No difficult words, or complicated wordplay so a short blog.
Time taken – 7m30s
ACROSS
1 CART(H)AGE
5 BALSA-M
10 MONOMANIACS
12 GOLDEN RULE
15 RED-HOT – (the rod)* – don’t remember seeing “spare” as an anagrind before
16 C(L)UTTER
20 (<=A(WATT)O)
24 AGROLOGIST
26 SHAKESPEARE – because I am Scottish, I always think of BURNS first when I see “bard” in a clue – must stop doing that, as it hardly ever relates to the great man
28 (GAIN)SAYING – “saw” is the definition
29 BET(RAY)A-L
DOWN
1 CUB-AGE
2 RESOLVE – (lovers)*-E
3 HAMME(RHEA)D
4 GENERATION GAP – (a parent going)* about (juvenil)E
6 ARNE – odd letters of ArRaNgEd
8 MISS-OUR-I – clever clue, as the Americans do indeed spell the metal as “aluminum”, therefore missing our I
11 MILK CHOCOLATE
14 AUCTIONEER
19 A-L-READY
21 W-EIGHTY – 80 being a score (20) less than 100
25 HEWN – (when)*
The NE corner caused a few issues here and I’m still not sure how MISSOURI at 8D works
Ali
R. Saunders
I put in agronomist automatically. I think this must be right although I see that agrologist is a term used in Canada.Is it possible that both are acceptable? I don’t know if agrologist is in th usual dictionaries but if not it is surely still acceptable if it is a standard term used in an |English speaking country??
JohnP Marshall
R. Saunders
Wikipedia has this quote:
agrology is defined as the sub discipline of agronomy that considers the influence of soil
9a Transport 75% occupied (3)
BUS (Y)
13a Moreover, item’s rarely used now for this (4)
ALSO. Did ilanc ask about this above and not get an answer?
18a Charlie’s predecessor holding notice in front (7)
BRAV AD O. Think radio alphabet.
23a It’s needed for a bottle of wine or port (4)
CORK
27a Male ‘n’ female (3)
HE N
7d (Claret’s)* drunk – or another kind of red (7)
SCARLET
17d Maltreats about a hundred old computing devices (8)
AB A C USES
22d Imprisoned in boAT ON A Lake, with no key (6)
ATONAL. Don’t get stuck with Gin and no Tonic.