An easy one today – even by Monday standards. It took me 14:37, so the speed merchants will be breaking the 4-minute barrier.
Apparently, we have sizing issues, even though I didn’t knowingly make any changes. If someone knows how to solve same, a word would be appreciated.
| Across | |
| 1 | Dance tango in New Orleans after church (10) |
| CHARLESTON – CH followed by T (tango) in an anagram* of ORLEANS | |
| 6 | Swish hotel taken over by top military bod (4) |
| CHIC – H (hotel) in CIC (commander-in-chief) | |
| 10 | Both sides in Salisbury getting agreement for clerical gathering (5) |
| SYNOD -S[alisbur]Y NOD (agreement) | |
| 11 | Play part killing Romeo in a dazed state (9) |
| TOLERANCE – [r]OLE (part without its R) in TRANCE (a dazed state) | |
| 12 | Ordering Lancelot a Kiwi-English or Australian novel (1,4,4,5) |
| A TOWN LIKE ALICE – LANCELOT A KIWI E*; one of Nevil Shute Norway’s two best known novels, the other being On the Beach. A talented chap, he was also a pilot and an aeronautical engineer. | |
| 14 | Spouse Catherine who survived grappling with Stanley occasionally (7) |
| PARTNER – [s]T[a]N[l]E[y] in [Catherine] PARR (the last and happiest of Henry VIII’s wives) | |
| 15 | Most tasteless supporter backed celebratory gathering (7) |
| NAFFEST – FAN reversed FEST | |
| 17 | Roughly stuffing tree in crater (7) |
| CALDERA – ALDER in CA (circa or about or roughly) | |
| 19 | Scorn and loudly traduce a Scandinavian (7) |
| DISDAIN – sounds like diss Dane | |
| 20 | George being one involved in gun conspiracy (9,5) |
| AUTOMATIC PILOT – I (one) in AUTOMATIC (gun) PLOT (conspiracy); RAF pilots referred to their airplanes as ‘George’ after King George VI who technically ‘owned’ the airplane. Forget all that boring stuff, though. Otto from Airplane! is the man! https://youtu.be/WMhYl74vw2c | |
| 23 | Meddling when abandoning short term, in conclusion (9) |
| INFERENCE – INTEFERENCE without a shortened TERM, i.e. TER | |
| 24 | Party head last seen in Truro (5) |
| BEANO -BEAN (head) [trur]O | |
| 25 | Starts to throw out some household rubbish (4) |
| TOSH – initial letters of the third to sixth words in the clue | |
| 26 | Er, Delilah’s gone mad — kicked up a terrible stink (6,4) |
| RAISED HELL – ER DELILAH* | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Economic collapse wiping out Republican money (4) |
| CASH – CRASH minus its R | |
| 2 | Hardy companion, eschewing starter, eats fresh tuna plainly cooked (2,7) |
| AU NATUREL – TUNA* in [l]AUREL (Stan Laurel was Oliver Hardy’s partner in umpteen films) | |
| 3 | Character synonymous with a fan of drama (4,10) |
| LADY WINDERMERE – cryptic definition; Lady Windermere’s Fan is a play by Oscar Wilde | |
| 4 | Yours truly absorbing large, decisive blow (7) |
| SETTLER – L (large) in SETTER (our humble compiler). According to Webster’s 1913 dictionary, a SETTLER is something which settles or finishes, e.g. a blow deciding a contest. 110 years on, it is highly endangered, surviving only in crosswords. | |
| 5 | Waterproof paint layer (7) |
| OILSKIN – OIL (paint) SKIN (layer) | |
| 7 | Capital head regularly censored best-selling single (5) |
| HANOI – H[e]A[d] (regularly deleted, AKA censored) NO. 1 (top of the pops) | |
| 8 | Fruit left in bond at home by European (10) |
| CLEMENTINE – L in CEMENT (bond) IN (at home) E (European) | |
| 9 | Might one scoff at this during pillow talk? (9,2,3) |
| BREAKFAST IN BED – cryptic definition | |
| 13 | Expert son training American spies on record (10) |
| SPECIALIST – S PE CIA LIST; just put it all together | |
| 16 | Had meal following end of office work in the US? Fancy! (9) |
| ELABORATE – [offic]E LABOR (US spelling of labour) ATE | |
| 18 | With which to pick up a northern male voice on the radio? (7) |
| ANTENNA – A N TENNA (sounds like tenor) | |
| 19 | Writer‘s hell nursing broken neck (7) |
| DICKENS – NECK* in DIS (Dis Pater, AKA Hades and Pluto, was, according to Wikipedia, associated with death and the underworld because mineral wealth such as gems and precious metals, with which Dis Pater was associated, came from underground, wherein lies the realm of the dead, i.e. Hades’ / Pluto’s domain). | |
| 21 | Nobs, very loud, turned up drunk outside (5) |
| TOFFS – FF in reversed SOT | |
| 22 | York Stadium? (4); |
| BOWL – double definition, depending on a knowledge that if you york a batsman, you bowl a full ball that he is unable to wedge his willow down upon in time; the Ageas Bowl, Hampshire’s County Cricket Club’s ground, is an example of bowl used as stadium. | |
I read and enjoyed “What Happened to the Corbetts” written by Shute just before the outbreak of WW2 imagining the impact of bombing of a city (he chose Southampton which was indeed bombed heavily). Embarrassingly I could only guess Lady Windermere but the rest all went in smoothly. Thanks for the blog.
I had the same thought as Galspray over Bowl, but when Beano confirmed the “O” I figured we were inside a boundary. I was helped by knowing the book, the autopilot’s name, and the Queen.
14.55 but
… I was AU NATURAL. Careless.
Thanks all
This was easy if you know cricket terminology, impossible if you don’t (although after an hour, I did correctly enter BOWL for 22 dn as a fortunately lucky guess). The rest was indeed very easy despite lots of obscure references to George and Alice and their friends. If surface readings like “Fruit left in bond at home by European” (what is that supposed to mean?) are the best the setter can come up with, that’s rather weak. Not my favourite puzzle.
22 minutes, I thought I was heading for a pb for a while but then slowed down. Oh well at least a lot faster than yesterday!!