I found this one hard to get started on, and the grid ended up filling from the bottom up, though I’m not sure why, on a second or third read through a lot more of the upper-half clues jumped out at me. There’s a hat-tip to Mike Laws in 15 down, though I think Tim Moorey usually sets his puzzles a fair bit in advance.
I feel good about not falling into the obvious trap at 3 down, there’s a first time for everything, and in the end I needed to go beyond Chambers and Bradfords to get 3 down, maybe it’s a well-known place in some parts of the world, but I needed to Google place names to find it.
Away we go!
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | STACKS: S(special), sounds like TACKS. In very common use in 70s schools in Australia, don’t think I’ve heard it used stacks lately |
| 5 | BAR,BES |
| 9 | PHRONTISTERY: HR,ON in (IS,PRETTY)* |
| 11 | BROKEN IN: ROK(variant on ROC) in BENIN |
| 12 | TOHOS: hidden |
| 13 | TEA,GUE: GUE was new to me – want to buy one? |
| 14 | SPINET: PIN in SET – and after you’ve bought your GUE you can order a spinet |
| 17 | SPIN,HALER: Experience as in “take for a spin”. This one isn’t for sale |
| 18 | ILLAPSING: ILL, then (IN,GAPS)* |
| 22 | NOMINA: ON(leg) reversed then MINA |
| 23 | GAP,PER: surprised to see The Gap used here – they’re all over the US, have they made it to the UK? |
| 24 | BERYL: B, then LYRE reversed |
| 26 | APOSTLES: POST(put in mail) in ALES. Very nice clue |
| 27 | MONKEY(anger),SHINES(parties) |
| 28 | ENDURE: R in ENDUE |
| 29 | TI,CHES: TI is the note before DO |
| Down | |
| 1 | SPOT: SPORT(wager) without R |
| 2 | THROPPLE: HR(Croatia) in TOP, PLE |
| 3 | COLONS,AY: COLONS are Algerian settlers. Colonsay is having a music festival soon, hope there’s a lot of booze |
| 4 | STRATI: (ARTIST)* |
| 5 | BIOTIN: IOT |
| 6 | ASKER: R after ASKE |
| 7 | BENGAL FIRE: (BEING,FLARE)* |
| 8 | SYNEDRIA: DENY in AIRS, all reversed, another nice piece of wordplay |
| 10 | SHIELD POND: (SPLENDID,HO) |
| 14 | SKIN GAME: KING in SAME |
| 15 | TAG,ME,MIC |
| 16 | PENNY,FEE |
| 19 | SYRLYE: RLY(railway) in SYE(sieve) – first time I’ve seen that abbreviation for railway |
| 20 | ING,EST: ING for meadow was new to me |
| 21 | PETER: add a T and you get PETTER |
| 25 | LESS: BLESS(third meaning in Chambers) without B |
Mon francais n’est pas tres bon, je suis de l’Allemagne.
Mon blog:
Regroupement De Credit (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regroupement_de_credit) ou societe de rachat de credit (http://www.rachatdecredit.net)