I was off to a flying start, seeing 1A straight away though not with quite the correct wordplay! I’ve always rather liked the Remington bronze. With both 11A, 13A and 14A offering little resistance, that opened up the top half of the grid. Then 10D was an anagram that I guessed started OCTA and so on to the remainder of the grid. A good puzzle for relative beginners.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | BRONCO-BUSTER – (brutes)* surrounds ON-COB then R=right; or BRONCO-(brutes)* and forget “going round right” – which is how I solved it! A famous Remington bronze of a cowboy that resides in the Oval Office; |
| 11 | ROSEATE – RO(SEAT)E; |
| 13 | COUGAR – spirit=COURAGE then lost tail=COU-RAG then half rolling over=COUGAR; Demi Moore perhaps; |
| 14 | ABED – AB(L)ED; |
| 15 | TISANES – (SIT reversed)-surrounds SANE; herbal tea; |
| 16 | AZOIC – A-ZO-I-C; Himalayan beast=ZO; the world before life forms appeared; |
| 17 | NEAT – TA’EN reversed; caught=taken=TA’EN; |
| 18 | STEERER – STEER-ER; NEAT from 17A=STEER; hesitation=ER; drover maybe is definition; |
| 20 | SEALYHAM – SEAL-Y-HAM; yen=Y (currency); a Welsh Terrier, a once popular working dog; |
| 24 | PALPATES – PAL(PATE)S; a doctor’s examination of a patient by pressing; |
| 26 | ISOTYPE – I-SO-TYPE; I(nternational) S(ystem) O(f) TY(pographic) P(icture) E(ducation); many road signs are ISOTYPES; |
| 28 | INGS – carol=sing then move “s” to the end=INGS; meadows; |
| 30 | CENTO – CENT-O; old cents were made of copper and turned reddish in use; a poem; |
| 31 | EDOMITE – E-DO-MITE; descendants of Esau from Edom, south of the dead sea; |
| 33 | HOYA – HO-(AY reversed); a waxplant; |
| 34 | GLOBIN – G(LOB)IN; |
| 35 | OOMIACK – O-O-M(I)ACK; an open Eskimo boat; |
| 36 | NEANDERTALER – (ne real ardent)*; ne from (O)NE; a Luddite for example; |
| Down | |
| 2 | ROOINEKS – ROOKS surrounds (w)INE; Afrikaans slang for red-neck from the collar of British Victorian uniforms; |
| 3 | OF,USE – O-FUSE; |
| 4 | NAGA – NAGA(saki); |
| 5 | CHANTY – CHANT(r)Y; rector=R; |
| 6 | BORSTAL – BOR(e)S-TAL(k); e from (prid)e; youth prison abolished in 1982 – supposedly educational; |
| 7 | SEAZED – SE(A-Z)ED; zone=Z; old form of siezed; |
| 8 | TABORET – TA(BORE)T; rag=TAT; US spelling of tabouret, a special stool at the court of Louis XIV; |
| 9 | RED,CRESCENT – RED(CR)ESCENT; Costa Rica=CR; form of International Red Cross; |
| 10 | OCTASTICHON – (catch it soon)*; old Greek song; |
| 12 | SLEA – market procedure=sale then twist to give SLEA=sloe=black; |
| 19 | EGESTIVE – E(GEST-I)VE; first lover=EVE; discharging is definition; |
| 21 | ANONYMA – ANON-(AMY reversed); old word for a girl who can’t say no or name of the Woman In Berlin in book/film; |
| 22 | HA’PENCE – H(A-P)ENCE; there were 480 of them to a pound. A very old coin that dated back to 1100s and was demonetized in 1969 to be replaced by a silly decimal currency version that Nigel Lawson got rid of in 1884. In the 1940s I could buy a hot bread roll from the baker for a halfpenny; |
| 23 | ATTAIN – (TA reversed)-TA-IN; cheers=TA; home=IN; |
| 25 | PIOLET – (pile to)*; an axe; |
| 27 | YOGA – AGO(n)Y reversed; any number=n (algebra); |
| 29 | GIBEL – GIBE-L; a Prussian carp; |
| 32 | MORA – M-OR-A; delay; |
Re 22dn, I can just about remember using farthings, an even more useless coin than the ha’penny. A loaf of bread was 10 3/4d when I was about seven or eight. Both coins were a pain in the neck, just as 1p and 2p coins are now.
Re 30ac, according to Chambers a RED CENT is a very small amount, so I took the clue to be a specific reference to this expression (which I didn’t know, needless to say).