Thank you to the setter and maybe see some crossword people in the pub at Bank this Saturday? Details available if you don’t already have them.
Definitions underlined, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, {} deletions and [] other indicators.
Across
1 Bobby keeps preparing a way for Jack, say (7,4)
PLAYING CARD – P(olice) C(onstable) keeps LAYING [preparing] + A R(oa)D
7 Discharge a member of church (3)
ARC – A R(oman) C(atholic)
9 Idle line stops working (9)
POINTLESS – (LINE STOPS*). LOI
10 Current mariners preserving old piece of mast (5)
ACORN – A(lternating) C(urrent) + R(oyal) N(avy), “preserving” O(ld)
11 Discerning diner in assessing our methods (7)
GOURMET – {assessin}G OUR MET{hods}
12 Pity about cutting new individual transmitter (7)
NEURONE – reversed RUE, “cutting” N ONE
13 Democrat spotted backing housing requirements (5)
NEEDS – D(emocrat), housed by reversed SEEN [spotted]
15 Perhaps dish first artist taking risks (9)
AERIALIST – AERIAL [perhaps (satellite) dish] + 1ST
17 Woman’s returning to add belts and collar (9)
APPREHEND – reversed HER, “belted” by APPEND
19 Release old boy from bawdy part of act (5)
SCENE – {ob}SCENE. FOI
20 Pray here for a Conservative female abandoned (7)
ORATORY – {f}OR A TORY
22 What lovers may do in county hotel to some extent (7)
COHABIT – CO(unty) H(otel) A BIT
24 More hostile French company welcomed by Irish (5)
ICIER – C(ompagn)IE “welcomed by” IR
25 Clubs in the past inspiring present consistency (9)
COHERENCE – C ONCE “inspiring” HERE
27 Drive here and there regularly (3)
TEE – T{h}E{r}E
28 Later, old pro distributed crude earnings (11)
PETRODOLLAR – (LATER OLD PRO*)
Down
1 Just beat seed (3)
PIP – double def
2 A little over half of audience riotously cheers (5)
ADIEU – (AUDIE{nce}*)
3 Land bridge exists as shown, covering miles (7)
ISTHMUS – IS THUS, “covering” M
4 Big entry at Crufts perhaps wrecking tea garden (5,4)
GREAT DANE – (TEA GARDEN*)
5 Minister quietly denied crime (5)
ARSON – {p}ARSON
6 Count upsetting a large posh club maybe (7)
DRACULA – reverse all of A L(arge) U CARD
7 Acknowledge wrong record in a balance (9)
APOLOGISE – LOG in A POISE
8 Subject intended to dispel a sense of satisfaction (11)
CONTENTMENT – CONTENT ME{a}NT
11 Tree expert‘s data on each trunk is on time (11)
GENEALOGIST – GEN on EA LOG IS on T
14 English politician holds one small pill for stress (9)
EMPHASISE – E(nglish) M(ember of) P(arliament) HAS 1 S(mall) E
16 Receiver takes possession of shabby chic plant (9)
RADICCHIO – RADIO “possesses” (CHIC*)
18 European collected rent as personal booster (3,4)
EGO TRIP – E(uropean) GOT RIP
19 Broadcast avoids last of Soho’s lively bars (7)
SCHERZO – homophone of SKIRTS [avoids] + {soh}O
21 Berlin’s rowers potentially follow unknown craft (5)
YACHT – ACHT [(a rowing) eight, in German] follow Y
23 Embargo placed on almost entire stock (5)
BANAL – BAN placed on AL{l}
26 Every so often repair organ (3)
EAR – {r}E{p}A{i}R
My time was a measured 44 minutes.
FOI 1dn PIP
LOI 15ac AERIALIST
WOD 16dn RADICCHIO is this clue a semi&Lit as it is indeed red chic-ory? (Cichorium intybus)
Edited at 2021-10-22 01:53 am (UTC)
Edited at 2021-10-22 05:09 am (UTC)
I knew (from crosswords) that a word like that existed, and I knew it meant something (as words usually do) but I had no idea how it was pronounced and took a while to see skirts = avoids.
Would definitely be up for the pub at Bank if I could. Will have to settle for the Newport Arms instead.
Thanks setter and Verlaine.
Favourite was BANAL for being a bit too close to the bone.
Thanks to Verlaine and setter
At 1ac I saw P……CARD immediately but lost a little time toying with PICTURE CARD and when that wouldn’t parse I tried to think of alternative names for court cards before settling on the all-encompassing PLAYING CARD.
My lack of knowledge of French meant I had to take CIE on trust at 24ac but the answer to the clue was clear.
I never heard anyone say ‘skirt-so’, only ‘scare-tso’.
Edited at 2021-10-22 05:12 am (UTC)
Great minds.
So you have been Litolff lightly.
This was my late father’s favourite Scherzo pun.
I liked this, mostly: Banal and Contentment for the ‘intended to dispel a’.
30 mins precisely pre-brekker.
Thanks setter and V.
Thank you, Verlaine for PLAYING CARD and APPREHEND.
FOI: PIP
LOI: ADIEU
COD: APOLOGISE.
In researching this earlier I came across a site that claims there are 516 ways of pronouncing SCHERZO in Italian alone. I’d have been interested to learn more about this but the video on the link was all in Italian.
LOI aerialist. Just preceded by pip and playing card. Some very pleasing cluing today and no unknowns.
Thx setter and blogger for giving me a spring in my step for the weekend. Next stop Elizabeth and Mary exhibition at the British Library. Truly my cup runneth over.
‘Mast’ is becoming familiar, while I reckon I am a GENEALOGIST, although I struggled to spell it correctly.
Considering neologisms, does the ‘gasdollar’ or ‘gasrouble’ now exist?
13′ 13″, thanks to verlaine and setter.
The neologism I’m claiming rights to is ‘crosswordiste’, meaning someone who completes crosswords. I think cruciverbalist is somewhat pretentious.
No problem with SKIRTS-O as I pronounce it that way. Thanks to Myrtilus I’ll now have that damn Litolff endlessly repeating all day.
Welcome back to the UK, V
Edited at 2021-10-22 09:09 am (UTC)
‘Mast’ in the nut sense came up somewhere recently, possibly not here, which helped.
Good puzzle.
No problems with this except for the excruciating 19dn homophone. Fortunately I quite like excruciating homophones. And I saw scherzo in a xword only a few days ago, which helped.
I was tentative with ICIER as though I would recognise compagnie as the French, I didn’t know the shorthand.
SCHERZO went in from the H and R checkers with a more than 50% notion that it meant lively playing.
Most time was spent, as yesterday, sorting out the NE corner — ACORN (= MAST remembered from my crossword list) finally providing the key.
After yesterday it seemed easy, but it still took me 49 minutes, and that was with a little help from a list for ADIEU — I was thinking it would be some word I didn’t know that was equivalent to skol or bottoms up or some such.
LOI was AERIALIST. Slightly surprised to see the crossing of cards at 1a & 6d, probably more so because I solved them consecutively – albeit not in that order.
FOI ACORN
LOI AERIALIST
COD RADICCHIO
TIME 10:02
FOI Needs
LOI Aerialist
COD Isthmus
Edited at 2021-10-22 02:38 pm (UTC)
Thanks to Verlaine and the setter
This was sure easier than yesterday’s (which I did finish, just a day late). Had the bottom half of this one done before I was snatched into the darkness by Morpheus. Did the top quickly enough after oversleeping an hour.
At one point I was trying to think of an artist who took risks being an a-realist. It was only when first as ist came to mind that it fell into place (hopefully unlike the aerialist).
Thanks to the setter for the workout and to Verlaine for confirming the explanations.