Happily completed in a steady 17.28, with no particular hesitations except the American city, which I have now added to my list of hazily remembered places should I ever need it again. While there were no laugh out loud moments for me, I did like the “crosser of channel” and the fiddling around needed to resolve 21a. The two long ones evoked for me Paul McCartney’s moving song written in the light of civil rights actually happening in the States.
Definitions underlined in italics, [] enclosing deleted or otherwise unwanted letters, everything else hopefully understandable.
| Across | |
| 1 | Dessert that’s cold and wet I care about (5,3) |
| WATER ICE – An anagram (about) of WET I CARE. I’d call it a sorbet, otherwise it sounds a bit plain. | |
| 5 | Pupil primarily in uniform perhaps to be examined (6) |
| PROBED – First letter of P[upil] then ROBED as in uniform. I think the “perhaps” is there because a robe is not necessarily a uniform | |
| 10 | To try something new was depressing? No, oddly (6,4,5) |
| SPREAD ONES WINGS – An anagram (oddly) of WAS DEPRESSING NO. | |
| 11 | Bit of a lump, very soft, in water (5,5) |
| ADAMS APPLE – The prominent appearance of the larynx, usually more visible in males, the origin myth being that Eve’s proffered apple stuck in Adams throat. It’s PP for very soft in ADAM’S ALE, another culling from Genesis suggesting that for Adam, being (before the apple) innocent, water was a sufficient man’s drink, and therefor good Christians should also eschew anything stronger. I’m inclined to get Real. | |
| 13 | Collection of myths, each with divine content (4) |
| EDDA – Strictly, the collections of ancient Scandinavian hero stories and songs. EA[ch] contains D[octor of] D[ivinity], a divine. | |
| 15 | Fulfil our destiny to some extent in place of pilgrimage (7) |
| LOURDES – Hidden (to some extent) in FulfiL OUR DEStiny | |
| 17 | Minimal growth — number of workers reduced? (4,3) |
| CREW CUT – When the number of workers is reduced, the CREW is CUT: a hairstyle much on display in recent lads’ nights out. | |
| 18 | More stupid old boy given boot finally by employer (7) |
| OBTUSER – O[ld] B[oy] plus the last of [boo]T placed beside USER for employer. A comparative, I think, rarely encountered in the wild. | |
| 19 | Welshman’s penning false account in papers (7) |
| DAILIES – Your Welshman is DAI, with his ‘S for is, enclosing LIE for false account. | |
| 21 | Novice politician cycling backwards (4) |
| TYRO – Takes a bit of sorting out. The politician is a TORY. If you cycle it moving one letter, it becomes ORYT. Then write it backwards. | |
| 22 | Control furore, cut short during a social event (10) |
| ASCENDANCE – I believe furore is meant to give SCENE, which is cut short and inserted into A DANCE for a social event | |
| 25 | Start to retreat to the cricket pavilion? (3,3,3,6) |
| GET OFF THE GROUND – I initially thought this was a CD, but the definition is just start. If you’re on the cricketing field of play, this is how you retreat to the pavilion. | |
| 27 | No fellow crossing river — crosser of Channel! (6) |
| NORMAN – NO plus MAN for fellow with R[iver] inserted. Reference 1066 and all that. | |
| 28 | Learners in capers collecting low grades (8) |
| STUDENTS – Capers are STUNTS, the low grades are D and E. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Song rendered by idiot in yell (7) |
| WASSAIL – A usually boisterous yuletide song. ASS for idiot in WAIL for yell. | |
| 2 | Black stuff in bottomless lake (3) |
| TAR – I remember a young teen being blown away by the perfect beauty of TARN Hows, to the NE of Coniston Water, one of many small mountain lakes but the only one I care about. Remove its bottom (this is a down clue). | |
| 3 | Exceptionally sharp poet, one waxing enthusiastic (10) |
| RHAPSODIST – An anagram (exceptionally) of SHARP plus ODIST for poet, writer of odes. | |
| 4 | Noise made by the greedy Conservative politician enthralling House (5) |
| CHOMP – C[onservative] MP for politician enclosing HO[use] | |
| 6 | Girl, it’s said, is one of eight on river maybe (4) |
| ROWS – If you include the “is”, you’re looking for a 3rd person singular verb. ROSE is your random girl, and our answer is an aural representation. | |
| 7 | Blessing has been taken amiss — a feature of speech (11) |
| BENEDICTION – An anagram (taken amiss) of BEEN plus DICTION, a feature of speech. | |
| 8 | Some French jargon that is sung (7) |
| DESCANT – Some in French gives DES, jargon is CANT. Chambers rather skates round this definition, but it works via “gibberish”. | |
| 9 | Agent left, someone very good having had to be substituted (8) |
| REPLACED – Agent is REP, add L[eft] ACE for someone very good and [ha]’D | |
| 12 | Spiker of drink? Grown-up needs time to recover finally (11) |
| ADULTERATOR – Grown-up: ADULT, time: ERA, TO [recove]R finally. | |
| 14 | Perplexed American playwright needing surprise ultimately in plot (10) |
| BEWILDERED – (Thornton) WILDER, though I went from (Oscar) WILDE to stop with (Billy) WILDER who was strictly a screenwriter. Whichever, add E from the end of surprise and put the lot into BED for plot. | |
| 16 | US city artist turning up, a drunkard grabbed by Salvationists (8) |
| SARASOTA – It’s in Florida. (I looked it up!). Artist R[oyal] A[cadamician] reversed, plus A SOT from drunkard, all in S[alvation] A[rmy], the Salvationists. A trust-the-wordplay sort of clue, because it’s nor Saratoga. | |
| 18 | Figure month will finish with endless pain (7) |
| OCTAGON – The month OCT[ober] plus endless pain AGON[y] | |
| 20 | Instruments sending sound up in urgent message (7) |
| SPEEDOS – Wasted time scouring the orchestra. There are probably several ways to get to DEEP from sound. I did it via sound/deep sleep. Once you have it, reverse it (sending up) and insert into SOS for urgent message. | |
| 23 | Discharge for one set astray (5) |
| EGEST – EG for “for one” plus an anagram (astray) of SET. | |
| 24 | Old king is tender, as some might say (4) |
| OFFA – He of the Dyke, sounds like OFFER, tender, especially if you are one of those people who can’t be bothered with Rs | |
| 26 | In auditorium win a cricket trophy? (3) |
| URN – And another aural representation: win gives EARN. The Urn is the famous trophy played for by England and Australia at cricket, apocryphally containing the Ashes of deceased English cricket after a very, very rare defeat. | |
I failed on ROSE (I put ‘Rowa’) and PROBED and couldn’t quite remember the crossword-only word TYRO so put TYRE by mistake. I’ve literally never hear d ‘sorbet’ pronounced as ‘sore bet’ but only ever ‘sore bay’ in my 40 years on earth but I do say ‘nougat’ like ‘nugget’. The pronunciation of ‘sorbet’ with the ‘t’ immediately calls to mind the Jamaican ‘patwa’ (patois) pronunciation of ‘cabaret’ as sung by Sean Paul. I’ve also never heard anyone English say ‘water ice’, it’s a very American phrase famously said as ‘wooder ice’ in Philadelphia.
Speedo. What’s next, tacho?
Another enjoyable puzzle that I completed without having to look up more than two…SARASOTA ( didn’t sound likely) and TYRO (NHO this definition). No problem at all with ROWS, as I used to row in a C2 with a partner, and there were plenty of C8s in the same boat shed. WATER ICE is a dreadful name for a sweet, ( ice is frozen water, no?); but I liked DAILIES, ADAMS APPLE and GET OFF THE GROUND.