Pleasant enough if not too demanding “for a Thursday” and I got through in less than 20 minutes but (as I think is my regrettable custom) I can’t spell the American. I’d sort of like to think I’m not alone.
I rather liked the unusual, if slightly arbitrary rhyming clue, which oddly enough would have provided a better example for the poetic metre clue. Linda Barton, should you be breading this, please say hello!
Definitions underlined in italics, everything else improvised.
| Across | |
| 1 | Ex-president agitated State Department, ultimately in a spot (5,3) |
| POLKA DOT – James Knox POLK was the 11th President of the USA, serving from 1845 to 1849, so very much ex. Add him to an agitated state or ADO, and the last of DepartmenT | |
| 9 | Drop in pace limiting English cricket side (8) |
| RELEGATE – Pace is RATE, which goes outside E(nglish) LEG, being one side of a cricket field. | |
| 10 | Sonnet’s opening is able to follow a metrical pattern (4) |
| SCAN – The opening letter of Sonnet plus is able: CAN. Scan here is the intransitive form of the verb. | |
| 11 | Guy known for storytelling amuses Pat and Dicky (2,10) |
| DE MAUPASSANT – Indeed known especially for a prodigious number of short stories mostly in the 1880s, and his name really was Guy. Dicky is your anagram indicator, and AMUSES PAT AND the letters to use. | |
| 13 | Poetry, finally moving, needs love really (4,2) |
| EVER SO – A phrase I still shudder to use after a humiliating moment in Mr Downing’s 2nd year junior class. Redemption partially comes in being clever enough to say this is VERSE for poetry, with the final E moving (ever so randomly) to the front and O for love appended. | |
| 14 | Jokester willing to show patience? (4,4) |
| CARD GAME – Simple enough: jokester is CARD, and willing GAME. | |
| 15 | Altered ground on which you might step (7) |
| TREADLE – Ground the anagram indicator, ALTERED the fodder. | |
| 16 | Climber may want this coffee mostly sweet (7) |
| LATTICE – I think you assume the climber is a garden variety, LATTe the coffee cut short, and ICE the sweet. | |
| 20 | I’m going to restaurant, admitting drug abuse (3-5) |
| ILL-TREAT – I’m going to translates to I’ll, restaurant is the TRAT, a conventional shortened from of trattoria, into which the setter’s drug of choice, the very convenient E, is admitted. | |
| 22 | Travel with convict, wanting one driver, say (6) |
| GOLFER – Not his club but the victorious (if generic) Ryder cup team member himself. GO for travel, LIFER for convict with the I (one) wanting or removed. | |
| 23 | Devotion to firm British monarchs defending country with displaced leader (5,7) |
| BRAND LOYALTY – B(ritish) ROYALTY (monarchs) “defending” LAND with the leading letter L displaced, again arbitrarily, to the back. | |
| 25 | E.g. compare or contrast the setter with a doctor (4) |
| IAMB – So the wordplay is I for the setter, A in plain sight plus MB as one of the many short forms of doctor. An IAMB is a metrical foot of two syllables, the first unstressed, the second stressed. Contrast does that when it’s a verb, but not when it’s a noun, so it’s not quite as good an example as compare. | |
| 26 | Maybe Napoleon thus features in my article (8) |
| CORSICAN – Assemble the little islander from thus: SIC, my(!): COR(!) and AN in plain sight. | |
| 27 | English-heritage.org inaccessible? Girl has got into it (8) |
| GEORGINA – If wordpress converts that address into a link, you’ll be invited to buy the domain: it needs a .uk appended. But it’s only rather wittily here to provided the setting for today’s hidden. | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Working business boss recalled minister’s survey (4-4) |
| ONCE-OVER – Working is on, the boss is the CEO, and the minister to be reversed/recalled is a REV. | |
| 3 | Nursery rhymes for Linda Barton (12) |
| KINDERGARTEN – A clever lift and separate and an unusual device. You are invited to find rhymes for our named lady, of which your diligent servant found dozens both alive and dead, all of them no doubt worthy but none, as far as I can tell, blessed with celebrity. We are, however, thereby excused chocolaty references or dodgy homophones, and can only really wonder whether -da rhymes with -der and -ton with -ten. Over to you. | |
| 4 | Tattoo is funny peculiar, with funny ha-ha edging (4,4) |
| DRUM ROLL – I rather like this use of the well-known two funnies. Funny peculiar is RUM, funny ha-ha DROLL, one placed inside the other. | |
| 5 | Counter manoeuvres leading to defeat (7) |
| TROUNCE – An anagram (manoeuvres) of COUNTER | |
| 6 | Big star‘s key song (6) |
| ALTAIR – Well, it is quite big, almost twice the size of ours, and the 12th brightest star in the northern sky. Key gives you ALT (probably left of your spacebar) and song AIR. | |
| 7 | The Gunners fixing a day where young players train (4) |
| RADA – The gunners are your very own Cadet Bombardier’s R(oyal) A(rtillery) fixing A D(ay) on the end for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. | |
| 8 | Marcel Proust, say, has tea with these bananas (8) |
| AESTHETE – An anagram (bananas) of THESE and TEA. I take it on trust that the author of À la recherche du temps perdu is an aesthete: wiki doesn’t say so, but many learned monographs out there do. | |
| 12 | Loudly quote drama during grand musical performance (5-7) |
| SIGHT-PLAYING – Loudly is merely a homophone indicator deriving SIGHT from cite, quote. Then it’s PLAY from drama, IN from during, and G(rand). I’m more familiar (if less than at ease with) sight singing, and am generally in awe of those who can transfer the dots on the page instantly onto the instrument they play. | |
| 15 | Bail criminal in fix or jam (8) |
| TAILBACK – Criminal is an anagram indicator to produce AILB from bail, which is then set in TACK for fix. | |
| 17 | American backer I turned up (8) |
| ANGELENO – And here disaster strikes: I can just about justify NO as on/up turned, probably going via being on horseback, but it’s just ONE for I backwards, tacked on to ANGEL for backer. It looks just as likely with an I. “What, will the (pink) line stretch out to the crack of doom?” Probably. | |
| 18 | One on board ship wearing cape — a tough guy (8) |
| CHESSMAN – SS for ship “wears” C(ape) plus HE MAN for tough guy. | |
| 19 | Checking time to visit Maxim (7) |
| STAYING – AS a transitive verb. T(ime) is included in SAYING for Maxim, slightly naughtily with a capital letter. | |
| 21 | Learner pilot follows men initially going for spin together (6) |
| ENLACE – L(earner) ACE (pilot of a sort) coming after mEN with the first letter gone. | |
| 24 | The heart’s gone out of market place in India (4) |
| AGRA – You should know the AGORA as the Greek Market of Fear. Take out its heart for the home of the Taj Mahal. | |
Im late today so could browse the other comments
Almost wrote Angelino with the i but couldn’t make sense of the no then realised it must be one upwards
And Im another who wrote sight reading until brand loyalty showed the correct answer, NHO sight playing but there you go
LOI was the chessman, took me a minute or two at the end as i had the general idea but took a while to think of he-man
Nice crossword
Thanks setter and blogger
DNF. Beaten by SIGHT PLAYING, ANGELENO, CHESSMAN and GOLFER.
Re: 26 across, OK OK the connection with Napoleon and Corsican is obvious, but cannot reconcile the introduction of “SIC” or “COR” in the explanation.
It’s (relatively) straightforward wordplay: thus translates to SIC, and my (as an exclamation) translates to COR. The article at the end of the clue is AN. “Features in” gives you the instruction to insert SIC between COR and AN. The surface of the clue is rather elegant, a natural enough statement.
Thanks Zabadak. I understand the COR…! In my youth I probably was guilty of uttering that as an exclamation and “AN” I’d already locked onto that. As for SIC and thus, thank you for that, I’ve never associated the two . . . . .but I will NOW . . Cheers . . .R