Monday again and my second Wiglaf in his third Daily Indy crossword.
Found bits of this tricky and I can’t really explain why 23d SKIRT might be right.
Thanks Wiglaf
Across
1 Vehicle that Rita constantly keeps in reverse (3-3)
SNO-CAT
A maker of snow ploughs. Hidden reversed answer
5 It’s clear 5D, say, has started a battle (8)
CONSOMME
5d is a CON(servative) & The SOMME (which was started 100 years ago last week)
9 Wonderful place for day trip enthralling one with a spot of magic (8)
FAIRYDOM
1 in [FOR DAY]* tripping and M(agic)
10 Superlative broad – wife, that is (6)
WIDEST
W(ife) & ID EST
11 Italian architect spending silver in harem (6)
SERLIO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastiano_Serlio. AG(silver) removed from SER(ag)LIO
12 Supplied grass skirts to be softened (8)
RELENTED
LENT (supplied) skirted by REED (grass)
14 Tellers who deceive skinflints keeping in shape (12)
MISINFORMERS
IN & FORM (shape) in MISERS
18 After college, Sally deconstructed writer using long words? (12)
POLYSYLLABIC
POLY (old college type) & SALLY* deconstructed & a BIC pen
22 He painted western leader embracing son (8)
WHISTLER
S(on) in W(estern) & HITLER. Well you can’t say he didn’t lead Germany
25 Woman takes one cat in from France (6)
IMOGEN
Takes is redundant, 1 & MOG (cat) & EN (in in French)
26 Group of bachelors doing a striptease (6)
BARING
The group would be a BA (bachelor) RING
27 Accommodation providing bed and breakfast finally served by penniless attendants (8)
COTTAGES
COT (bed) & (breakfas)T finally & PENNYless (p)AGES
28 Drink, say, given to child almost completely dry (8)
TEETOTAL
Sounds like TEA & TOT (child) & most of AL(l)
29 Inner group of Parsees returned to welcome the Jewish queen (6)
ESTHER
Centre of (pa)RSE(es) reversed with THE inserted
Down
2 Any number must have talked about college do (6)
NEATEN
As in can you DO my hair. N(umber) & sounds like ETON
3 Lord Green interrupts Labour leader endlessly (3,6)
COR BLIMEY
LIME (green) in most of CORBY(n) or is it Corybn as he wrote last week. Lord Green was a Trade & Industry minister who got mired in a HSBC banking scandal
4 Energy features in fresh oil study in a monotonous way (9)
TEDIOUSLY
E(nergy) in [OIL STUDY]* freshly
5 Leading politician’s unhappy romance (7)
CAMERON
He’s hardly leading anymore. ROMANCE* unhappily
6 A post needing some acetylene welding (5)
NEWEL
Hidden answer
7 Veteran EastEnders’ actor named William (5)
OLDEN
Clue refers to a dropped H in WILLIAM (h)OLDEN
8 Erasmus is at work cutting India rubbers (8)
MASSEURS
I(ndia) removed from [ERASMUS (i)S]* working
13 Sport that’s not given weight and attention (3)
EAR
W(eight) removed from (w)EAR (sport)
15 Dungeon’s new arrangement of Let It Be after endless tour (9)
OUBLIETTE
An endless (t)OU(r) & [LIT IT BE]* arranged
16 Small computer with a dry power unit (9)
MICROWATT
MICRO (small computer) & W(ith) & A & T.T. (dry)
17 Revolutionary men brought up boy in revolutionary town (8)
ROCHDALE
OR (other ranks) reversed or revolutionary & LAD reversed (brought up) in CHE (guevara)
19 Model’s love for one tosspot (3)
SOT
0 replaces I in SIT (model)
20 Racially loaded, an American denied getting carried away (7)
LYRICAL
A(merican) removed from RACI(a)LLY loaded
21 American hero could be worshipped shortly (6)
REVERE
Paul Revere, most of REVERE(d)
23 A number to avoid (5)
SKIRT
OK I’m bemused by the first bit, any ideas?
24 Authorised escape? (5)
LEGIT
LEG – IT
Thanks flashling
Regarding 23dn, from Chambers under ‘number’ – “An admired item of merchandise on show, usu of women’s clothing (informal)”
Rather than a skirt, it is more usually used for a dress as in ‘a little black number’, something which should feature in every woman’s wardrobe apparently.
Thanks Gaufrid, the little black number sounds right to me.
I think that “do” in 2D refers to what a cleaner or charlady (charperson?) does. Oddly enough I met Lord Green at a party yesterday.
Right up at the hard end of daily puzzles, I thought, with some very skinny definitions.
‘Do’, ‘it’s clear’, ‘number’ and ‘Lord’ were all wilfully vicious: I can almost hear Wiglaf rubbing his hands. Well set, you bounder. COR BLIMEY goes straight into my Little Book of Favourite Clues.
Didn’t do terribly well on this – struggled with the NW and SW corners and had ‘Isobel’ for 25ac thinking ‘sobel’ might be an obscure French name for some member of the cat family.
ROCHDALE was my CoD as being vaguely &lit-ish (The Rochdale Pioneers and hence the town itself might be thought revolutionary).
Thanks, Wiglaf and flashling.
23d, I find “a number to avoid” amusing, girls at school and women at work in France have been sent home for wearing skirts, even though it is still against the law in France for women to wear trousers. I think the clue would work in a French crossword as a cryptic definition.
Thought ROCHDALE very good, also liked FAIRYDOM.
Thanks to Wiglaf and flashling.
1ac, a Sno-cat isn’t a snow plough, it’s a vehicle for traversing snow.
Fair enough Dormouse, the picture I looked at had seriously plough like capabilities though!
When I was a teenager, I was fascinated by Antarctic exploration so I learned all about sno-cats. Fortunately, I discovered I couldn’t stand the cold before pursuing it as a career. 🙂
Hi Dormouse @10: I guess you were probably a teenager around the same time as me. I remember following the progress of the trans-Antarctic expeditions in the International Geophysical Year, 1957 or thereabouts. Sir Edmund Hillary and Dr (later Sir) Vivian Fuchs were involved. And there was the Daily Telegraph’s report of the start headed “Dr Fuchs Off”.
allan_c: Slightly too young for that – I was 4 in the IGY – but we were shown a documentary about the Fuchs expedition at school in the mid-sixties that got me interested.
A superb set of clues (great surfaces, body-swerving definitions and air-tight wordplay), with 3dn probably the most inspired, wonderful clue I have seen in any organ in a very, very long time. Bravo Wiglaf!
PS allan_c @11 … 🙂