I was breezing through this one until suddenly I wasn’t. I finished in 12:29, below my average, but at one point I thought I was heading for a very quick time. Things slowed down a bit from there, but never ground to a halt.
My COD goes to AUDITOR, for the misdirection of “university dons”.
Definitions underlined, synonyms in round brackets, wordplay in square brackets and deletions in strikethrough. Anagram indicators italicised in the clue, anagram fodder indicated like (this)*.
| Across | |
| 1 | Pine for American wife (6) |
| MISSUS – MISS (pine for), US (American). | |
| 4 | Elderly impressionist not entirely laid back (4) |
| AGED – DEGA |
|
| 9 | Different poem by Diana (7) |
| DIVERSE – DI (common abbreviation of Diana), VERSE (poem). | |
| 10 | Hard border — row of leylandii, say? (5) |
| HEDGE – H for hard (as in pencils), EDGE (border).
I’d never heard of leylandii, (and neither has my spell checker, evidently), but apparently it’s a type of cypress tree often used for hedges. Not the maker of the Austinius maximus, then. |
|
| 11 | South Africa trained iron man in European country (3,6) |
| SAN MARINO – SA (South Africa), then (IRON MAN)*. | |
| 12 | Cat in short book (3) |
| TOM – TOM |
|
| 13 | Colour of canary — like a chicken? (6) |
| YELLOW – double definition, the second being ‘cowardly’. | |
| 15 | Mat has fallen apart — some condition! (6) |
| ASTHMA – (MAT HAS)* | |
| 17 | Argument for public relations officials, first of all (3) |
| PRO – “first of all” of P That’s “pro” as in “con”, of course. |
|
| 18 | Neglected strip one found in advertisement (9) |
| ABANDONED – BAND (strip, as in ‘a band of colour’) + ONE (from the clue) in AD. | |
| 21 | Duck in fear of another bird (5) |
| QUAIL – Double definition.
I was so sure that this was going to be an ‘O’ inside a four-letter word for “fear” that when I got the crossing Q I thought it must be wrong. |
|
| 22 | One favouring the cream in coffee ultimately, menu has it covered (7) |
| ELITIST – |
|
| 23 | Whirlpool ripping head from cuddly toy (4) |
| EDDY – |
|
| 24 | Key Percy turned, letting Henry in (6) |
| CYPHER – H for Henry (SI unit of, um, inductance) in (PERCY)*.
Not to get all technical here, but a cypher (aka cipher) is an algorithm that uses a key, not itself a key. When I was 18 and studying for A-level Physics, I could have told you what inductance is. Any 18-year olds out there? |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | Reserve place on farm, way above it (7) |
| MODESTY – STY (place on farm) with MODE (way, as in “of behaviour”) above it.
That’s the noun form of “reserve”. |
|
| 2 | Number six originally — just like two or four? (5) |
| SEVEN – S An example of the common convention that numbers written out like this are not cross-references to another clue. But remember that that is just a guideline, not an iron law of the universe. |
|
| 3 | Foolish — and expensive? (12) |
| UNREASONABLE – A double definition. | |
| 5 | Travel from the Netherlands and split the bill (2,5) |
| GO DUTCH – Go (travel), DUTCH (from the Netherlands). | |
| 6 | Reverie’s ending in short vision (5) |
| DREAM – One of my favourite definitions, which I read in a book by Iain Banks, defines a dram as a measure of whisky which is pleasing to both guest and host. |
|
| 7 | House where newspaper turned up without leader (4) |
| SEMI – Almost the same recipe as AGED at 4ac. For the non-British contingent, a semi-detached house is one that shares a common wall with just one other house. cf ‘detached’ (no common walls) and ‘terraced’ (two common walls). |
|
| 8 | Cry loudly, feeling upset? Misguidedly I say “Oh dear!” (6-1-5) |
| WHOOPS A DAISY – WHOOP (cry loudly), SAD (feeling upset), (I SAY)*.
I was trying to make an anagram of “I say oh dear”, despite knowing that I’d be a couple of letters short, when light dawned. |
|
| 14 | Terrible ordeal homing puma at first — that cat’s wild! (7) |
| LEOPARD – (ORDEAL)* containing [homing – giving a home to] P |
|
| 16 | University dons unsettled adroit checker (7) |
| AUDITOR – U for university is clothed in [dons] (ADROIT)*.
Very neat usage of multiple definitions of “dons”. |
|
| 17 | Anger in summit reported? (5) |
| PIQUE – Sounds like [reported] “peak” (summit). | |
| 19 | Last word in testament? (4) |
| AMEN – hidden [in] |
|
| 20 | Sound from behind stable door as hinge turned (5) |
| NEIGH – (HINGE)*. | |
Something can very well be expensive but still reasonable surely?
18:11 with a discombobulated time zone crossed and Moet fuggled brain that along with the somewhat stressful flight path into UAE (no alarms and no surprises🙏) sat solving in Dubai airport with a 5 hr layover for a Heathrow flight. Missus took a while to reveal unreasonable modesty.
TaDAM