I’m still 8 by the state of my nation,
But there’s one cause for wild celebration!
Dial the amps to “11,”
Have some 12 or some 7
Or whatever’s your favorite libation.
Bottoms up!
There are some 20 in this puzzle.
I indicate (ragas, man!)* like this, and italicize anagrinds in the clues.
| ACROSS | |
| 1 | Catalogue providing stylish clothes (8) |
| CLASSIFY — CLASS(IF)Y | |
| 5 | Convictions held by some litter producers? (6) |
| DOGMAS — (Need I explain? Groan) | |
| 9 | Groovy holy man admired around India (8) |
| STRIATED — ST, “holy man” + R(I)ATED, I being ”India” in the NATO alphabet | |
| 10 | Ale bottles are mostly porter (6) |
| BEARER — BE(AR[-e])ER | |
| 11 | Hard top car’s taken off at speed (5) |
| APACE — [-car]APACE | |
| 12 | Raise dress code for formal evening drinks (9) |
| COCKTAILS — COCK, “Raise” + TAILS, “dress code for evening” (not in my circles) | |
| 14 | Waif starts to go out and pinch ecstasy (11) |
| GUTTERSNIPE — GUTTERS, “starts to go out” + NIP, “pinch” + E(cstasy, the drug) A word eternally enshrined in our lexicon, I do believe, by disobliging references to a worthy personage by the name of Eliza Doolittle. I looked, and “By George, I think she’s got it!” is a line not by George (B. Shaw) at all but by Alan (Jay Lerner). | |
| 18 | Row of coins originally accepted in change (11) |
| ALTERCATION — ALTER(C[-oins])ATION | |
| 21 | Squeeze Romeo means to secure (5,4) |
| PRESS STUD — PRESS, “Squeeze” + STUD, “Romeo” | |
| 23 | Marauder after his head’s hacked off (5) |
| IRATE — [-p]IRATE On a second look, the definition is, thankfully, not doing double duty, since “after his head” Is sufficient to indicate that the first letter of a word meaning “marauder” is missing. | |
| 24 | Animal smell masks hygiene issue (6) |
| REEBOK — Sure, blame it on the dog. REE(BO)K | |
| 25 | Criminal purpose concealed by volunteer (8) |
| OFFENDER — OFF(END)ER | |
| 26 | Listen out for mum (6) |
| SILENT — She’s always sneaking round… (Listen)* | |
| 27 | Times admits certain evidence of censorship (8) |
| ERASURES — ERA(SURE)S (OK, well, but they could be, instead, evidence of editorial discretion…) | |
| DOWN | |
| 1 | Laid back wounded with neckwear removed (6) |
| CASUAL — CASUAL[-ties] | |
| 2 | Put out net as safety feature (6) |
| AIRBAG — AIR, “Put out” + BAG, “net” | |
| 3 | Bone-picker, namely one seeking retribution (9) |
| SCAVENGER — SC., “namely” + AVENGER, “one seeking retribution” Wikipedia: “scilicet, from earlier scire licet, abbreviated as sc., which is Latin for ‘it is permitted to know.’ Sc. provides a parenthetic clarification, removes an ambiguity, or supplies a word omitted in preceding text, while viz. is usually used to elaborate or detail text which precedes it.… Scilicet can be read as ‘namely,’ ‘to wit,’ or ‘that is to say.’” Sure hadn’t seen that for a while! | |
| 4 | Good health from a continental breakfast? (6,5) |
| FRENCH TOAST — Though FRENCH qualifying TOAST could make a jokey “continental breakfast” (the real thing is more like croissant, jus et café), the Gallic drinking salutation À votre santé !—or any of its abbreviated variants, such as À la vôtre ! or my headline—means (as I’m sure is obvious to all) “To your (good) health!” I will eventually give in, though not at breakfast time, to the craving sparked by this reminder (my mother used to make it with peanut butter—which is certainly not French but sinfully delicious). In French, it’s pain perdu, because traditionally it’s made from slightly stale bread that otherwise would go to waste. | |
| 6 | Top secret to make public (5) |
| OVERT — [-c]OVERT | |
| 7 | One aboard swallows mixed beverages (8) |
| MARTINIS — MARTIN(I)S | |
| 8 | Worried and more than a trifle upset (8) |
| STRESSED — DESSERTS<=“upset” (Since I myself was once a newcomer on these shores, I’ll explain for any confounded Yankee that in the UK a “trifle” is an after-dinner confection, and “more than one” simply tells us to make it plural.) | |
| 13 | Clubs on edge during delay in game (6,2,3) |
| CHEMIN DE FER — C, “Clubs” + HEM, “edge” + IN, “during” + DEFER, “delay” | |
| 15 | Guards dispatched to different lines (9) |
| SENTINELS — SENT + (lines)* | |
| 16 | Animals retaining some means of defence (8) |
| RAMPARTS — RAM(PART)S | |
| 17 | Light parts shine there already (8) |
| ETHEREAL — Hidden | |
| 19 | Plant last to bloom over summer (6) |
| MADDER — [-bloo]M + ADDER, “summer” | |
| 20 | Jewels sparkle centrally in rings (6) |
| PEARLS — PEA ([-spa]R[-kle]) LS | |
| 22 | My heartless son inspires contempt (5) |
| SCORN — S[-o]N inhales COR, “My(!)” | |
The French – ‘Diplomate’ – English diplomat’s pudding! – with its secret recipe.
Trifle is an English shiboleth – in contains secrets from Madeira only we Brits can appreciate. So 8dn my COD.
French toast in UK is certainly not a croissant and disdains peanut butter; heaven forfend!. It is often known hereabouts simply as ‘eggy-bread’.
FOI 19dn PEARLS – mother of pearl PRESS STUDS come to mind.
LOI 2db AIRBAG – how disappointing, what a let down!
WOD 14 ac GUTTERSNIPE – a tatterdemalion no less.
As usual I took my time.
Edited at 2020-11-22 01:57 am (UTC)
French toast with (American) bacon I have a particular weakness for.
Edited at 2020-11-22 02:10 am (UTC)
A friend of mine said it sounded “Elvian”—like something Elvis would like.
No doubt! I shore do.
Years ago, I made it for housemates in Philadelphia. There were no complaints.
(The peanut butter is part of the batter. It’s butter—oily. You don’t need much other oil to grease the pan.)
But I happen to love peanut butter. Regularly have some Jif® on Breton® wheat crackers with my Heaven’s Door® Tennessee bourbon apéritif.
As for DOGMAS, I’m working on a killer clue that has nothing to do with mothers and canines. Finally. The world holds its breath.
Edited at 2020-11-22 07:05 am (UTC)
My only problem with the original clue is that it didn’t require an iota of thought or a nanosecond of time. Surely that’s not just me.
Edited at 2020-11-22 12:10 pm (UTC)
Another lovely puzzle from Robert.
FOI BEARER
LOI/COD STRESSED
TIME 14:39
I had nine left at 5.22pm and one left at 7.30pm. LOI an hour later was CASUAL where I just couldn’t see the U for ages.
MADDER was unknown but seemed plausible as I now know that most reasonable combinations of letters can be plants or fish. Others late in were APACE (was trying to justify HASTE),DOGMAS and AIRBAG. GUTTERSNIPE was the breakthrough. Excellent puzzle; COD to DOGMAS.
David
Deliriously go mad with sin’s inception in unquestioned beliefs.
Must have been right on his wavelength with this, as it took just over the half hour. Started with OVERT and was able to work through the NE corner quite rapidly and basically travelling clockwise around to the NW with CASUALTIES, APACE and the tricky AIRBAG the last few in.
It was another puzzle where the word play often generated the answer rather than being able to see the definition first, which I quite like – was particularly helpful in generating CHEMIN DE FER. APACE was one of the exceptions and took longer than it should of to think of the shell.
STRESSED and REEBOK (particularly of late) were some old favourites that kept the pace, well apace !