Times 25443 – A perambulation through an urban amenity

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 27 minutes

Music: Sibelius, Symphony #2, Schippers/NYP

I found this puzzle a bit on the dull side. The clues, while technically correct, lacked the outrageous wordplay and devious literals that can make solving fun. However, since I have a touch of the flu and just wanted to get on with it and go to bed, I was not too disappointed.

My time did not include analyzing all of the cryptics, so I may have to do some more solving while writing up the blog. However, I am pretty sure my answers are correct – when you have eight crossing letters out of fifteen, it really can’t be anything else.

Across
1 CLAM, C(L)AM. The literal seems a bit off, since ‘a clam’ is usually thought of as reticent but not shy.
3 PASSES OVER, P(ASSES)OVER. Since ‘power’ has an odd number of letters, you have to turn a ‘w’ to a ‘v’ to make it ‘half-hearted’….very clever, or maybe not.
10 LAPTOPS, STOP PAL backwards. I wasted a lot of time trying to make ‘pet’ work.
11 WILLING, W(ILL)ING, where there are two wings on every stage.
12 WEATHER FORECAST, cryptic definition. May be difficult for those living where ‘The Met’ is used to refer to the opera house or the art museum.
13 ROSARY, anagram of A SORRY.
14 TEA PARTY, hidden in [dispu]TE A PART Y[ou]. I wasted some time going over 19th and early 20th century US history before seeing the obvious.
17 REDOUBLE, R(ED)OUBLE.
18 RETURN, double definition, where the second one is a bit loose.
21 APPRENTICESHIPS, anagram of PERHAPS I INSPECT.
23 MARTIAL, double definition for you classicists out there.
24 ROOKING, ROO{K}ING, two chess men sharing a letter.
25 TIE BREAKER, TIE B(R)EAKER, often called a ‘tie break’ in some English-speaking countries.
26 Omitted – a compendium of chestnuts!
 
Down
1 COLD WAR, CO(L)D WAR. A cod clue, or perhaps a COD?
2 APPRAISED, anagram of DISAPPEAR. Very smooth surface, but I was not fooled for long.
4 ASSERT, sounds like A CERT.
5 SAWBONES, WAS upside-down + B[y] + ONES.
6 SELF-EXPRESSION, X PRESS inside anagram of ONE’S LIFE. I didn’t bother with the cryptic while solving.
7 VOILA, cryptic definition.
8 RIGHTLY, RIGHT + [a]L[l]Y. A rather feeble clue.
9 MOTHER SUPERIOR, M + anagram of THE PIOUS ERROR. Another one where the cryptic was not needed.
15 ROUTINISE, ROU(TIN IS)E. Now this one, I couldn’t see at all until I worked the cryptic.
16 FLOTILLA, anagam of ALL OF IT + L[itres].
17 READMIT, READ + MIT, in a different Cambridge than you might expect, and only loosely a college.
19 NOSEGAY, NOS(EGA)Y, i.e. AGE upside down.
20 SCARCE, SCAR(C)E. Surely the correct answer, but I must admit I don’t see exactly why ‘diamonds, say’ are ‘c’. If this is a phonetic clue for ‘ice’, many solvers are not going to like it. Jack has kindly supplied the correct interpretation of ‘diamonds’ in the first comment.
22 PURSE, double definition, where ‘orally’ does not mean ‘sounds like’, it means ‘pertaining to the mouth’, as in ‘purse your lips’.

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