Every weapon in the devious setters arsenal of tricks was deployed to the max here, which had the unfortunate effect of causing me to biff some of the most intricate bits of cluing, and only fully appreciating them later – 17ac, 1dn and 4dn spring to mind. If I were a carping man I’d say that the love of tricksy wordplay may have resulted in some surfaces ending up sounding overly like crosswordese gobbledegook: for instance by rights 1dn should be my favourite clue for being its own AHA MOMENT, but I find myself having some trouble understanding just what that “sign” is doing in the surface reading.
8+9ac FOIs, LOI was I think 28ac once I finally discovered a much better alternative to TEMPLATE. COD to 4dn where the surface *is* impeccable and “tanner” for UV seems very good indeed. (Honourable mention to “three couples” for VI.) Thanks setter, devil take any naysayers, this is what Fridays in the Times should be all about!
1 Back among top celebrities, article names recordholder (8)
ANNALIST – inside A-LIST [top celebrities], reverse A N N [article | name | name]
5 Each going on with honeymoon, finally, in S American location (6)
ANDEAN – EA [each] going on AND [with], + {honeymoo}N
8 Some philanthropic backing for old ringmaster (3)
ALI – hidden reversed in {ph}ILA{nthropic}. One-time master of the boxing ring.
9 Thus some footwear quotes read out (6-4)
SQUARE-TOED – (QUOTES READ*) [“out”]
10 Was in red to welcome girl, lost in admiration (8)
OVERAWED – OWED [was in red] to “welcome” VERA [girl]
11 Ill-fated lover, not that able to ignore the odds (6)
THISBE – THIS [not that] + the even letters of {a}B{l}E.
Nowadays you will know her from the shambolic play-within-a-play in Midsummer Night’s Dream.
12 Start shunning either of two poets, and scoff (4)
EATS – {k}EATS or {y}EATS. Scoff as a noun, not a verb.
14 Hassle involving one Great Britain runs as powerful spy (3,7)
BIG BROTHER – BOTHER [hassle] “involving” I GB R [one | Great Britain | runs].
17 Eastern country cheers one chap protecting couple after I set about one (10)
TAJIKISTAN – TA I STAN [cheers | one | chap], “protecting J K [couple after I] “set about” I [one]
20 Spurs for one game, originally heading for Stoke (4)
EGGS – E.G. [for one] + G{ame} + S{toke}. Spurs and eggs as verbs here, not nouns.
23 Braided uniform hasn’t this? Probably not (6)
SUNHAT – (U HASN’T*) [“braided”], semi-&lit. You can see how the last two words were probably tacked on for safety’s sake!
24 Opinion linked to popular case (8)
INSTANCE – STANCE [opinion] linked to IN [popular]
25 Three couples marrying, madly worshipped mother (6,4)
VIRGIN MARY – VI [6 = 3 * 2 = three couples] + (MARRYING*) [“madly”]
26 Hard class to prepare (3)
SET – triple definition
27 Feel like hugs: is making up! (6)
ATONES – TONE [feel] that AS [like] “hugs”
28 Record winning move after man finds a wife? (8)
HELPMATE – LP MATE [record | winning move (in chess)] after HE [man]
DOWN
1 Occasion for Penny to drop Mark sign, suitably attired for wedding? (3,6)
AHA MOMENT – M OMEN [Mark | sign], in A HAT = suitably attired for wedding
2 Most missing art teacher, at first, after church body’s absorbed one (7)
NAIVEST – T{eacher}, after NAVE’S [church body’s] “absorbed” I [one]
3 Tips exchanged by tinker and sailor (6)
LASCAR – take {R}ASCA{L} [tinker] and reverse its tips
4 Old tanner from France in among teacher’s mementos (9)
SOUVENIRS – O UV EN [old | tanner (as in light that tans) | from France, in] among SIR’S [teacher’s]
5 Drink hosts dry in pursuit of a partner! (7)
ABETTER – BEER [drink] “hosts” TT [dry, as in teetotal], in pursuit of A
6 As reported, mainly idle pupil of professor (9)
DOOLITTLE – homophone of DO LITTLE [mainly idle, where idle is a verb].
Eliza Doolittle was Professor Henry Higgin’s pupil in Pygmalion aka My Fair Lady.
7 Yours truly had turned up in gold and black, extremely late for hearing (7)
AUDIBLE – reversed I’D [yours truly had] in AU + B [gold + black], + L{at}E
13 Sent choir off to find hymn (9)
STICHERON – (SENT CHOIR*) [“off”]. Tough and obscure vocab that “looks right” if you know a bit of Ancient Greek, but still, yeesh!
15 Something inspired primarily by wet weather, with hail (9)
BRAINWAVE – B{y} + RAIN W AVE [wet weather | with | hail]
16 Exploits poor eager Tess (3,6)
RES GESTAE – (EAGER TESS*) [“poor”]. Two anagrams in the space of three clues pandering to the classicists in our midst? Setter, you are spoiling us!
18 To show spirit, answer as quickly in French, briefly (7)
AQUAVIT – A QUA VIT{e} [answer | as | quickly, in French, “briefly”]
19 Time for filling northern people’s senses (7)
INTUITS – T [time] “for filling” INUIT’S [northern people’s]
21 Edinburgh’s goes towards, mostly, music (7)
GANGSTA – GANGS TA{e} [Scottish for “goes towards”… “mostly”]
22 Remain standing to drink, taking in Flower of Scotland (4,2)
STAY UP – SUP [to drink], “taking in” TAY [flower = that which flows = river of Scotland]
A good crossword, thanks verlaine and setter.
DNF after 45, leaving Lascar, sun hat, sticheron.
Thanks clever, clever setter and V.
STICHERON seems to have appeared before only in a 2012 Club Monthly, as blogged by the estimable jerrywh: https://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/797481.html
As jackkt says, ‘something rather special’ in the way of fiendish definitions. “Most missing art …” is a thing of evil genius which I doubt I would have seen in my first, oh, ten years or so of solving puzzles.
bravo, the setter. cheers, v
Edited at 2019-08-16 07:58 am (UTC)
The remaining quarter was more problematic as there was clearly going to be at least one answer completely unknown to me (STICHERON) and 4 or 5 other clues where I had very little idea what was going on. It says something for my enjoyemnt of the puzzle to that point that I was determined not to give up on it and resort to aids, so I persevered and with a little more guesswork I eventualy completed the whole thing correctly in 61 minutes.
Edited at 2019-08-16 06:52 am (UTC)
All parsed except the O UV EN in souvenir.
Have seen res gestae as a legal term – perhaps in Perry Mason books? But it still was 2LOI, took a long time to remember.
Edited at 2019-08-16 08:25 am (UTC)
I think 4d, NAIVEST, was the most fiendish for me. For ages I thought the definition was ‘most missing’. For ‘art’ I wondered if the setter might be thinking of the French ‘es’.
Even some of the words I biffed were worth working out the wordplay just to marvel at the skill. I loved “couple after I” for JK, for example. I don’t remember seeing that before.
No time since I solved it in Horryd land, some on the maglev to the airport on my phonr, some on the plane on my computer.
The SUNHAT definition was pretty weak. But a masterful puzzle otherwise.
Of the anagram-clued obscurities, RES GESTAE was reasonably deducible from the fodder, STICHERON was not. Normally I would complain vociferously about this (and I would think it a bit thick in a competition context) but the rest of the puzzle was so good that I can’t bring myself to. Like sotira I checked it wasn’t SCITHERON in the dictionary before submitting and the world didn’t end.
Thanks setter.
I loved the ‘Most missing art’ def, the ‘Start shunning either of two poets’ wordplay and the ‘easy’ triple def. for SET.
Thanks to blogger (and well done for picking up the clue, not answer, dependent Nina – never seen one before) and to setter.
And to Verlaine for unravelling it all.
Plugged away with many Penny moments until finally defeated by ATONES (couldn’t see why) and the unknown Latin at 16d, and GANGSTA put in but not understood. Too many fine clues here to pick a favourite. No, I’ll pick TAJIKISTAN for being a toughie to construct.
Thanks to Verlaine for parsing TAJIKISTAN and SOUVENIR. I parsed NAIVEST post-solve.
NHO AHA MOMENT, RES GESTAE, or STICHERON (although I successfully biffed the first two), and failed to get SUNHAT and ATONES.
I don’t even feel inclined to nominate a COD. If Verlaine gets his wish, and there’s one of these when (if) the Championship eventually happens, I’m not going to be remotely happy.
The other (hard to spot) gives the people involved, the event, date, location and time.
Now I have to look over the comments again to make sure that no one complained that HELPMATE is a sexist term (though it is, rather…).
Edited at 2019-08-16 01:42 pm (UTC)
Edited at 2019-08-16 02:27 pm (UTC)