I didn’t work this in one go. Finished sometime Sunday (yesterday [last week]). It was striking that “man” or “men” was used in a few (clues or answers) and every time in a different sense (including the most prosaic), but not in the one synonymous with 17, whose clue refers to the game evoked by the surface of 14 and which is itself synonymous with 19men.
Some fine stuff here. Two &lits, a bit of junkie argot, two homophones that will (for a change) encounter no objection, one cross-reference between clues that under the circumstances seems entirely excusable…
I indicate (ragas, man!)* like this, and italicize anagrinds in the clues.
ACROSS | |
1 | Event in Met and NHS departments (8) |
INCIDENT — IN, “in” + CID (Criminal Investigation Department), part of yer “Met” (Metropolitan Police) + ENT (Ear, Nose, Throat), part of yer “NHS” (National Health Service) | |
5 | Horse around in sarong on vacation (4) |
SCAG — S(CA)G “Horse” here means heroin. | |
8 | Mountain housing a wind generator (4) |
BEAN — BE(A)N Har har | |
9 | Bet better than badly bloated mug (10) |
OUTGAMBLED — (bloated mug)* (Rather an odd surface.) | |
11 | Pound of tea and coffee picked up? (6) |
BRUISE — “brews” | |
13 | Possibly neat drink swallowed by worker (8) |
RUMINANT — RUM IN ANT Lexico says the sense of “neat” as “a bovine animal” is archaic… but you wouldn’t know it by working cryptics—or, for that matter, from Merriam-Webster. Collins calls it archaic in British but not in American. | |
14 | Black’s Tal? Ignore opening and just castle! (8) |
BALMORAL — B(lack) + [-t]AL + MORAL, “just”… This excellent surface—Surface of the Day!—clueing a word that has nothing to do with chess, refers, of course, to the great Mikhail Tal (1936–1992). | |
16 |
No, don’t start helping people (6) …you’ll only make matters worse? |
NATION — N(o) + [-r]ATION | |
17 | Musical compositions from Kings? (6) |
PIECES — DD, second a DBE | |
19 | Game plans you’ve eavesdropped on (8) |
DRAUGHTS — “drafts” | |
21 | Treat angina in religious Bow man (8) |
PAGANINI — P (angina)* I… PI for “pious” (sarcastic, usually). The violinist with a “deal with the devil” story predating Robert Johnson’s. | |
22 | Waits on others as becomes a man! (6) |
SERVES — CD, playing with the sense of “a man” as “a male servant” or “a valet”—though I, with the image in my head of the forces arrayed on opposite sides of a chessboard, at first thought it might refer to a (non-officer) member of one of a country’s armed services… and, OK, why not that too… | |
23 | Description of 20 shirts can be so (4-6) |
HIGH-NECKED — CD, referring to clue 20 | |
24 | Bit of dope? (4) |
FACT — CD | |
26 | One sought by the cops about electronic tag (4) |
NAME — MAN<=“about” + E(lectronic)… We’re all familiar with the saying that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police “always get their man” (because women criminals can be more elusive?). And Lexico, at least, has this sense as a definition: “A male pursued or sought by another, especially in connection with a crime.” | |
27 | New parents close to font here? (8) |
TRANSEPT — (parents)* + [-fon]T, &lit… because, I suppose, this part of a church is close to where baptisms are performed. | |
DOWN | |
1 | Fish that’s stuffed with diamonds (3) |
IDE — I(D)E | |
2 | Verify clubs working with company (7) |
CONFIRM — C, “clubs” + ON, “working” + FIRM, “company” | |
3 | One of the Queen’s dedicated lovers? (5) |
DRONE — apiarian CD | |
4 | Common brown climbing flower (7) |
NATURAL — TAN<=“climbing” + URAL, “flow-er” | |
6 | I can’t be shifting display case (7) |
CABINET — (I can’t be)* | |
7 | Insect, one of ten on the wall? (11) |
GREENBOTTLE — I didn’t know the children’s song “Ten Green Bottles Hanging on the Wall.” Couldn’t make “grasshopper” parse but eventually thought of the drinking song “100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” and figured there might be a more moderate British variant. Beer bottles are often green! | |
10 |
Country song about male lovers (7) …the genre is expanding. |
ARMENIA — AR(MEN)IA | |
12 | Understanding a relation is tricky (11) |
REALISATION — (a relation is)* | |
15 | See trip abroad as this? (7) |
RESPITE — (See trip)*, &lit | |
18 | Cold actor picks up cap in military town (7) |
CHATHAM — C (HAT) HAM | |
19 | Sponge, gutted darter and octopus? (7) |
DRINKER — D[-arte]R + INKER, “octopus?” | |
20 | Accommodation housing one rare English animal (7) |
GIRAFFE — G(I)(R)AFF(E)… GAFF is, according to Collins, archaic British slang (I’ve come across it here before) for “a person’s home, esp a flat.” R is an abbreviation for “rare”—probably most used by lexicographers. | |
22 | Chair in an American saloon (5) |
SEDAN — DD The second definition refers to a type of car; SEDAN is the American term for what Brits call a “saloon”—it took me a minute to sort this out. But the first definition is more interesting. “Filthy streets littered with mud, refuse and excrement were not only a health hazard in 16th and 17th century Europe, but also made travel difficult and impractical. Until the introduction of the sedan chair, that is. In 1634 Sir Saunders Duncombe introduced the sedan chair for hire in London.… Named after the town of Sedan in France where it was first used, the sedan chair consisted of a seat inside a cabin with a detachable roof, mounted on two poles and carried by two men known as ‘chairmen’, one at the front and one at the rear.… Sedan chairs soon became popular amongst the gentry.” From “The Sedan Chair” at the site Historic UK. | |
25 | Animal whip (3) |
CAT — DD… Short for “cat o’ nine tails.” | |
27:31
But there was something fishy about that…
(I’ll get my coat.)
“Black’s Tal” ? I don’t play chess, but now Guy has identified the unknown champion, I’d have expected “Tal’s Black”.
CAT had escaped from a QC, and the chestnut harvest yielded “religious = pi”. The mysterious IDE swims only in Crossword Land
It’s the Mounties who always get their man, so 26A simply doesn’t work for me.
FACT and SERVES seemed very weak, and the surface for DRINKER was remarkably contrived.
HIGH-NECKED shirts ? New one on me !
Luckily it was put to bed quickly enough not to spoil my Sunday morning completely.
FOI/COD BEAN
LOI DRONE
TIME 12:01
Lexico also defines “man” as used on the clue for NAME… as I explained.
That’s NATURAL defined as (Collins) “in conformity with the ordinary course of nature; not unusual or exceptional”—i.e., not uncommon.
For BRUISE, Lexico has “Crush or pound (food)” and Collins “to crush (food, etc) by pounding or pressing.”
Edited at 2021-08-29 08:20 am (UTC)
I liked the ‘wind generator’ def for BEAN – memories of “Blazing Saddles”.
Thanks to setter and Guy
Quite liked it and as a chessplayer loved the Tal clue (though ignoring the opening might not be ideal against the Latvian magician…)
I thought this was a bit of a mixed bag, with some good stuff (wind generator, arf) and a couple of rather weak ones (SERVES). However some of the things I wasn’t keen on (pound = BRUISE, MAN) turn out to be perfectly valid definitions I just wasn’t aware of, which strikes me as perfectly fair and indeed welcome.
Edited at 2021-08-29 09:15 am (UTC)
Misha Tal was a great hero of mine, once upon a time .. I met him once in the ’70s when he came to the Hastings tournament, which he won; needless to say we were never going to meet over the board.