea)r. Wear = sport. | ||
| 8 | NO-SHOW | One who’s unexpectedly not here, ultimately? (2-4) |
| (One who’s)* minus {her}e. &lit. Anagram indicator unexpectedly. Good clue. | ||
| 12 | THREE-MASTER | Husband in service perhaps wants to become skilful in a craft (5-6) |
| t(h)ree master [= wants to become skilful]. Service tree. | ||
| 15 | SIEGFRIED | Operatic hero tragically dies with grief (9) |
| (dies grief)* | ||
| 16 | GERONIMO | When returning, ring child and say “Here I come!” (8) |
| (O minor eg)rev. | ||
| 18 | TANKARD | Drink at a bar I swilled from this? (7) |
| (drink at a)* minus I | ||
| 19 | MANAGE | Engineer‘s staff get on (6) |
| man age | ||
| 21 | COMIC | Funny business with victims of farmer’s wife? (5) |
| co mic{e}. The farmer’s wife cut off their tails. | ||
| 24 | HAT | Perhaps bowler‘s left out of game (3) |
| ha(l)t. Halt = game. | ||
*anagram
Good fun. The mice with their tails cut off made me laugh aloud, always a good thing, and ‘Seat for one’ as a def for ‘car’, which crossed the above, made for a pretty SE corner. Though I’m a bit iffy about Spoonerisms: they seem always to be solvable only in retrospect.
Thanks to Klingsor and John.
Enjoyable and difficult enough, but not unreasonably so. Slow to start but then went in steadily, although I couldn’t parse a few including HAT, COMIC (missed ‘mice’ – very good!) and DEDICATION. Had ‘carson’ instead of CARBOY, but enjoyed the ‘Seat’ bit. In my ignorance, hadn’t heard of ‘service tree’. Favourites were the &lit NO-SHOW, PFENNIG, GERONIMO and my LOI & COD, GDANSK.
Thanks to Klingsor and John.
‘Violent’ as a synonym for HEADY surprised me, too, but I see it’s in Chambers as one of several meanings. ARMCHAIR can be ‘stay-at-home’ in the sense of an ‘armchair traveller’ – one who stays at home and travels vicariously by watching travelogues on TV etc.
MAI TAI was new to me, but I guessed the ‘tai’ bit from crossing letters and found it by googling for cocktails with ‘tai’ in the name. Jamie tells you how to make it here.
5dn was one of my last ones in – it took a while for the PFENNIG to drop.
Thanks, Klingsor and John
Thought this was brilliant. Had to cheat on MAI TAI to finish. Superb and comic clues including, but not limited to, GDANSK, COMIC, PFENNIG (standout), ARMCHAIR. Also note customary Wagnerian reference in SIEGFRIED.
Thanks to Klingsor and John.
Lovely puzzle. As a change Bert and Joyce solved this independently. Joyce has to admit that she needed a hint from Bert to finish.
Spoonerisms are not our strong point but as we completed the puzzle awaiting a flight to 2d it went in quickly.
Thanks to Klingsor and John.