Times 24763: One dragon on the ground

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time : 8:15 on the crossword club, which I think is my best time on there so this was definitely on my wavelength. I’m filling in for Uncle Yap as he celebrates the Lunar New Year and I’m sure he’ll enjoy this one while swigging the Berocca later. There some cheeky, some fun surfaces, and some top-notch wordplay to get us there.

I suspect many will get the long words from definition alone, though I am surprised with as many long words as there are in this crossword, the setter has given us no straight anagram clues. And away we go….

Across
1 BODICE-RIPPER: Off to a cracking wordplay start – B,O, and then ICE(hard water) in DRIPPER(faulty tap). There was a clip of Fabio on the Daily Show last night, he’s been on the cover of a few
8 LOOSEST: E (last of adesivE) in (STOOLS)* – the surface is even better if you read it scatalogically
9 let’s omit this one from the acrosses
11 BLOSSOM: LOSS in BOM(b)
12 OCARINA: C in OAR(blade), IN,A
13 ENTER: double definition, one the computer keyboard key
14 RACE,TRACK
16 GO BANANAS: Never seen this before, though it’s kind of obvious wordplay – GOB and then ANANAS(pineapple)
19 COL,ON: A port in Panama that I get to write about twice this week
21 SENEGAL: my favorite clue – what makes you Californian is those L.A. GENES (only backwards)
23 PI,ROGUE: a dugout canoe
24 SEAL,ANT
25 ICINESS: hidden
26 FIDDLESTICKS: as bows can be sticks for ones fiddle, break out the moonshine and let’s get to pickin’
 
Down
1 BLOWOUT: LOW(little) in BOUT
2 let’s make this one the down omission
3 CATAMARAN: A TAMAR in CAN – how nice of the setter to include a Tasmanian river for a change!
4 RAT,IO: IO being a moon of Jupiter
5 PARFAIT: F in PARA,IT
6 EROTICA: E then (ACTOR,I)*
7 FLABBERGASTS: FLAB then RG (alternating letters in dRuGs) in BEASTS
10 FRANK,INCENSE: The local brewery/theatre (what a wonderful place) last week did a screening of Life of Brian
15 CASHPOINT: (HAS)*,P in COIN, T
17 BENGALI: GAL in BENI(n)
18 NIGGARD: DRAGGIN’ reversed
19 CARD,IA,C: the IA coming from dIAmonds
20 LEGLESS: double def
22 LATHE: H in LATE

44 comments on “Times 24763: One dragon on the ground”

  1. A very good puzzle that I should have finished more quickly than my 35 minutes, but I dopily misspelled PIROGUE as PIROUGE despite knowing the word, the craft, and how to spell it. This took a while to sort out. As a result, LEGLESS was my last in. COD to SENEGAL for me too. Regards to all.
  2. By the way, George, your link to the page with an illustration of the PIROGUE also shows The Incredible Aluminum Floating Duck Blind! Can hold up to 10 guys! Possibly half in the bag and wielding loaded shotguns! Unbelieveable. I don’t know about any of the rest of you, but I certainly hope these things aren’t flying off the shelves.
  3. Well, I’m sure at least one of the 10 guys inside has at some point wondered what it would be like if they could get one of those babies off the ground.
    1. I was pretty stunned by the page and I’m glad someone else took the time to enjoy that such things exist. I particularly liked that it was an aluminum craft designed to look like a pirogue, how awesome is that!
      1. “Huge floating duck blind?” Looks for all the world like a crossword clue. Can anybody parse it?

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