Times 26608 – in which I am forced to eat my old hat

Author   glhPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Welcome to a blogger’s nightmare. I thought I had gone through this quite nicely in 9:22, then submitted and find out that I have one incorrect answer (there are two correct solutions in). I’ve spent the next five minutes or so poring through what I had and I cannot find it to save my life. Hopefully I’ll see it while writing this up, but please be warned, there is a good chance there is a very silly blunder in here somewhere.

Phew – spotted it – I bet I’m not the only one to make this mistake.

Despite not getting it all correct, there are a lot of fun clues in this puzzle!

Away we go…

Across
1 TRESPASSES: SPA in TRESSES
6 SOLD: S(pain), OLD(vintage)
9 APPAREL: APPAL surrounding RE
10 SOMALIA: AIL(trouble) and AMOS(prophet) all reversed
12 BRIGHTNESS: the outside of B(artende)R, and an anagram of THE,SIGN’S
13 NIL: LIN(e) reversed, love in tennis is nil in footgame
15 ORDAIN: anagram of IN,ROAD – invest into a society or office
16 BLACKOUT: double definition, faint as in to lose consciousness
18 DICTATOR: ROT AT CID all reversed
20 CLOCHE: CLO(the), CHE – and not CLICHE which I had confidently and rather stupidly biffed, thinking there must be a dress that is a CLI??? – an actual hat
23 ACE: PACE missing P
24 IMPEACHING: I’M PREACHING losing the R
26 HIDINGS: anagram of DISHING
27 BRIGADE: BADE containing RIG(fiddle)
28 WARM: W,ARM – you’re getting WARMER
29 PREHISTORY: HIS,TOR(eminence) in PREY
 
Down
1 TEAM: remove the outside letters of STEAMY
2 EXPIRED: windows XP inside EIRE, D
3 PEREGRINATION: EG, and alternating letters in RaIn inside PER, NATION
4 SA,LUTE
5 EASTERLY: anagram of LATER,YES
7 ORLANDO: OO(spectacles) covering R(eclaimed),LAND. Funny coincidence – January 12th’s blog will be coming to you from Disney World in Orlando going there for a pre-school holiday
8 DEAD LETTER: Hmmm… spoonerism(ish) of LED DEBTOR
11 MUSICAL CHAIRS: SIC(so),AL(l) in MUCH AIRS – this is a terrific clue!
14 LORD HAW-HAW: WAH-WAH (wow, even the apostrophe works) and DROL(l) all reversed
17 COMPOSER: CO,M(agazine), POSER(puzzle)
19 CHEDDAR: hidden in lunCHED DARingly
21 CENTAVO: sounds like SENT and ARVO
22 CASBAH: CASH(ready) containing B, A(rmy)
25 VERY: CARVERY missing CAR

64 comments on “Times 26608 – in which I am forced to eat my old hat”

  1. After failing dismerably at yesterday’s, I was quite pleased to get through this one in 24 minutes. Quite a few went in half-parsedly, and there was a little biffing along the way.

    I managed to glide over the bear-trap at 20ac without falling through the thin ice into hot water, and had no real problem with CASBAH even though, like Olivia, I thought it was a marketplace.

    As for DEAD LETTER, I’d only come across it in the context of a “dead letter drop”, as used by all the best spies to pass information to one another. I still don’t quite see how the clue works.

    Since this is the last weekday puzzle of 2017, I wish you all a Happy New Year.

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