23626 – Not a 1A day

Author   petebiddlecombePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time 5:45

A fairly straightforward puzzle except for some tricky stuff near the top.

Across
1 WIN,TRY – a kind of weather that might produce cheer for 28 sufferers … Anything about n-point scores: Rugby should be your first sport to, er, try
4 SCRAMBLE – (clamber’s)* – this time the ‘s is part of the fodder, not an “is” link-word.
10 TRENCH,A,N.T.
12 H(ELLEN)E
15 FORECAST(le)
23 SQUA(LI)D
27 O,DOUR,LES’S
28 HAY FEVER – 2 defs, one a play by Noel C.
29 KEN,YAN(k) – “beyond my ken” = beyond my range of knowledge/skills etc.
 
Down
1 WITH HOLD
3 ROC,HESTER – hero in Jane Eyre if I remember right.
6 A,SHE,N
7 BY TURNS = “bite urns”
9 CAPE OF GOOD HOPE – def. is head as in Beachy Head
16 C,ON COURSE
17 JETT(is)ON – slightly surprised by jetton = counter as I’m more used to the French spelling with one T. One of those French words that’s borrowed in Russian and similar languages, though you need to read Cyrillic to understand it. Hence the tourist howler “PECTOPAH” (restaurant)
19 PAU,CITY
21 ROG(U)ER,Y
22 IS,A1,A,H

5 comments on “23626 – Not a 1A day”

  1. Pretty quick for me – about 40 minutes – but I wasted a few minutes, having to correct ISIAH at 22d, which is slightly embarrassing as I reckon the Bible one of my stronger subjects. Fitting perhaps that the last word I wrote in was IDIOT.
    I didn’t know the ‘draw fine lines’ meaning of HATCH.
  2. 17:45 – I did not find this one straightforward. Few major hold-ups, just a lot of clues that took me time to work through. And the last one was 9D, which I put in because it was the only phrase I could find that fitted, and I could get a feel of “promising” out of it. It was only after looking here that I understood how it worked.
  3. “Alex – he is unlikely to expire” is presumably EXHALE, an anagram of “Alex he”. But is “is unlikely” good enough as an anagram indicator?
  4. I was slow to start, wasting several seconds trying to make 1A start with V, and I also spent far too long trying to make 21D start with RAG. So, slower than I ought to have been (6:54) on an easy, enjoyable puzzle.
  5. The answer to the decade old query at 8D is evidently YES!

    A footy team’s worth of “easies” for Bunnies United:

    11a Draw fine lines to represent opening (5)
    HATCH. Yes – drawing fine lines in a drawing to represent shading is hatching.

    13a Leader is not specific (7)
    GENERAL

    14a Catalogue covering unknown composer (5)
    LIS Z T. Good mate of Brahms – often seen down the pub.

    18a Forged acknowledgement of dept accepted by football club (8)
    SPUR IOU S. So SPURS are Bunnies United?

    20a Steel (never)* breaks (5)
    NERVE

    25a Musing, despite the fact that time’s short (7)
    THOUGH T

    26a Mug – I had one to put back (5)
    I’D 1 OT

    2d Nettles, not wanted, cut down (7)
    NEEDLES(s)

    5d Cataloguing of (raincoat – it goes)* astray (14)
    CATEGORISATION

    8d (Alex – he)* is unlikely to expire (6)
    EXHALE. Pretty durable that Alexander.

    24d A measure of alcohoL – IT REpresents a small proprtion (5)
    LITRE. Yes America – that is how to spell litres and metres.

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