Across
1 HANDS-OFF – HANDS (workers) OFF (on holiday) for a dying breed of supervisor…
5 PASCAL – very topical; PASCHAL (wihtout its H[ard] here) means relating to Passover (originally) or by extension Easter.
8 MAT – your PC and your Dr Seuss murine both sit on this. Thanks to Keriothe for pointing out that while Dr Seuss’s cat did many things, he didn’t waste his time sitting about on mats; the reference is to the ‘proto-sentence’ used in teaching kids to speak and also in linguistic analysis ‘The cat sat on the mat’.
9 VERSIFYING – VERIFYING around S[econd].
10 LIBERIAN – the literal is ‘African’; L[eft] + IBERIAN (‘from West of Europe’).
11 COPPER – I reckon this is the answer (policeman – ‘part of force’) but need enlightenment on the parsing…and I have it from McT; half of CUBA is CU, which even I know is the chemical symbol for copper. One to please the 25s!
12 YO-YO – the last letters of daY tO daY + O (naught).
14 DESIDERATA – the literal is ‘what are needed’; DATA around E + SIDE + R.
17 SUBJECTIVE – SUBJECT (not a ruler) + IVE (when you see ‘I have’, look out for IVE); literal ‘judged personally’.
20 DEFY – ‘brave’ as in ‘defy the elements’; it’s one of the ‘modern’ Welsh counties (DYFED) reversed and missing its initial D.
23 FULCRA – hidden; for once, the hidden was not my last in. Today it was second last, as the Cuban clue was defying me. Did you know that the word fulcrum comes from the Latin verb fulcire meaning ‘to prop up’? The Internet’s a wonderful thing…
24 ORGANISM – defintion ‘being’; wordplay ORGANIST with M(ass) for final T.
25 PHILISTINE – Goliath (who was KOed by David son of Jesse with a stone slung from his sling) was the most famous representative of this ancient people. A Philistine is one of those words that can be used to smear your enemies. Someone doesn’t like your pile of bricks at the Tate and (s)he’s a Philistine.
26 ILL – the literal is ‘bad’; the rest is the wordplay (since the ‘way to start announcing my intention’ is to say ‘I’ll’).
27 BRANDY – if you remove the vessel (EWER – found in most cruciverbal kitchens) from ‘brewery’ you are left with BR AND Y.
28 INFANTRY – IN FAN is the ‘home supporter’ + TRY = the ‘fighting group’.
Down
1 HIMALAYAS – [Bahasa] MALAY is the language; add an A, wrap in HIS (‘that man’s’), and stir for 5 minutes for a nice big range. Alternatively, just bung it in and move on to the next clue.
2 NOTABLY – this word does sterling service in Crosswordland without getting the credit it deserves – a bit like James Milner at Man City. If you do something ‘without skill’ (we’ve moved a few miles west now to Marouane Fellaini) you do it ‘not ably’. Well, you do if you’re still learning the language…
3 SEVERN – there must be plenty of jokes Glos. way about the Severn bore (it’s sort of like a mini tidal wave that brings out the surfing dudes); EVER in S+N (bridge partners – South and North).
4 FIRMAMENT – an evocative word for the heavens – the two words are used together in perhaps the best known chorus from Haydn’s Creation, ‘The Heavens are Telling’. Here it is being taken along at a good lick by Christopher Hogwood et al; FIRM + AMEN (‘announced ratification’) + T[ime].
5 PO-FACED – PACED around (O + F [‘fighter’ initially]).
6 SKIPPERED – I liked this clue, since it sends you down the garden path (looking for a RD etc); it’s simply S[ociety] + KIPPERED (‘preserved, in a way’).
7 AUGMENT – AUG[US]T with MEN.
13 OBJECTION – simply I inside (OBJECT + ON).
15 INVERSION – anagram (we’ve not had many of these) of OVER + IN in INN; the literal is ‘turning over’.
16 ABYSMALLY – the literal is ‘in appalling way’; the wordplay BY (times) + SMALL (reduced in size) in A Y[ear].
18 USURPER – the literal is ‘replacing person’ (as in a person who replaces someone else); we have a USURER (‘type taking interest’) around (pinching) P (penny).
19 CHARITY – another clever one; the wordplay is CHARY (cautious) around IT, the literal ‘behaviour of the kind [people]’.
21 ELITIST – another nice definition, since ‘discriminating’ is meant in the sense of prejudicial rather than discerning; it’s IT in (E + LIST).
22 CAMERA – I wasted time delving into the dried-up well that is my artistic knowledge for words like tempera, when it’s just CAME (‘turned up’) before (‘first’) RA (an artist recognised by the Royal Academy, who moved en masse from Burlington House to Crosswordland some years ago as the rent is lower).
Edited at 2014-04-07 04:00 am (UTC)
Top half much quicker than bottom for me, and I ended at about an hour, but with much time at the end spent on ORGANISM, convinced that the definition was ‘being church’ rather than just ‘being’. Also wasted some time early doors by putting in ‘himalayan’ without really thinking it through.
Didn’t get the bit about ‘holding hands’ at 3dn, so thanks for pointing out the (now obvious!) bridge players…
COD: BRANDY
The PHILISTINEs had a bad press – history is written by the winners atc – their art and culture were miles ahead of the neighbouring Israelites, for whom “art” and “culture” were pretty grubby terms. Oh, and their technology was pretty good too, especially in metal-working and architecture. David’s victory over Goliath was the triumph of rural simplicity over urban and technological sophistication. It’s odd that the linguistic roles have been so absolutely swapped.
CoD today? BRANDY. COPPER took too much head-scratching.
Edited at 2014-04-07 07:06 am (UTC)
It took me 42 minutes of which the last 10 were spent trying to solve 11ac where I also had a blind-spot.
Well said re 25ac,u. You might have mentioned people who don’t share one’s liking of a certain zany comedian!
Edited at 2014-04-07 06:10 am (UTC)
[Ducks and runs]
It’s just as well I (usually) check before submitting these days as I found 5 typos. I’m trying to adjust to mornings after years of late night puzzling but I don’t think I’ve yet determined the optimal pre-solve caffeine intake.
Last in also the SKIPPERED / COPPER pair. SKIPPERED is a tricky clue — the sort of wordplay that invites you down several blind alleys. I never pass up an invitation like that.
COD .. MAT. Simple, sweet, funny.
Edited at 2014-04-07 07:50 am (UTC)
Edited at 2014-04-07 08:36 am (UTC)
Thank you setter for 25 minutes of fun and well blogged Ulaca. I suppose I shall have to now look into this Anax clue – can’t lose my inbuilt curiosity!
Edited at 2014-04-07 10:42 am (UTC)
I’d be interested to hear if you can parse it. I can’t, and in fact the only answer that I can construct from the wordplay is wrong.
Incidentally ulaca I don’t think there is any reference to Dr Seuss in 8ac: I’m not aware that the cat in the hat sat on a mat.
Edited at 2014-04-07 08:31 am (UTC)
Odd how PHILISTINE has passed into the vocabulary. Archaeologists now tell us they were really quite cultured chaps, with links to Mycenae. And great drinkers!
After an hour, I had nothing in the SW, and I advanced not a bit in twenty additional minutes. Since I had already taken a shower, I called my mother and chatted inanely for 20 minutes. When I returned, I put in the last answers almost instantly.
There was a lot of clever deception in the literals, which made me wonder at times even after I had put in the correct answer.
Very elegant puzzle with a wealth of excellent and varied clues.
Pascal was a bit of a guess (not knowing the philosopher and only being half sure that paschal was right) and whilst the word desiderata is one I know (presumably from the poem) I wouldn’t have been able to supply you with a meaning.
I liked “couple holding hands” as an alternative to the hackneyed “partners” and I’m surprised I haven’t seen it before (feel free to tell me that I have and that my memory is fading).
I was pleased that my newfound stubborn streak led to these three being cracked, and from the conversations above I look forward to applying it to 3D on the Sunday crossword, this being one of my remaining answers.
Forty minutes gave me all but the troublesome COPPER, SKIPPERED and PASCAL, and another half hour saw me giving in.
I doubt I’d ever have got PASCAL, since PASCHAL was unknown to me. Moreover, I had no idea he was a was a religious philosopher – I know him only as a mathematician, physicist and programming language. Still, it’s nice that he had a relaxing hobby for his spare time. I presume that, given philosophy’s excellent track record of success down the ages, all of the questions he philosophized over have long been answered satisfactorily.
SKIPPERED was a great clue, now that I know the answer. I’d make it my COD if I’d got it, but I didn’t and I’m grumpy so I won’t. Thank gods for a steady supply of customers out on whom to take it.
I like to think I could have been quicker had I not been listening to commentary on the Spurs/Sunderland match while I tackled the crossword. Good win for Tottenham, but sad for Poyet as an ‘old boy’ and also disappointed for Chris Hughton at Norwich who did sterling service at White Hart Lane.
Without wanting to give too much away, I think dorsetjimbo and other like-minded solvers may enjoy this month’s Guardian Genius crossword by Qaos.