Sorry about the delay getting this one up – my weekends are getting as busy as my weekdays lately! Anyway, a fairly steady solve in around 15 minutes. Getting the four 14-letter ones in early was helpful.
Across | |
1 | TURTLE – hidden reversed in “felt ruthless”. |
4 | BAROUCHE – OUCH (I’m hurt) inside BARE (non-upholstered). |
10 | POMEGRANATE – sounds like “Pommy granite”. |
11 | GAG – double definition. |
12 | OUTPOST – OUST (drive away) around OPT (choose) reversed. |
14 | DISPOSE – ISP (one supplying broadband) inside DOSE (measured quantity). |
15 | CAT AND MOUSE ACT – double definition. Nickname of the Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act 1913, which allowed the authorities to release suffragettes on hunger strike, then re-arrest them as soon as they recovered. |
17 | SELF-IMPORTANCE – (free, complaints)* |
21 | BREADTH – BREATH (murmur) around D(aughter). |
22 | DEMOING – DOING (activity) around ME reversed. |
23 | COT – double definition, the first short for cotangent, a geometrical function. |
24 | LORD’S PRAYER – LORD (my, as in “Oh my!”) + SPRAYER (aerosol). |
26 | SHREDDER – SH (“I want peace”) + REDDER (more revolutionary). |
27 | BLOWSY – LOWS (depressions) inside BY (through). |
Down | |
1 | TOP-NOTCH – TOPKNOT (tuft of hair) minus the middle letter, + CH(eck). |
2 | RAM – double definition. RAM = Random Access Memory in computing. |
3 | LEGHORN – as a type of chicken, it has two LEGs and no HORN. More like a riddle than a cryptic clue, more like the sort of clue that used to appear 50 years ago. Having said that I quite liked it, just a little surprised. |
5 | A HANDFUL OF DUST – (had found faults)*. 1934 novel by Evelyn Waugh. |
6 | OVERSEE – (l)OVE(r) (admirer at heart) around ERSE (Gaelic). |
7 | COGNOSCENTI – C(old) + (congestion)* |
8 | EAGLET – GLE(n) (valley, almost) inside (h)EAT (warmth, minus the H). |
9 | PANTOMIME HORSE – PANT (long) + O(ver) + (him, me sore)*. Great definition, “Christmas double act”. |
13 | TO THE LETTER – double definition. |
16 | BEGGARLY – EGG (one maybe pickled) inside BAR (pub) + first letters of L(eave), Y(ou). |
18 | FIDDLED – cryptic definition, ref. Fiddler on the Roof, the 1964 musical. |
19 | TIMBREL – TIRE (weary) + L(ength) around MB (doctor). A type of tambourine. |
20 | ABACUS – A + CH(urch) missing from BACCHUS (God). |
25 | YAW – YAW(n). |
[Edit] Oh yes, and this one: about 15 minutes, and no real problems. I remembered the CAT AND MOUSE ACT from a previous puzzle. I’ve read A HANDFUL OF DUST, but I can’t remember a single thing about it.
Edited at 2013-11-03 09:58 pm (UTC)
From the notes I made at the time COT was my LOI because I couldn’t think of cotangent and the “new arrival” reference didn’t suggest the obvious, which seems bizarre in retrospect.
I very rarely need to write down anagram fodder but I had to in order to solve the clue for A HANDFUL OF DUST. I was held up for a while with BEGGARLY and DISPOSE, the latter because I was looking at the wrong end of the clue for the definition. DEMOING also held me up, possibly because it is a strange looking word.
Oxford Learner’s Dictionary
This site
Cambridge Dictionary Online
And of course, from I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, this Late Arrival at the Greengrocer’s Ball
All the way from Australia, Mr and Mrs It and their children, and their Pommy Gran It
Edited at 2013-11-06 02:06 am (UTC)