I found this relatively straightforward as it only took about 35 minutes but I don’t think there were many write-ins: pretty much every clue required a little thought and I found it hard to find many to leave out as most could have caused a novice problems. Hope that makes sense.
First in was TRENCHANT, last was OSSA. I won’t be around to field comments much this weekend but if you have a question someone will probably provide an answer and do all feel free to point out errors etc.
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Across |
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|
1 |
ESPRIT DE CORPS – (discreet props)*. Handy hint – if your crossing letters look a bit funny the answer may be a foreign word or phrase. |
|
8 |
TRENCHANT – R (= king or queen = monarch) in TEN CHANT |
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13 |
RACER – R.E. CAR, a word for a fast car that I’ve only ever seen in crosswords |
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14 |
GRANDMAMA – GRAND M.A. M.A. Now that I have seen outside crosswords, most memorably in one of Hilaire Belloc’s cautionary tales for children, the marvellous George,who played with a dangerous toy, and suffered a catastrophe of considerable dimensions |
|
15 |
BANSHEE – BAN for suppress, then SHE, the novel of choice for crossword setters, and in there somewhere bung (indefensibl)E |
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16 |
COURT MARTIAL – CURT around O[ld] then a homophone of MARSHAL |
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17 |
ASTEROIDAL – A STEROID A(t) L(east). Insert your own anabolic joke here>>> |
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18 |
AVESTA – hidden in hAVE STAbility. Not a word I knew but the wordplay was helpful. The Avesta is the primary collection of religious texts of Zoroastrianism |
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19 |
REEDBIRD – homophone for READ then BIRD for prison sentence. I hadn’t knowingly heard of the bobolink but given the wordplay and checkers it wasn’t too much a stretch to figure out that reedbird might mean any of several birds that frequent reed beds, especially (in the US and Canada) the bobolink; |
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21 |
DRYISH – DISH for food around RY (railway) for trains. The surface reading brought back “fond” memories of British Rail sandwiches. |
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24 |
SCHOOLROOM – Pay attention class. Start with S for second, then put H for husband in COOL, and finish with a reversal of MOOR. |
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26 |
THE BALTIC SEA – (itsteachable)* |
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29 |
MARC – CRAM reversed. Marc is a liquor distilled from pomace that is left over from winemaking, after the grapes are pressed. Rough stuff as far as I recall. |
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30 |
PASTRAMI – I for one following PAST R[oyal] A[cademy] of M[usic] |
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34 |
STOWAWAY – TO WA[shington] in SWAY |
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35 |
PARALLEL – DD |
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36 |
DIDO – I.D. in DO for the first queen of Carthage |
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39 |
ARITHMETICAL – (threaticlaim)* |
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40 |
TRAVELOGUE – RAVEL in TO GUE{st} |
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43 |
HEARTS – A(ccommodated) in HERTS. Very Brit-centric this. HERTS is the normal abbreviation of Hertfordshire, the 13th largest English county by population and 36th largest by area. HEARTS is the common nickname for Heart of Midlothian Football Club, a Scottish professional football club based in Gorgie in the west of Edinburgh. |
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44 |
TREE FERN – TERN around (crossing) REEF |
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45 |
SMUDGE – S[on] then EG reversed after MUD (as in “his name was mud”) |
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49 |
SYMPATHISE – SE (South East (England) where Kent is) around MY reversed and PATH IS |
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51 |
OBSTETRICIAN – O[ld] B(oy)S then NET (clear) reversed around (engaging) TRICIA |
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53 |
TRIPPER – CD of a sort on the basis that someone might fall just after they trip |
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54 |
INSERTION – INERTI{a} ON around S[mall] |
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55 |
IDEAL – IDE (if you haven’t come across this fish yet you can’t have been solving crosswords for very long) + A L[ake] |
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56 |
SPENDABLE – PEN {investe}D in SABLE |
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57 |
A TASTE OF HONEY – DD. A play by the British dramatist Shelagh Delaney. |
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Down |
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|
1 |
EUROCRATS – (carersout)*. Clever use of “union officials”. |
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2 |
PICTURE – PICT + URE |
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3 |
IRRITATION – IR(ish) + RITA + NOT reversed around I (SI for current) |
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4 |
DOGMAS – M.A. inside (wearing) DOGS |
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5 |
CHAPTERHOUSE – CHARTERHOUSE with P (piano = quiet) replacing corrido(R). Charterhouse is a “famous” English public (i.e. private, independent) school that has been in existence since 1611 (just after 10 past 4) |
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6 |
RED-FACED – E,D,F (musical notes) in RACED. Some solvers object to the wanton use of multiple arbitrary musical notes. I’m pretty much ambivalent. |
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7 |
SPAT – DD |
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8 |
TRANSCRIBE – TRA{i}NS + CRIB + E. I’m more familiar with “crib” in that sense as a verb than a noun. |
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9 |
EMBLEM – E[nglish] + MB + LE M[otorway] |
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10 |
CONTOUR LINES – I biffed this and then reverse-engineered the wordplay which is C(ausing) LINES around ON TOUR |
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11 |
APHID – PHI in AD. Aphids are sap-suckers rather than leaf-nibblers. |
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12 |
THE OLD HEAVE-HO – THE OLD (= elderly people) then E(mpty) in HAVE and HO[use]. A phrase with nautical origins which may be peculiarly British. |
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20 |
BOHEMIAN – OB reversed + IAN all around HEM. Bohemia was a duchy of Great Moravia, later an independent principality, a kingdom in the Holy Roman Empire, and subsequently a part of the Habsburg Monarchy and the Austrian Empire. |
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23 |
TRIPLANE – LANE under (supporting) TRIP. The Red Baron flew one. ‘Nuff said. |
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25 |
HARMONICA – HAR{d} MONICA, what we blues men call a harp. |
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27 |
LADY LOVE – LOVE (disappointing score in tennis) after D[uke] in LAY for a rather quaint term. Lou Rawls sang the song that’s now your earworm. |
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28 |
BREAKAGE – BREAK AGE |
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32 |
CASH-STRAPPED – C[harlie] + (has)* + STRAPPED |
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33 |
CLARINETTIST – IN (elected) in CLARET then IS in TT (teetotaller) |
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37 |
DIGRESSIVE – R for king in DIGESTIVE with S(tuck) replacing T[ime] |
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38 |
OLD-MAIDISH – OLD then DISH after MAI |
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41 |
ETERNALLY – E{x}TERNALLY |
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42 |
HERBARIA – HER + ARIA all around B[ritish] |
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46 |
DRIVE-IN – R[ight] in DIVE IN |
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47 |
CHERUB – CUB around HER |
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48 |
STINKO – S[on] + TIN + OK reversed. Not the first word I’d think of to describe a drunken state. |
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50 |
MAIZE – I Z in MAE (West) |
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52 |
OSSA – O[rdinary] S[eaman] S(cale) A. In Greek mythology, the Aloadaes are said to have attempted to pile Mount Pelion on top of Mount Ossa in their attempt to scale Olympus. |
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