I enjoyed this. Lots of nice surfaces and pretty straightforward for the most part. I couldn’t parse SPORRAN initially, even though it was the obvious answer, and didn’t twig with SONG until afterwards. End result a tad over-par 7 minutes.
| Across |
| 1 |
New-look squad a mere pretence (10) |
|
MASQUERADE – anagram (‘new-look’) of SQUAD A MERE |
| 8 |
Carry around air conditioning? That’s refreshing (7) |
|
BRACING – BRING around AC |
| 9 |
One with informal business by a Spanish island (5) |
|
IBIZA – I + BIZ (business, informally) + A |
| 10 |
More than six balls? (4) |
|
OVER – double definition, the second a cricket reference |
| 11 |
Lack of stuff? Don’t worry about it (2,6) |
|
NO MATTER – double definition |
| 13 |
Swamp-like planet extremely heavy (6) |
|
MARSHY – MARS (planet) + H[EAV]Y |
| 14 |
Oxford inspector left small piece of food (6) |
|
MORSEL – MORSE + L. Inspector Morse, fictional detective who had to investigate Mexico City levels of violent homicide in 1990’s Oxford colleges. |
| 17 |
After popular pet returns, I go quiet (8) |
|
TACITURN – CAT backwards + I TURN. ‘Popular’ is redundant |
| 19 |
Reverse middle part of Kiss tune (4) |
|
SONG – SNOG (kiss) with the middle letters switched |
| 21 |
Show up uninvited to stock market event (5) |
|
CRASH – Double definition. The first an abbreviation of ‘gatecrash’ |
| 22 |
Bear and cat dancing for show (7) |
|
CABARET – anagram (‘dancing’) of BEAR CAT |
| 23 |
Ensnare owl flitting around US city (3,7) |
|
NEW ORLEANS – anagram (‘flitting around’) of ENSNARE OWL |
| Down |
| 2 |
Non-professional seen in team at Euros (7) |
|
AMATEUR – hidden word |
| 3 |
Seafood with no starter for pound (4) |
|
QUID – [S]QUID |
| 4 |
Christmas drink, for example, picked up award (6) |
|
EGGNOG – EG + GONG backwards |
| 5 |
Airman to upset cartoonist (8) |
|
ANIMATOR – anagram (‘upset’) of AIRMAN TO |
| 6 |
Kick out some of the Victorians (5) |
|
EVICT – hidden word |
| 7 |
Not too heavy without first large decoration (5,5) |
|
FAIRY LIGHT – FAIRLY LIGHT with the first L removed |
| 8 |
Top of bookshelf — space to put quidditch gear (10) |
|
BROOMSTICK – B[ookshelf] + ROOM (space) + STICK (put). The mode of transport used in the fictional game of Quidditch from Harry Potter. |
| 12 |
TV programme’s food includes pork pies, say? (4,4) |
|
CHAT SHOW – CHOW (food) with HATS inside. Pork pie being a type of hat, and not for once cockney rhyming slang for ‘lie’ |
| 15 |
Following short game, took off tartan accessory (7) |
|
SPORRAN – SPOR[T] + RAN. Pouch worn with a kilt. |
| 16 |
Shopkeeper is even more repulsive when talking (6) |
|
GROCER – sounds like ‘grosser’ |
| 18 |
Series featuring murderer outside hotel (5) |
|
CHAIN – CAIN with H inside. Cain is the biblical murderer who killed a quarter of the world’s population, i.e. his brother. |
| 20 |
Leader of orchestra regularly broke instrument (4) |
|
OBOE – O for orchestra + BrOkE |
A lovely QC.
26mins
Thanks to Trelawney and Curarist
13 mins…
A fairly straightforward QC I thought. Main hold up was my LOI – 7dn “Fairy Light” which took a bit of unravelling.
FOI – 1ac “Masquerade”
LOI – 7dn “Fairy Light”
COD – 12dn “Chat Show”
Thanks as usual!
20ish min finish. Slowed down by wife talking to me and Chat Show, which was easy after I spelt Taciturn correctly. Great puzzle. Thanks Trelawney and Cuarist (much needed the parsing of Chat Show and Sporran).
11 minutes
149 minutes for the week:
M – 46
T – 23
W – 47 (DNF)
Th – 12
F – 11
Got about 60% of big crossword in 90 minutes. Some clues were way out of my league.
Thanks for the blog.
4:37. I see I neglected earlier after solving before going out for the day. Nice puzzle. I enjoyed the posh pork pies most. Thanks Trelawney and Curarist.
Another enjoyable QC following on from yesterday’s. The US city took some thought – SAN something – No; LOS something – No; ah NEW something! Good one. FAIRY LIGHT held us up at the end, and had to see the blog for the parsing. Was on the look-out for a pangram but it wasn’t to be.
FOI MASQUERADE
LOI CHAIN
COD GROCER
Thanks very much Trelawney for an enjoyable QC, and Curarist for the blog.