Solving time: 6:46
I suspect this was a puzzle by the editor, and if that’s the case then it was probably an improvement. There was, of course, still the usual smattering of inaccurate definitions (e.g. for INCOMPREHENSIVE at 5dn), questionable cryptic grammar (e.g. 19dn) and superfluous words (e.g. ‘dinghy’ at 3dn), and unless I’m missing something 21ac (GYMNAST) is a mess.
I took about a minute on 12dn (CRITICISMS) at the end but otherwise the difficulty was about standard, although made a little trickier by the eight 4-letter words in the corners which were rather disconnected in the grid.
* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | CHILD BRIDE – a clever cryptic definition. |
| 8 | MINT – an unusual but well-worded triple definition, although ‘New’ means ‘having just left the mint’, i.e. the factory, so the first and third definitions are essentially the same. |
| 10 | POTATO CHIP; POT (= ‘hash’) + A + (CHOP IT)* – dubious cryptic grammar because of the ‘is’. I thought this was going to be a straight anagram but ended up leaving it until the answer was obvious from the checking letters. |
| 11 | MEAN (2 defs) – ‘near’ as in ‘niggardly’. |
| 13 | BARMAID; B + ARM[y] + AID (= ‘help’) |
| 15 | SCREEN (2 defs) – again a little dubious because ‘screen’ means ‘check (candidates)’ and not ‘check candidates’. I couldn’t get anywhere with this clue until I had the initial ‘S’. |
| 16 | RED RUM; rev. of MURDER |
| 17 | RETIREMENT PLANS (cryptic definition) |
| 18 | PICK UP; PICK-UP [truck] |
| 20 | ASTERN; A, + STEN around R[ight] |
| 21 | GYMNAST; “JIM” + (STAN)* – bizarre. I wonder if ‘popular’ might be a hint to contract ‘James’ to ‘Jim’, but that still leaves ‘exercise’ as the definition. |
| 22 | ALSO (hidden) |
| 25 | SHRIVELLED; (HELD SILVER)* |
| 26 | EAST (hidden) |
| 27 | NEEDLEWORK; (WEEKEND ROL[e])* |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 2 | HOP + E |
| 3 | LATE (hidden) – I was put off here by the entirely superfluous ‘dinghy’. |
| 4 | BATMAN (2 defs) – the army officer’s batman is, I think, a thing of the past, although the term ‘batting’ (meaning cleaning, laundry services etc) survives into modern usage. Still, I thought the present tense ‘helps’ was reasonable and the surface reading was nicely misleading (names like ‘[Paul] Revere’ led me astray briefly). |
| 5 | IN + COMPREHENSIVE – another lazy definition in the wrong part of speech. |
| 6 | ELIXIR; ELI (= ‘prophet’) + XI (= ‘team’) + R[ight] |
| 7 | STONE MASON; (NOTES)* + MASON (= ‘secret society member’) – an anagram of ‘artisan’ looked likely and I briefly had ‘Saint’ as for the first word. |
| 9 | ICE BREAKER (2 defs) – I think ‘she’ is used here to mean ‘a ship’. All my dictionaries suggest that this should have been either (10) or (3-7). |
| 12 | CRITICISMS – this took me a minute or two at the end because I didn’t think of ‘stick’ meaning ‘criticism’ and just looked for a synonym of ‘appraisals’. |
| 13 | BEAR HUG; (HUGE BAR)* |
| 14 | DEEPEST; DEE + PEST |
| 15 | SCRAP PAPER; SCRAP (= ‘Get rid of’) + PAPER (= ‘publication’) |
| 19 | PYTHON; (PONY)* around TH[e] (= ‘the tail off’) – jarringly ungrammatical. |
| 20 | AS WELL; (LAWS)* around EL |
| 23 | FLAW; F (= ‘loud’) + LAW (= ‘act’) |
| 24 | ODER; rev. of RED (= ‘scarlet’) + O (= ‘duck’) |
One niggle: 13d; since ‘grip’ is a verb here, shouldn’t the enumeration have been hyphenated?
To your comments, I’d add that if BEAR HUG is supposed to be a verb, then it should be spelled with a hyphen and enumerated (4-3) (and if it isn’t supposed to be a verb, then I’m not too taken with “closely grip” as its definition!
I wasn’t too worried by 19D, but I agree with you about all the other mistakes/infelicities you’ve pointed out.