I’m always more than pleased to see Tramp’s name on a crossword, especially when it’s in the Saturday slot.
I was, at it turned out, thankful that this one was a Prize puzzle: although the clues were generally straightforward, it took several sessions to unravel the answers to 11ac and 8dn and the parsing of 18dn, which would have held up the blog on a weekday.
I thought this was Tramp at his best – clever and witty, with some inventive and misleading definitions (eg ‘stirring drinks’, ‘reward for going’, ‘being stuck in a rut’), great story-telling surfaces and three excellent ‘lift and separate’ clues in ‘lucky escape’, ‘magic mushroom’ and ‘fire blankets’.
I also enjoyed the amusing topicality of 4ac and 18dn – I don’t think Tramp will be telling us this time that he wrote this puzzle a while ago.
I had, as often, too many ticks to list, so I’ll leave you to name your favourites.
Many thanks to Tramp for a most enjoyable puzzle.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 I don’t know times to go round (4,2)
PASS BY
PASS (I don’t know) + BY (times)
4 Commotion from Spare by Prince (6)
POTHER
P (Prince) + OTHER (spare) – I don’t think this needs any further explanation, does it?
I do like this word, which I’ve always assumed (wrongly, apparently) was an alternative for ‘bother’ but I’ve now found that it can also mean a choking cloud of smoke, which took me back to childhood, when we would gather outside to watch smoke ‘pothering’ (which, never having seen it written down, I’d always imagined as a dialect word, spelt ‘puthering’ ) out of a chimney on fire – I’m chuffed to have learned this
9 Frank washes hands (8,7)
STRAIGHT FLUSHES
STRAIGHT (Frank) + FLUSHES (washes) – hands in poker
10 Lucky escape for one after virus (6)
FLUKEY
KEY (escape, for one) after FLU (virus)
11 Stirring drinks in pub: large one re-ordered in litres (8)
PHILTRES
PH (public house) + LITRES with the L (large) and I (one) re-ordered / reversed
12 Land in trouble, British and American bank providing protection (8)
BARBADOS
B A (British and American) + RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) round (providing protection) ADO (trouble) – when I had ?A?B?D?? (not yet having the pesky 8dn) my only thought was Cambodia but, of course, I couldn’t parse it
14 You might see irony in this bore chasing it (6)
SATIRE
SA (sex appeal – it) + TIRE (bore)
15 Artist bent over, inspired by unopened magic mushroom (6)
AGARIC
A reversal (bent over) of RA (artist) in (inspired by – this was discussed last Wednesday) [m]AGIC, ‘unopened’
18 Home team to shoot first (8)
FIRESIDE
FIRE (shoot) + SIDE (team)
21 Throughout the last month, hospital department is close to the bone (8)
INDECENT
IN DEC[ember] (throughout the last month) + Ear, Nose and Throat (hospital department)
22 Wooden trough at the front blocking stable (6)
STOLID
T[rough] in SOLID (stable)
24 Reward for going in kennel has had dog barking (6,9)
GOLDEN HANDSHAKE
An anagram (barking – I always enjoy this indicator and it’s, of course, especially apt here) of KENNEL HAS HAD DOG
25 Short skirts in August? Bachelor extremely excited to be introduced (6)
ABRUPT
B[achelo]R, extremely + UP (excited) inside A[ugus]T (skirts in)
26 Seller of cooker missing ring to con rector (6)
VENDOR
[o]VEN (cooker) minus o (ring) + DO (con) + R (rector)
Down
1 Secretary to reveal a bit of leg (7)
PATELLA
PA (secretary) + TELL (reveal) + A
I can’t not mention dear Rufus’s classic ‘Two girls, one on each knee’, can I?
2 Fire blankets left hanging (5)
SLACK
SACK (fire) round (blankets) L (left)
3 Mostly stiff around golf hole: dropped a shot (7)
BOGEYED
BOD[y] (stiff) mostly round G (golf – NATO alphabet) + EYE (hole, in a needle for example) – a bogey is a score of one stroke over par on a golf hole
5 Hey! Girls going out, they might be boring (3,4)
OIL RIGS
OI (Hey) + an anagram (going out) of GIRLS
6 Stalls his estate after turning around (9)
HESITATES
An anagram (after turning round) of HIS ESTATE
7 We hear row with love being stuck in a rut? (3,4)
ROE DEER
Sounds like (we hear) row + dear (love)
8 Listener has one song’s intro on both sides of cassette (6)
STAPES
S[ong] + TAPE (cassette) + S[ong] – this entry held out the longest – seemed to be crying out for a homophone – until I suddenly remembered it being the answer in a TV quiz very recently: one of the bones, more familiar to me, at least, as the stirrup, of the middle ear (listener) (which I had assumed indicated a homophone – clever Tramp!)
I found an entry saying that it’s Latin for stirrup, which sounds very plausible but my 2029-page Lewis and Short, the biggest Latin dictionary I know, doesn’t have it – but I’m not saying it’s wrong
13 Celebrate with clothes removed during heavy session: one serves alcohol (9)
BARTENDER
[p]ART[y] (celebrate) in BENDER (heavy session)
16 Boat to travel north: see the sights of city (7)
GONDOLA
GO (travel) + N (north) + DO (see the sights of) + Los Angeles (city) – with an allusive surface
17 Bank in competition to win a lot of money (5,2)
CLEAN UP
LEAN (bank, like an aircraft?) in CUP (competition)
18 Fine for Conservative primarily avoiding tax: greedy so-and-so (3,3)
FAT CAT
This took ages, until I dimly remembered seeing ‘for’ = ‘at’ in a crossword years ago and found, in Collins (but not Chambers), under ‘at’, ‘for; in exchange for: it’s selling at four pounds’, so it’s F (fine) + AT (for) + C (Conservative) + primarily A[voiding] T[ax] primarily
19 Novelist to go after press (7)
RUSHDIE
DIE (go) after RUSH (press)
20 Sponge outline from designer tattooist (7)
DRINKER
D[esigne]R+ INKER (tattooist)
23 Expressed satisfaction with loves: that man would (5)
OOHED
O O (loves) + HE’D (that man would)