ACROSS
1 FRIEDMAN You want your man fried or boiled? What a hilarious way to start off this puzzle. Milton Friedman (1912 – 2006) was an American economist, statistician, a professor at the University of Chicago, and the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics
5 PLUSES P L (first letters of Party Leader) USES (exploits)
9 RIDICULE Ins of I (one) DIC (DICK detective minus K) in RULE (law)
10 IMPALA IMPALE (spear) minus E + A ; an African antelope with horns curved in the shape of a lyre and capable of prodigious leaps.
12 GREEN The Green Label that I would enjoy is blended by Johnnie Walker and at least 15 year old 🙂
13 FLEETWOOD FLEET (ships) WOOD (deal) English port in Lancashire
14 PREDILECTION Ins of LE (LIFE minus IF) in PREDICTION (fortune-telling)
18 NEOPLATONISM *(ample notions)
21 BLACK BELT BLACK (jet) BELT (fly)
23 OILER (T) oiler
24 TALKIE Ins of K I (King and I) in TALE (story)
25 UNMARRED *(underarm)
26 DODDLE Ins of DD (Doctor of Divinity, theologian) in DOLE (benefit)
27 BABY FACE BA (rev of AB, Able-Bodied seaman) BY (next to) FACE (confront)
DOWN
1 FOREGO F (fine) OREGANO (herb) minus AN (article)
2 Anagram answer deliberately omitted
3 DECONTROL DEACON (church official) minus A + TROLL (fish) minus L (without tail)
4 ALL OF A DITHER ‘ALLO (Cockney greeting) + ins of DI (Detective Inspector, police officer) in FATHER (old man)
6 LIMIT LIME (Green, answer to 12) minus E + IT (the thing)
7 SLAVONIC *(vocal sin)
8 STANDING STAND-IN (locum tenens) + G (grand)
11 WELLINGTONIA WELLINGTON (Vickers Wellington, British medium bomber PLANE used in World War II) IA (rev of AI, a major road in UK)
15 CUSTOMARY *(SCOUT) MARY (girl) What a lovely anagrind BE PREPARED, the motto of the Boy Scout movement. My COD
16 UNABATED Ins of BAT (go in) in UNA (girl) & ED (boy)
17 SO-CALLED SOCIAL (get-together) minus I (first person) LED (was
19 GLORIA G (good) LO (look) RIA (rev of AIR, in which a bird like a lark would fly in)
20 BRIDGE dd
22 KRILL Ins of R (right) in KILL (bag)
Key to abbreviations
dd = double definition
dud = duplicate definition
tichy = tongue-in-cheek type
cd = cryptic definition
rev = reversed or reversal
ins = insertion
cha = charade
ha = hidden answer
*(fodder) = anagram
I enjoyed the two American cars side by side, and of course since we’ve had Plotinus it is only fair that we indulge in a little Neoplatonism.
I was puzzled a bit by ‘unabated’, since I thought the boy was Ted, but then I saw it. The word I had never heard of was ‘doddle’, which I found quite difficult, believing ‘benefit’ to be the literal for most of the session.
Good clues and clever wordplay all over the place. I was revisiting GREEN for the third or fourth time before I saw the golf joke. Doh! That’s why it took me 55 minutes…
The COD has to go to G.L.O.R.I.A.
John Eliot Gardiner leads the Monteverdi Choir in a somewhat histrionic, if very fine, rendition of the Gloria from Mozart’s Mass in C minor. My COD.
Nick M
I got started in the bottom half today which I found a lot easier than the top half apart from the intersecting long words.
25 minutes with no hold ups, just steady and rewarding progress. Thank you setter.
I didn’t know WELLINGTONIA and I don’t think I’ve seen DECONTROL before either, but those were the only unknowns. I also slowed myself down a bit with ALL OF A POTHER but generally speaking the difficulty was down to good clues rather than any obscurity.
Very good puzzle.
Cod (though not with much enthusiasm) to TALKIE – a nice surface.
who, to heighten his sense of euphoria,
would don a tuxedo, and murmur the Credo
along with the Sanctus and GLORIA
Peoria’s in Illinois, by the bye
12 across very clever.
Forgo (meaning ‘ go without something you want ’) can also be spelled forego, but it is best to use the spelling forgo so as to avoid confusion with forego, which is an old-fashioned word meaning ‘ come before ’.
I think there’s just enough of a grey area there to earn the setter a reprieve.
My thanks to ulaca for the Gloria clip. However, with non-stop Mozart on Radio 3 I’m beginning to feel a bit “Mozart, toujours Mozart”, so how about the most glorious Gloria of them all, which you can sing along with here.
falooker – I’m not sure it isn’t any more than some YouTube posters preferring this style of presentation, such as bartje11 in this instance. Perhaps once you’ve searched for the piece of your choice, you can look at the picture icon and choose the one which has the score.
Cheers, Rob