Solving time: 25:38
Bit of housekeeping: (1) filling in for Jerry today as he’s elsewhere; (2) apologies to Jim for missing yesterday’s blog. Busy yesterday with a tense euchre tournament.
Not a difficult puzzle on the whole with many going straight in, especially on the left-hand side. Held up by the two 15s at the end with the unknown STONECROP and, not being too sure about 13dn, trying to fit COURTIERS into 15ac.
I think there’s a problem at 20ac; though maybe I’m reading it wrongly. Ignore my stupidity on this one!
Bit of housekeeping: (1) filling in for Jerry today as he’s elsewhere; (2) apologies to Jim for missing yesterday’s blog. Busy yesterday with a tense euchre tournament.
Not a difficult puzzle on the whole with many going straight in, especially on the left-hand side. Held up by the two 15s at the end with the unknown STONECROP and, not being too sure about 13dn, trying to fit COURTIERS into 15ac.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | LIMBURGER. {mea}L,IM; URGE inside BR (for British). |
| 6 | Omitted. |
| 9 | WINDBAG. Anagram of ‘band’ inside WIG. |
| 10 | PA(TIE)NT. Ligature = tie, slur (music). |
| 11 | REVELATION. Party = REVEL; {n}ATION. |
| 12 | MAYO{r}. Source of another Pynchonian Feghoot pun: “The check’s in the mayo” (Vineland, p32). |
| 14 | BEN,IN. As with 1ac, a couple of answer-letters are in the clue. |
| 15 | SQUANDERS. The def is ‘blues’ (verb; fritters away, etc.). We take the N{umber} and insert it in SQUAD; then ER’S. Liked the surface of this a great deal. |
| 16 | CHA,PER,ONE. |
| 18 | NICHE. EH? is a request for a repeat; C for ‘Conservative’; IN (during). All reversed. |
| 20 | PARE. Take your PEAR, move the second half (AR) back a bit. If so, then why ‘later’? Or maybe the reading should go: Cut (PARE) would become PEAR if its second portion (in this case, the second two letters) went later? On edit: third try (thanks to mmagus): Take your PEAR, move its second letter (portion) to the end. Boy did I make a meal of this or what? |
| 21 | METROPOLIS. MET (experienced); OR (soldiers) reversed; POLIS{h}. |
| 25 | C(ANNIE)R. As in Little Orphan Annie; which is now being discussed on the radio. Apparently the original was Little Orphan Otto. |
| 26 | CHE(MI)ST. Sol-fa strikes again. (Let’s not go through this again!) |
| 27 | STEAL. Hidden in the first three words. ‘Nicking’ is the indicator; ‘bag’ is the def. A love-or-hate type of clue. Either way, it’s cute. |
| 28 | P(RESENT)LY. |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | LOWER. An old stand-by; that which lows (and wakes famous babies in stables). |
| 2 | M,IN,IVAN. Again, two letters are supplied in the clue itself. (Wasn’t Latin conjugation fun when you got to ‘aminibus’?) |
| 3 | UNBALANCED. Two defs. (Not one for the nutters at NAMI, etc. who have been known to try to stop crosswords from making supposedly derogatory references to the mentally ill.) |
| 4 | GIGOT. G{ood}; GO (try) inside IT. |
| 5 | RE(PRO)DUCE. Public Relations Officer (the bosses’ police). |
| 6 | Omitted. Our homophone for the day. |
| 7 | PR(E,L)ATE. |
| 8 | RETROUSSE. RE (on); T (time); RO(US)SE. |
| 13 | IN ONE PIECE. 1 NIECE includes O (old) and PEN (swan) reversed. |
| 14 | BACK(PACK)S. Never been to Cambridge but read much about Wittgenstein and Russell walking along the Backs. Wik: “The Backs is an area to the east of Queen’s Road in the city of Cambridge, England, where several colleges of the University of Cambridge back on to the River Cam”. |
| 15 | STONECROP. Anagram of ‘pots’ containing ONE C{ontaine}R |
| 17 | A,R,RANGE. |
| 19 | CELL,1ST. |
| 22 | REC,CE. |
| 23 | S(A)TAY. Guy as in camping equipment, etc. |
| 24 | {g}RILL. |
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