After a too-swiftly-dispatched Friday 15×15, it was great to have this beast to entertainingly fill up the rest of the half-hour. I was repeatedly delighted by the audacity and elan, especially the numerous times the setter faked me out into thinking I was looking for something absurdly obscure, and then found myself writing in ETCHERS, ZILLIONAIRES, SUNDAY SCHOOL or ERRORS. My favourite clue as a former student of Greek was 22ac – always fun counting off the alphabet to remember what the 17th letter is. But also massive props to a puzzle that managed to include both Melanie Chisholm and emotional hardcore, to prove itself down with the kids (of a certain age). And 2dn is a real tour de force of utilizing very standard pieces of the cryptic arsenal to make something startlingly clever and new.
My hat is off. I know I’m effusive about the MCS pretty much every time but that’s because it wows me very consistently. Thank you setter!
Definitions underlined in italics, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, {} deletions and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
| 1 | European law enforcer admits dropping every other cause abandoned by English (6) |
| AMTMAN – A[d}M{i}T{s} + M{e}AN. Does “mean” mean the same as “cause”? Carelessness causes accidents/carelessness means accidents… I guess so. Northern European district magistrate | |
| 5 | In returning characters framed by HL, don’t mention a rebel (8) |
| KOMITAJI – in reversed {h}IJK{l}, OMIT A. A member of the Bulgarian Revolutionary Committee in Macedonia, obviously | |
| 9 | Market trader’s barely credible months in traditional clinic (8) |
| STALLMAN – TALL M(onths) in SAN | |
| 10 | Investigator high in second union (6) |
| DIGAMY – D.I. + GAMY [high] | |
| 11 | Chapter number overwhelms person preparing plate for printing? (6) |
| ETCHER – C “overwhelmed” by ETHER [what makes numb] | |
| 12 | In Saskatchewan this Canadian duck would be disposed of with a screech (3,5) |
| OLD SQUAW – put this in SK [Saskatchewan] and you have {S}OLD SQUAW{K} – [disposed of + screech]. Also known as a hareld | |
| 14 | Idol with two heads to display in staggering size: are they made of gold? (12) |
| ZILLIONAIRES – LLION [Welsh, or just reduplicatively headed, idol] + AIR [display] in (SIZE*) | |
| 17 | Undo holy class, wanting learner to disrupt this? (6,6) |
| SUNDAY SCHOOL – (UNDO HOLY C{l}ASS*), semi-&lit | |
| 20 | Yellow-grey horse jerkily unsaddles related ones (8) |
| BUCKSKIN – BUCKS [jerkily unsaddles] + KIN [relations] | |
| 22 | Greek sceptic’s years between two forms of his 17th letter (6) |
| PYRRHO – YR between P and RHO, which are both the 17th letter of the Greek alphabet | |
| 23 | Radius not within M25 for one marking departure date (6) |
| OBITAL – O{r}BITAL | |
| 25 | The box containing western evangelical’s case sensitive music book (8) |
| TWELVEMO – TV [the box] “containing” W E{vangelica}L, + EMO [sensitive music] | |
| 26 | Scots secretly love to fill mugs up in turn (8) |
| STOWLINS – NIL filling up SWOTS, the whole reversed | |
| 27 | Indications of hesitation when catching first of repetitions or deviations (6) |
| ERRORS – ERS “catching” R{epetitions} OR. I don’t know what this surface is all about but I’m sure I’ll work it out in just a minute | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Magistrature, sending away soldiers, runs and engineers Nairobi minibus (6) |
| MATATU – MA{gis}T{r}ATU{re}, losing 3 well known crossword abbreviations | |
| 3 | Sporty singer once hastened to cover unknown, mostly to augment aged leader in Genesis (11) |
| MELCHIZEDEK – MEL C [Sporty Spice!] + HIED “covering” Z + EK{e} | |
| 4 | Economy’s foremost in political gathering for miners, according to figures (9) |
| NUMERALLY – E{conomy} in NUM RALLY | |
| 5 | Stab in bar certainly upset Tanzanian accustomed to grazing (7) |
| KONGONI – GO, in reversed INN OK [bar | certainly]. An East African hartebeest | |
| 6 | Wet and wild primitive instincts (5) |
| MADID – MAD [wild] + ID [primitive instincts] | |
| 7 | Piece of safety glass old mug handled more than once (3) |
| TYG – hidden in {safe}TY G{lass}, a two-handled mug | |
| 8 | Spread soft cheese from India, saving last for bearer there (8) |
| JAMPANEE – JAM [spread] + PANEE{r}. A jampan is an Indian sedan chair and a jampanee its bearer | |
| 13 | For military clerk it’s a thrill to capture hostile doctor (5-6) |
| QUILL-DRIVER – QUIVER “capturing” ILL DR | |
| 15 | Origin of psyche quickly arising in this collective consciousness? (9) |
| NOOSPHERE – P{syche} SOON reversed, plus HERE [in – as in “is Dave in yet?”, maybe] | |
| 16 | Constrain one to be in dock, which might be a squash (8) |
| CUCURBIT – CURB I, inside CUT | |
| 18 | Effort to deceive coming our way (7) |
| CONATUS – CON [deceive] + AT US [coming our way] | |
| 19 | Greeting to a suitable victim, starting with the conclusion that’ll go over a woman’s head (6) |
| KHIMAR – HI (to a) MARK, with the last letter moving to the front. A Muslim woman’s face covering | |
| 21 | Frozen dessert provided jamminess but not cold, contrarily (5) |
| KULFI – reversed IF LU{c}K | |
| 24 | Rise of soft Tory is a worry for the country (3) |
| TEW – reversed WET. Obsolete word for worry or excitement, maybe still found in dialect; let me know if it’s in your own regional vocab | |
You missed the links to the Open Source software movement. There’s STALLMAN (Richard), creator of the GNU project, and NOOSPHERE – the only time I’ve seen that word before is in that well-known essay about Open Source by Eric Raymond, “Homesteading the Noosphere”.
Anyway, that’s enough geekery from me. This puzzle was a bit weird in that I stared at it for an hour and put half a dozen answers in, then came back to it a couple of days later and finished it in half an hour.
Ah! Richard Stallman did cross my mind – I will never forget him, mainly due to having watched an interview during which he picks at his toes and pops something found there into his mouth, classic Stallman – but I wouldn’t have made a connection to any noospheres. Thanks!
15d. Perhaps you might read it as IN THIS = HERE. As in, “The solution lies in this/here.”
Seems plausible!
Yes, that’s what I intended.
Thought so, and thanks for a great puzzle.
The old squaw has a more prosaic name in the UK, where nobody says “hareld”. Long-tailed duck
A long tailed duck is a DUCKK, to complement “an idol with two heads”.