Solving time: 10:22
A bit slow on this, especially in the bottom left. A mixture of good clues and bad, and a couple of synonyms I’m not convinced by, but no outright mistakes that I noticed.
Sorry to have missed Sloggers and Betters 4 on Friday – hope to make the next one.
* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | DISCRETION; (DIRECTIONS)* – somehow I failed to spot that this was an anagram on first look; I think I thought ‘directions’ was 9 letters. Not a good start, especially as I’m sure I must have seen this anagram before. |
| 6 | SPAR; rev. of RAPS – quite a good clue, although the question mark is a bit dubious. |
| 10 | O + MISSIONS – ‘default’ = ‘omission’ doesn’t seem quite right to me. They’re close, but I can’t produce a sentence in which they’re interchangeable. |
| 12 | ESTABLISHMENT; (THE MINE BLASTS)* |
| 14 | ISOTOPES; (PIES + TOO + S[ulphur])* – I’ll leave it to a chemist to comment on the accuracy of ‘isotopes’ = ‘atomic elements’. |
| 15 | CO + USIN[g] – ’employing most’ for ‘most of USING’ doesn’t work, and the surface reading doesn’t make much sense either. |
| 17 | LARIAT; (A TRIAL)* |
| 19 | FORMULAE; FOR + rev. of ALUM + E (= ‘key’) |
| 21 | MELLIFLUOUSLY; (FILM YOU’LL USE + L[yric])* – this was deduceable (from ‘mel’ = ‘honey’) but took me more crossing letters than it should have. |
| 24 | TRANSMUTE; (START + MENU)* – another anagram that took me too long to see. |
| 25 | ENTRY (double definition) – if you can call ‘for the bookkeeper’ a definition. |
| 26 | CH(I)EF |
| 27 | PERSISTENT; (NIPS SETTER)* |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | DASH (double definition) |
| 2 | SUPREMO; (SUPER)* + M.O. – jarring wordplay (‘Super sort of doctor’). |
| 3 | REACTIONARIES; (RACE INTO)* + ARIES – I thought ‘blimpish’ was the anagram indicator here for a while, and eventually spotted the answer from the crossing letters. The actual anagram indicator is ‘strange’, which really needs to be an adverb. |
| 4 | T + ROUBLES |
| 5 | ORIBI; (BRIO + I) – ‘finds’ is a bit superfluous here. |
| 7 | PR(OF)ESS – can ‘own’ (as opposed to ‘own up to’) mean ‘profess’? |
| 8 | ROSE-TINTED (cryptic definition) |
| 11 | SCHOOLMASTERS; (THE CLASSROOMS)* – a very old anagram. |
| 13 | DIPLOMA + T,I,C (initial letters) – I had a mental block here and was looking for a synonym for ‘discrete’ instead of ‘discreet’, and this took me a couple of minutes at the end to get. I suppose ‘testimony’ = ‘diploma’ in the sense of ‘certificate’, but it seems a bit loose to me. |
| 16 | COR(O)NERS – another superfluous ‘of’. |
| 20 | LA(YET)TE – ‘first gear’ is a clever definition. |
| 23 | EYOT; E + rev. of TOY |
9a Wild (ape is)* brown (5)
SEPIA. The colour of the pigment derived from the ink sac of the Common Cuttlefish – the Greek name for this creature is Sepia.
18d Concern about letting arrangement being free! (7)
RE LEASE
22d See and take advantage of the bloodsucker (5)
LO USE