Another somewhat quirky Wednesday puzzle, with some easy clues and some that were a bit harder to parse, even if biff-able. It kept me busy for between 15 and 20 minutes.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Peak adding singular note to hat (8) |
| CAPSTONE – So, apart from being the top stone on a wall, CAPSTONE I deduce must mean ‘peak’ in a more general sense. CAP (hat) S[ingular] TONE (note). | |
| 5 | Client is against a girl returning (6) |
| VASSAL – V (versus, against) A, LASS reversed. | |
| 10 | Baseball fielder and items he wears when running? (9) |
| SHORTSTOP – he wears SHORTS and a TOP. Seen this recently I think. More cricket, less baseball, please. | |
| 11 | Sharpness about tungsten guitar string’s sound (5) |
| TWANG – TANG (sharpness) with W (chemical symbol for tungsten) inserted. | |
| 12 | Almost convinced about old tart (4) |
| SOUR – SUR[E] has O for old inserted. | |
| 13 | Put up with song ultimately written like Bartók (9) |
| HUNGARIAN – HUNG (put up), ARIA (song) N (end of written). I like Bartók’s music, but you have to be in the mood, in a dark room, not driving down the A1 in traffic. | |
| 15 | Run-up to the weekend finishes in intimacy (10) |
| FRIENDSHIP – FRI (day before weekend) ENDS (finishes) HIP (in, trendy). | |
| 17 | Card box for footwear (4) |
| SHOE – double definition, the first referring to the ‘shoe’ used by a croupier for dealing cards. | |
| 19 | See you master lingo finally ready for Italy? (4) |
| EURO – last letters of seE yoU masteR lingO. | |
| 20 | Concertgoer taking in good artist, one who shapes concert (10) |
| PROGRAMMER – a PROMMER is an attendee at the summer BBC Prom concerts in the Albert Hall, insert G and RA. | |
| 22 | Anticyclone arrives in Scots region (9) |
| HIGHLANDS – HIGH (pressure area) LANDS (arrives). | |
| 24 | Something valuable chap extracted from beet (4) |
| GOLD – MAN is extracted from MANGOLD, another name for mangel-wurzel. | |
| 26 | Prudent to pursue universal employment (5) |
| USAGE – U followed by SAGE = prudent. | |
| 27 | Drug check protecting friendly community and its environment (9) |
| ECOSYSTEM – E (drug), STEM (check, halt a flow), insert COSY (friendly). | |
| 28 | Namely this, metamorphic? (6) |
| SCHIST – SC (scilicet, ‘namely’ in Latin) (THIS)* metamorphosed into HIST. An &lit. clue, I’m thinking, but never quite sure what one is. Schist is any flaky metamorphic rock. | |
| 29 | Claim during trial about English Republican (8) |
| INTEREST – IN TEST (during trial) has E R inserted; as in “I have a claim to / an interest in…” | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Point about unique selling point (4) |
| CUSP – C (about) USP. My FOI. | |
| 2 | Plot after papa gets fresh Covid variant sans name in lab exposure? (15) |
| PHOTOMICROGRAPH – P for papa, HOT (fresh), OMICRO[N] a covid variant losing its N, GRAPH = plot. Obviously, a photomicrograph is a photograph taken through a microscope. I don’t see why Covid is capitalised in the clue, I’d have thought it should be informally covid or more correctly COVID-19. | |
| 3 | Mathematician coming round to teaching (8) |
| TUTORING – TO inserted into Alan TURING. | |
| 4 | Church follows New Testament about Old Nick (5) |
| NOTCH – NT, insert O, add CH. | |
| 6 | Tsar shot certainly in error (6) |
| ASTRAY – (TSAR)*, AY = certainly. | |
| 7 | Iberia’s fare is covered by plane width, place of origin and hirer out mostly (7,8) |
| SPANISH OMELETTE – SPAN (plane width) HOME (place of origin) insert IS, add LETTE[R}. | |
| 8 | Fruit began going off in truck (10) |
| LOGANBERRY – (BEGAN)* inside LORRY. | |
| 9 | Front runners in shock photo finish paying out (8) |
| SPENDING -S P (first letters of Shock Photo) ENDING (finish). | |
| 14 | Our father’s around when work’s finished (5,5) |
| AFTER HOURS – (OUR FATHERS)*. | |
| 16 | Dog bound to be supported by queen (8) |
| SPRINGER – SPRING (bound) ER (queen). Short for springer spaniel. | |
| 18 | Carved figure from galley regularly about years after long-dead ship (8) |
| GARGOYLE – ARGO (old mythical ship) Y (years) go inside G L E (alternate letters of galley). | |
| 21 | What can grip bridge supports both sides of line (6) |
| PLIERS – PIERS goes either side of L for line. | |
| 23 | Broadcast now so faint (5) |
| SWOON – (NOW SO)*. | |
| 25 | Leave out Bard’s title role when mounted in reduced form? (4) |
| OMIT – TIMON (of Athens) is reversed and reduced by losing its N. | |
I was very slow in the NW corner. I left it until today to complete.
At least I can now say that catching the Omicron variant of COVID last year (or was it the year before?) came in useful for something!
Confidently entered CAPITANO after misremembering the name of the peak in Yosemite, and unfortunately left it there… also NHO SCHIST, and biffed GOLD and looked up HUNGARIAN. So, because the rest fell with a bit of enjoyable work, was happy that I had most of it. Omicron very ‘front of mind’ still for me, so no problem with 2d; FRIENDSHIP and LOGANBERRY were CODs.