28 minutes for this pleasant offering that’s somewhat on the easy side. I can’t imagine it will delay any of the regulars for long.
* = anagram
Across |
|
---|---|
1 | INGRATE – IN GRATE – Dogs aka firedogs are metal supports for wood burning in a fireplace. |
5 |
POODLES – P |
9 |
PEA-SOUPER – Anagram of P |
10 | FIVER – A portrait of the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry (1780 – 1845) can found on the current Bank of England £5 note. |
11 |
SLING – S |
12 | RIDICULED – RID (clear), then CLUE* inside I’D. |
13 |
LATIN AMERICAN – (I L |
17 | INSUPPORTABLE – IN (at home), SUP (drink), PORT (wine), then B (key) inside ALE (beer). |
21 | HISTORIAN – (THIS ON AIR)* |
24 | ROUGH – Double definition, one cryptic with a golfing connotation. |
25 | ROMEO – Double definition, one with reference to the radio alphabet. |
26 |
ELECTORAL – 0 in ELECTRA (play – by Sophocles), L |
27 | WHATNOT – NOT WHAT re-ordered. It’s a stand for knick-knacks. |
28 | SLANDER – S,LANDER (parts of Germany). Is anyone going to argue that the German word requires an umlaut or another E? |
Down | |
1 | IMPOST – I (current), M (agent’s boss – James Bond’s), POST (job). |
2 | GLADIOLUS – The flower can be shortened to “glad” colloquially, or “gladdie” if’ you’re Dame Edna. |
3 | AMONGST – MO (doctor) inside ANGST (dreadful feeling). |
4 | ESPERANTO – E,S (points), then ER (leading lady) inside PANTO (show). |
5 | PARED – PA ( per annum, every year), RED (cherry for example). |
6 | OFFICER – IC (in charge) inside OFFER (volunteer). |
7 | LEVEL – EVE (woman, originally) inside LL (50s). |
8 | STRIDENT – S,TRIDENT (missile). |
14 |
MUTINEERS – Anagram of M |
15 |
CHEQUERED – QU |
16 | WITHDRAW – WITH (not lacking), DRAW (appeal). |
18 | PRONOUN – “It” can be a drink, as in “gin and It”, short for Italian vermouth. Also it is a pronoun. |
19 |
BIRETTA – B |
20 | CHOLER – Sounds like “collar” meaning to arrest. |
22 |
SAMOA – S |
23 | ID EST – Hidden with the break moved to the left. |
“Cheerful” = GLAD which “colloquially speaking” = GLADIOLUS (flower)
Edited at 2012-11-16 11:51 pm (UTC)
Edited at 2012-11-16 07:06 am (UTC)
My hold up was PRONOUN, with its unlikely sequence of P_O_O_N, and its offbeat clue standing rather proud of its surroundings.
9A is quite topical if one takes fog to relate to poor thinking rather than the weather
I completely disagree with you about FIVER, and although I can see what you (and others) are getting at with WHATNOT, I find it entirely acceptable.
I’m with you on FIVER. I solved it from”note” (like many others I suspect) and was convinced “Elizabeth” meant ER. There is something very neat about being utterly fooled by a non-cryptic reference to something we see every day. I shall be on the lookout for Adam Smith and Matthew Boulton.
Didn’t understand the cryptics for Gladiolus or Pronoun – so thanks Jack for explaining those.
Biretta from wordplay – hadn’t heard of that word before.
Had to stifle a yawn when Mr Christian appeared. We’ve seen him a couple of times lately.
Choler was a new one on me, was tempted to spell it with an a.
Btw, does anyone know what’s up with sister site 15/2? I’ve been having a hell of a lot of trouble getting in over the last few weeks, and today I can’t get in at all.
Cheers, thanks to setter and blogger.
Chris Gregory.
“You will have noticed recently that the site has become slow to load or is unavailable (FTTP500). When this occurred back in January the problem was due to a couple of other websites, hosted on the same server, which caused the server to slow down or stop. The hosting company has informed me that this time it is down to 15² using too much cpu time (something which I would question) so it is being throttled.”
My first, and bitterly detested, boarding school named its dorms after famous women and I spent many miserable weeks in Liz Fry along with 9 other waifs. There’s a rather good statue of her at the Old Bailey, but as with other non-UK solvers the note was a guess.
Didn’t understand FIVER, BIRETTA unknown.
22 minutes. Ann
(Note that neither word is an acronym!)
Edited at 2012-11-17 12:39 pm (UTC)
Perhaps unfair to judge this one so severely following yesterday’s offering, which was just in a different league
JB