This was meaty enough for a Friday with some tricksy but not absurd vocabulary and some tricksy but not absurd cluing. Both the top row went straight in but there were speed bumps from there, culminating with the initially baffling 8dn (“_E_R_T_T, huh, really?!”). Splendid clue, in how hard it is to see that it’s “just” an anagram; I also really liked the cryptic gymnastics of 12ac, 5d and 6dn. I had not known that 20ac could be a collection of musicians as opposed to just their trade.
Great puzzle, thank you setter!
Definitions underlined, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, {} deletions and [] other indicators.
Across
1 Criticised after openings of some courses cancelled (8)
SCRAPPED – RAPPED after S{ome} C{ourses}
9 Imagine a lot of discontented feelings around slump (8)
ENVISAGE – ENVIE{s} around SAG
10 Surprised comment about label that’s brought back name of detective writer (6)
AGATHA – AHA! about reversed TAG. Agatha Christie, of course
11 Target of nepotism? Measures one’s time in office: short! (10)
STEPSISTER – STEPS I’S TER{m}
12 Has now left, but not before a bath (4)
WASH – WAS H{ere}
13 Invincible men to point out (10)
OMNIPOTENT – (MEN TO POINT*)
16 Refuse to accept position? That shows stupidity (7)
DENSITY – DENY “accepting” SIT
17 Remit of coroner’s query initially unites different cases (7)
INQUEST – Q{uery} “cased” by (UNITES*)
20 Big church, not English cathedral, hosting small troupe of musicians (10)
MINSTRELSY – MINST{e}R + ELY “hosting” S
22 Old-fashioned person repeating the same thing again (4)
DODO – D(itt)O [the same thing] twice
23 Extravagant articles about to appear in court case (10)
THEATRICAL – THE and A + C “appearing” in TRIAL
25 Culmination recalled for one enthralled by a US writer (6)
APOGEE – reversed EG “enthralled” by A POE
26 Limits to Prince adopting a language with royal attributes (8)
PALATINE – P{rinc}E “adopting” A LATIN
27 Impulsively hosting King and I with a certain charm (8)
RAKISHLY – RASHLY “hosting” K + I
Down
2 Think company will have special appeal amongst spectators (8)
COGITATE – CO will have IT amongst GATE
3 Soldier is repeatedly besetting the opposition (10)
ANTITHESIS – ANT IS IS, “besetting” THE
4 Source of sharp pain? Repeats “Ooh!” when stricken (10)
PEASHOOTER – (REPEATS OOH*)
5 Manor-house finally collapsed — son brought in workers in middle of week (7)
DEMESNE – {collapse}D + S “brought in” MEN, nested in {w}EE{k}
6 American composer is overlooking intro (4)
IVES – {l}IVES [“is”, minus the first letter]
7 Take charge of narrative, lifting a veil (6)
MANTLE – MAN T{a}LE
8 Upset to a great degree in certain circumstances (8)
AEGROTAT – (TO A GREAT*)
14 One writing US city book to miss something on letter once (5,5)
PENNY BLACK – PEN NY B LACK [one writing | US city | book | to miss]
15 Attaining less than zero, therefore really angry? (10)
THUNDEROUS – UNDER 0, “attained” by THUS
16 Daughter turned up recording a book — here’s a sample? (4,4)
DEMO TAPE – D + reversed EP A TOME
18 Small model encapsulating Queen of the Stars? (8)
SIDEREAL – S IDEAL “encapsulating” E.R.
19 Feel gutted, less healthy, with no initial sign of life? (7)
FLICKER – F{ee}L {s}ICKER
21 Want larvae gutted for bait (6)
NEEDLE – NEED L{arva}E
24 Downpour taking top off sewer (4)
RAIN – {d}RAIN
As an hour came up on the clock I had three missing answers, that one, 9ac and 7dn. I had spotted the possibility of ENVISION quite early on but it wouldn’t parse and I didn’t manage to get past it to the correct answer until I’d cheated on AEGROTAT which supplied the E-checker.
As for 7dn, I got as far as T{a}LE (narrative) [lifting a] but I thought that the lifted A was the one supplied by ENVISAGE i.e. it had moved up the answer, rather than it had been completely removed. That screwed the intended wordplay so I lost that way to the answer, and going via the definition ‘veil’ was never going to lead me to MANTLE. Eventually I reverted to aids for the second time.
Much of the rest of the puzzle was very hard work too but I think on the whole I quite enjoyed tackling it, in a sort of masochistic way.
Sorry Bolton Wanderer I’ve just seen your comment below. At least my suspicion has been confirmed
Edited at 2021-10-01 03:55 pm (UTC)
COD DEMO TAPE
Thanks verlaine and setter
Are SIDEREAL and APOGEE
But a THUNDEROUS “NO!”
To the NEEDLEss DODO
My ANTITHESIS, obviously
If the avian had been eschewed
Old queen DiDo, we might include
The art movement DaDa
Would be better by far
And our setter would then be a DuDe
DeDe birds are DuDs, don’t you see?
On that we can surely agree
DaDs might have occurred
As an alternate word
Avoiding the ranting from me
Edited at 2021-10-01 07:46 am (UTC)
Though you’d think such a claim was absurd
Chambers says its a bod
Who’s stupid or odd
No matter what else you have heard
NHO: AEGROTAT, DEMESNE, MINSTRELSY but managed to solve them.
I thought it was unusual to have three clues (by my count) which entailed gutting certain words:
26ac: P(rinc)E; 19d: F(ee)L; 21d: L(arva)E.
Seven years ago (#25886 08Sep14) I made a note of PEASHOOTER, because the clue amused me: “Weapon whose use may make a child’s pulse race”.
COD: WASH. Clever.
AEGROTAT was dredged from O level Latin, and I was late to join the merry MINSTRELSY at “Phil the Fluter’s Ball”.
FOI SCRAPPED
LOI FLICKER (duh !)
COD WASH
TIME 16:18
I might have preferred MINSTRELSY clued with chocolate (are they still made?) and was almost satisfied with MINSTRALLY despite the lack of a cathedral.
I may be the only solver to have happily biffed AEGROTAT from the T?T finish. It was MANTLE (of course) that held me up because of that lifted A that wasn’t (either way you take that). Chambers doesn’t have veil as a definition, except indirectly in its poetic covering meaning.
Didn’t work out WASH and assumed it was a rather clumsy CD.
I wasn’t really happy with STEPSISTER as an object of nepotism, which has more the flavour of an older favouring a younger relative: the word has its origin in “grandson”.
My title is a remembered classic clue for the related nepotist
Not grumpy, just less ecstatic than yesterday.
Borrowed from French népotisme, from Italian nepotismo, from Latin nepōs (“nephew”), a reference to the practice of popes appointing relatives (most often nephews) as cardinals during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
Andyf
…but the NE corner was just fiendishly difficult. Spent 7 or 8 mins playing with the anagrist for 8d, did think of STEP as possible start for 11a, NHO Charles Ives, and even though there’s a Demesne Road very near to me, didn’t know the meaning.
Glad I didn’t persist any longer with this, because it was never gonna happen.
SIDEREAL was another than I wasn’t sure about, but SIDQUEAL seemed much less likely.
A mixture of write-ins and some that required considerably more thought, particularly the slightly loose (Cinderella-inspired? Unless I’m missing something) definition for STEPSISTER.
Edited at 2021-10-01 10:44 am (UTC)
Andyf
isla said C = about (circa, latin) and the court & case are lowered and joined (rather than lifted and separated) to give TRIAL.
Andyf
So I deleted my comment partly for neatness, just repeating what you said. And also because if there’s two comments virtually the same it seems like patronising, not a good look – whereas in reality it’s just unfortunate timing.
Edited at 2021-10-01 12:19 pm (UTC)
Other bits were QC-ish. And some you could write out by following the instructions without even knowing what you were writing! Such as 25a apogee (note I don’t take it as =culmination,) and 26a Palatine.
Andyf
Edited at 2021-10-01 10:58 am (UTC)
To this day, it seems more like a compliment than anything else. As if you have to be black to sing well
Harrumph.
Edited at 2021-10-01 11:15 am (UTC)
I just wanted to express solidarity with your sentiments, as I did with Pootle above. Not sure the rose-red heart is the best way of conveying that. I mean, I hardly know you…
Ouch. Bunged in aegrotat after looking at it for 40 mins. Got lucky.
Thanks, v.
Very enjoyable so thanks to the setter and Verlaine for the usual excellent blog.
FOI in 22ac DODO
COD 4dn PEASHOOTER which I failed to unravel
WOD 8dn AEGROTAT which I similarly failed.
I lost interest and watched an episode of M*A*S*H* instead. Mood Meldrewvian
In all my years of philately I have never owned one. I have resolved to buy myself one for Christmas – perhaps a pair with a nice Maltese Cross?
I have appropriately blocked-off the entire week-end for ‘The Special One’. l will be taking no calls either, that is unless Mrs. Pelosi requires help.
As ever,
Meldrew
New to me was Minstrelsy. COD Demesne.
I found this tough throughout , on the other hand the solving process, although somewhat tortuous, was quite satisfying, so my compliments to the setter.
Was another to be held up at the end in the NE corner but much of the delay was due to my earlier mis-spelling of 5 d “demesne” which meant I was not going to get “stepsister”, even though I was sure “measures” had to be “steps”. I actually wasn’t terribly happy with “target of nepotism”, as I felt that had to imply other rivals that one was using promotion of relatives to thwart. “ Benficiary of nepotism” would have been fairer imho.
LOI 7 d “mantle” which I biffed.
Never mind, a good test to round off the week as far as I was concerned, with several excellent clues including 12 ac “wash”, 8 d “aegrotat” and 19 d “flicker”.
Thanks to V for the elucidations and to the setter.
27:11
On the bright side, the club site via Chrome still does all I need it to do to produce my next blog entry, although the old-style grid that we run the script on doesn’t appear when I remove the URL suffix now on Safari, which I always used for this before.