I reckon this was a little easier than average but rather tougher than your average Monday puzzle. Having lived out of Blighty for so long, BARISTA is a word that came up on me unawares only a few years ago. I was intrigued at first, thinking that the men and women so named had taken a degree (or at least a diploma) in coffee-making, travelling to Costa Rica and Mexico and perhaps doing an elective or two in fair trade, organics, and mindfulness and compassion. Sadly, as in so much else in my life, I was disappointed when I discovered that every Tomasz, Dirk and Henryk working at Starbucks at Heathrow was called a barrista. How those ladies who used to serve up coffee and chicory at Lyons’ Corner Houses must be turning in their graves!
On review, this setter likes his/her question marks as much as I love my exclamation marks!
ACROSS
1 Frequently pressure will be absorbed by broadcaster gaining influence (4,5)
SOFT POWER – OFT P in SOWER (broadcaster); a silly phrase meaning the ability to manipulate through culture, coffee etc. Apparently, the UK is the top peddler of SOFT POWER in the world, which means the laugh is on them, I reckon.
6 US lawyer impounding most of long rural residence (5)
DACHA -ACH[e] in DA; every Russian novel has a dacha and a samovar. Me, excepting War and Peace and anything by Dostoevsky, I prefer your French novels. The Red and the Black by Stendhal (who I thought was Scandinavian until recently) is particularly racy…
9 Café worker? A man filling bill is recalled (7)
BARISTA -reversal of A (SIR [man] in TAB [bill])
10 I guarantee I rejected further broadcast about son (7)
INSURER – similar device to the previous clue: I (S in reversal or RERUN [further broadcast])
11 Closer and closer to ritual at church (5)
LATCH – [ritua]L AT CH
12 Intimidating male taken to court over cartel (9)
HECTORING – HE CT O RING. An excuse (as if I need one) to plug CS Lewis’s magnificent oration warning against 1ac
13 Huge energy sustaining Republican bodyguard (5)
GROSS – R in GO SS
14 It’ll have a drop of arsenic in various portions, perhaps (3-6)
RAT-POISON – A (drop/first letter of Arsenic) in PORTIONS*
17 The writer’s recalled nineteen characters around Northern American state (9)
MINNESOTA – N (north) in MINE reversal of A TO S (first 19 letters of the alphabet)
18 Ecstatic state offering no new suggestion (5)
TRACE – TRA[n]CE
19 Get program to stop after girl’s taken aback (9)
APPREHEND – REH (HER reversed)in APP END
22 Inlet having run in a fraction, not loudly (5)
FIRTH – R in FI[f]TH
24 Alcoholic drink: writer, a bit cut, will get stuck into brew (7)
TEQUILA – QUIL[l] in TEA
25 Odd bits of opal and blue interrupted by marks in pale brown (7)
OATMEAL – O[p]A[l] M (marks) in TEAL (blue); a colour
26 Spider perhaps found behind cold hilltop (5)
CREST – C REST (a spider is a stick used in snooker to enable a player to strike over a ball)
27 International game? Plan to include one high-flier (4,5)
TEST PILOT – TEST I in PLOT
DOWN
1 Forecaster is upset over Times line (5)
SIBYL – reversal of IS BY L (line)
2 Eldest child initially ready to tuck into left half of bonbon? (5-4)
FIRST-BORN – R[eady] in FIRST BON (left half of BONBON)
3 Immediately make online comments over animosity surrounding society (4-5)
POST-HASTE – POST S in HATE
4 Newspaper feature teacher edited with software (7,8)
WEATHER FORECAST – TEACHER SOFTWARE*
5 Exhibit mammalian consequences of the foregoing? (4,4,3,4)
RAIN CATS AND DOGS – um, yes, well this is a somewhat strained cryptic definition of a quirky nature, where it has to be said that rain being as it were equivalent to a weather forecast is a bit of a stretch, even in Blighty. ‘The foregoing’ refers to the previous clue, of course.
6 Dancing talent that’s new? Not very (5)
DISCO – DISCO[very]; Susan Boyle was discovered on Britain’s Got Talent; Screamer Easton on Esther Rantzen’s The Big Time
7 Garment I’d picked up after a lot of consideration (5)
CARDI – CAR[e] ID reversed
8 Superior approach in developing organ care (9)
ARROGANCE – ORGAN CARE*
13 My acting’s pulled apart as sort of vigorous (9)
GYMNASTIC – MY ACTINGS*; perhaps the literal is ‘vigorous’. I am open to offers
15 Not agreeing how you might get pets? (3,2,4)
OUT OF STEP – an anagram of PETS is STEP, so you can get pets OUT OF STEP
16 Place for flights? Primarily soaring through atmosphere successfully (9)
STAIRWELL – S[oaring] T[hrough] AIR WELL
20 Anger? Private investigator quite expressing it (5)
PIQUE – PI QU[it]E getting rid of (expressing) IT
21 Throw out online winner having no alternative (5)
EVICT – similar device to the previous clue: E VICT[or] getting rid of OR (alternative)
23 Entertainer bringing in latest from musical composer (5)
HOLST – [musica]L in HOST
Re the FIRTH clue, a pedant would point out the the wordplay is somewhat imprecise in that it doesn’t indicate which F should be removed from FIFTH, although there are certain problems with IFRTH, IRFTH and IFTRH as possible answers.
No problems with SIBYL, probably because an hour spent at Knossos last week means my knowledge of the classics is pretty much where it would have been had I got a double first at Oxford or the other one.
Yamas!
Edited at 2018-08-20 12:09 pm (UTC)
Edited at 2018-08-20 12:39 pm (UTC)
Rather surprised at SS for bodyguard.
Before I understood the methodology – and the score for today’s puzzle- I was congratulating myself on one of my best solves since taking up the TC (sub 40 mins – no chuckling), only to find it was more a reflection of the puzzle difficulty.
Still at least a High SNITCH gives me more excuses going forward.