Only one unknown word for me, my LOI in this mild level puzzle today, yet another Australian creature with a weird onomatopoeic name apparently derived from Yagara, a native language. The rest flew in within 15 minutes, I’d heard of the giant rhubarb plant and the lapwing and I’d looked up the origin of 24a before.
| Across | |
| 1 | Came across old shot of just the top of a face (7) |
| METOPIC – MET (came across) O (old) PIC (shot). Relating to the forehead. | |
| 5 | Funny reason one can’t get into the theatre for audition? (7) |
| PLAYFUL – sounds like the play is full so you can’t get in. | |
| 9 | Racer frantic in sailing dinghy for bird repellent (9) |
| SCARECROW – (RACER)* inside SCOW a sailing dinghy. | |
| 10 | Cleaner beginning to move ornament (5) |
| CHARM – CHAR (cleaner) M(ove). | |
| 11 | More than enough length in inside of camper (5) |
| AMPLE – L inside the central letters of c AMPE r. | |
| 12 | Rank hat as being something that may be made out of this? (9) |
| ASTRAKHAN – (RANK HAT AS)*. A curly sheepskin fur, originally from the Astrakhan area of Southern Russia, used for hat and collars. | |
| 13 | Get corn nicely developed in process vital for growth (8,5) |
| NITROGEN CYCLE – (GET CORN NICELY)*. | |
| 17 | Bussing company nearly employing one from another branch that’s close (7,6) |
| KISSING COUSIN – Bussing in olden times meant to kiss with a smack of the lips. Then CO and USIN(G) = company nearly employing. | |
| 21 | Burning lust in partially vacated part of eastern Europe (9) |
| PYROMANIA – PY = partially, vacated; ROMANIA in E Europe. | |
| 24 | Mother’s put in limitless cumin for flavour (5) |
| UMAMI – MA inside (c)UMI(n) = limitless cumin. One of five distinct tastes, along with salt, sweet, sour and bitter; orinigally from the Japanese word. | |
| 25 | American article on where Queen Victoria died (5) |
| IOWAN – A chap from Iowa. Victoria died in the Isle of Wight, at her favourite Osborne House. | |
| 26 | Remove liquid from one local dairy farm’s Jersey, perhaps (9) |
| BAILIWICK – BAIL (remove liquid from) I (one) WICK (old English for a village or dairy farm, as in Gatwick, or Keswick which meant ‘cheese farm’.) Guernsey and Jersey are both Bailiwicks administratively. | |
| 27 | Practice of firing in large plant losing a year (7) |
| GUNNERY -GUNNERA (a kind of giant rhubarb) loses A and then add Y for year. | |
| 28 | Plan musical performance with piano for queen (7) |
| CONCEPT – CONCERT has the R (queen) replaced by P for piano. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Fail to include a line in service book (6) |
| MISSAL – MISS (failure) A L(ine) | |
| 2 | Adornments for horse carriage has swine pinching some number (9) |
| TRAPPINGS – TRAP (carriage) PIGS (swine) insert N for number. | |
| 3 | Excuse pressure concerning words used for speech (7) |
| PRETEXT – P (pressure) RE (concerning) TEXT (word used for speech). | |
| 4 | Australian bird dog walked off with in piece of cloth (9) |
| CURRAWONG – CUR (dog) RAG (piece of cloth) with WON (walked off with) inserted. Once I had C*R*A*O*G I suspected some weird Australian creature was going to be the answer and the wordplay offered up this one, of which I had not heard but it seemed likely. I had to check to be sure, it’s a handsome black or grey bird that eats fruit. | |
| 5 | Flyer exercises intelligence (5) |
| PEWIT – PE (exercises) WIT (intelligence). Alternative spelling of PEEWIT a kind of lapwing. | |
| 6 | Old needing to bend when accepting seat mostly (7) |
| ARCHAIC – ARC (bend) has CHAI(R) inserted. | |
| 7 | Female with whip showing off (5) |
| FLASH – F for female, LASH = whip. As in Flash Harry perhaps. | |
| 8 | Complained about me interrupting dental working (8) |
| LAMENTED – ME inside (DENTAL)*. | |
| 14 | Arab in English golf and athletic club is conceited individual (9) |
| EGOMANIAC – E (English) G (golf) OMANI (an Arab) AC (athletic club). | |
| 15 | Like melodious chorus of Cambridge that is welcoming learner (9) |
| CANTABILE -CANTAB (Latin short for Cantabriensis, from Cambridge) I E (that is) insert L for learner. A songlike piece of music. | |
| 16 | Leaping to pass over computer query? (8) |
| SKIPPING – double definition. No, I’m amending this in light of erudite comments below. The definition is leaping, SKIP = pass over and a PING is a kind of query as explained below. | |
| 18 | Big and obvious statement of identity with Poles — European (7) |
| IMMENSE – I’M ME an obvious statement, N S poles, E European. | |
| 19 | Statuary: it ain’t oddly, depicting reptile (7) |
| SAURIAN – alternatel ellers of S t A t U a R y I t A i N’ t. Like a lizard. | |
| 20 | Soldiers watching decide on film (6) |
| PICKET – PICK (decide on) ET (that film again). | |
| 22 | Argue over a name for member of the rose family (5) |
| ROWAN – ROW = argue, AN. | |
| 23 | Boleyn, Henry’s second to go, treated not in this way! (5) |
| NOBLY – &Lit. Remove E (Henry’s second letter) from Boleyn, then treated = (BOLYN)*. | |
First go at solving a Times puzzle on-line – took 1 hr 7 min. Enjoyed completing a puzzle in a different way, starting very early in the morning and finishing it that evening. Like others have said, many less obvious words scattered throughout but all reasonably clued to make them gettable.
Started off with CHARM and ended up with the tricky CANTABILE.