Another Wednesday with nothing to scare even nervous horses. Chestnut time, mostly. One definition was unknown (Karen) but easily gettable from the wordplay. Parsing PICKY took me longer than any of the clues. A 12 minute solve, but enjoyable while it lasted.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Very old ruined city containing Etruria’s first arena (9) |
| VELODROME – V[ery], E in (OLD)*, ROME. | |
| 6 | Bloke coming across mile title holder (5) |
| CHAMP – M[ile] inside CHAP. | |
| 9 | Fat misshapen toe’s torn gym clothing (7) |
| LEOTARD – LARD with (TOE)* inside. | |
| 10 | Spanish football side, big guns regularly failing, change formation (7) |
| REALIGN – REAL (as in Real Madrid), [b] I [g] G [u] N [s]. | |
| 11 | Italian banker having billions in bank? (5) |
| TIBER – TIER with B inside. | |
| 12 | Tory interrupting judge, extremely unpopular storyteller (9) |
| RACONTEUR – CON (Tory) inside RATE (judge), U[npopula]R. | |
| 13 | Be denigrating rugby player, part European (8) |
| BACKBITE – BACK (rugby player), BIT (part), E[uropean]. | |
| 14 | Second day at the Biergarten, just for men (4) |
| STAG -S[econd], TAG German for day. | |
| 17 | Green supporter rejected importing iodine (4) |
| NAIF – FAN reversed with I for iodine inside. Naïf being the masculine form of naïve. | |
| 18 | Hag having energy cut off acquires old Scottish kettle (8) |
| CAULDRON – CRON[E] with AULD (Scottish for old) inside. | |
| 21 | Switzerland with supplies flown in as aid for people in the mountains (9) |
| CHAIRLIFT – CH (Switzerland, as country code), AIRLIFT = supplies flown in. | |
| 22 | Fussy and irritable, looking neither to right nor (later) left (5) |
| PICKY – I think this is PRICKLY (irritable) with the R and (later on) L removed. Complicated parsing for a guessable answer from P*C*Y. | |
| 24 | Painter: knighted composer — not a writer from Italy (2,5) |
| EL GRECO – ELGAR our composer; without A = ELGR, [Umberto] ECO the writer. | |
| 25 | River sparkled endlessly, with woman taking dip (7) |
| SHANNON – SHON[E] with ANN a woman inside. | |
| 26 | Thai people live in the outskirts of Kingston (5) |
| KAREN – ARE (“live”) inside K[ingsto]N. The Karen people are a persecuted hill tribe in Thailand and Myanmar. I guessed they were. | |
| 27 | Patriarch of drama school in Yale cast you and me (9) |
| AESCHYLUS – (YALE)* with SCH inside, US = you and me. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Man runs away from rascally fellow (5) |
| VALET – VARLET, a rascal, loses R. VALET for man was in my mind as it appeared on Sunday last. | |
| 2 | Barcelona: King OK following surgery drama (4,4,2,5) |
| LOOK BACK IN ANGER – (BARCELONA KING OK)*. Play by John Osbourne of which even I had heard, but will never see. | |
| 3 | Awful-sounding clan abuse (8) |
| DIATRIBE – DIA sounds like DIRE = awful, TRIBE = clan. | |
| 4 | Stubborn old bishop rude at turns (8) |
| OBDURATE – O[ld], B[ishop], (RUDE AT)*. | |
| 5 | Increase the wealth of Henri Charrière, somewhat (6) |
| ENRICH – hidden, as above. | |
| 6 | Smuggled in Charlie, New York crack (6) |
| CRANNY – RAN (smuggled) inside C for Charlie, NY for New York. | |
| 7 | For engineering, lay a main central Tube (10,5) |
| ALIMENTARY CANAL – (LAY A MAIN CENTRAL)*. | |
| 8 | Corral fierce woman, an old warrior chief (9) |
| PENDRAGON – PEN = corral, DRAGON a fierce woman. | |
| 13 | Rely on report perhaps of Kent financial officer (4,5) |
| BANK CLERK – BANK = rely (bank on, rely on); CLERK as in Clerk Kent alias Superman. EDIT apparently, he is spelt CLARK which explains the “on report” i.e. sounds like. I didn’t bother looking him up. | |
| 15 | Christians of note on street in Rolls (8) |
| BAPTISTS – BAPS are round bread rolls where I live; insert TI a note and ST[reet]. | |
| 16 | California cops wearing symbol of rank in a casual manner (8) |
| SLAPDASH – the LA PD being the California cops, inside SASH a symbol of rank. | |
| 19 | Encourage ship’s doctor, having not succeeded (4,2) |
| URGE ON – SURGEON loses its S for succeeded. | |
| 20 | Mum’s drunk the setter’s very large cocktail (6) |
| MIMOSA – MA (Mum) has I’M (the setter’s), OS (outsize, very large) inserted. Posh name for Buck’s fizz I think. | |
| 23 | Years and years working in flipping outer space! (5) |
| YONKS – ON (working) inside SKY reversed. I suppose the sky is ‘outer space’ in a way. | |
33.03 Not especially quick but I never felt stuck. I did the hokey-cokey with EL GRECO until the checkers insisted on him. CAULDRON made no sense to me either. CRANNY was LOI. Thanks piquet.
I can’t say I found this easy. The SE was a real struggle. The whole puzzle took me ages. EL GRECO was just a guess. The wordplay defeated me utterly, and I struggle with clues that have unindicated DBE’s. Clark Kent). They seem very common in the Times, and would be rejected elsewhere.
Don’t ask…oh I see you didn’t .