I don’t have an exact time for this one, because I went off-piste to Wikipedia mid solve to look up the origins of 4a, but it must be close to a personal fastest; this seemed more like a Monday quickie than a Wednesday workout. But it’s a perfectly good puzzle and I enjoyed it while it lasted.
EDIT apparently this was one of the Championship first round puzzles; it seemed very easy, to me, compared to the other two.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Scrounge a large one (6) |
| BUMPER – BUM (scrounge), PER (a, e.g. a head, per head). | |
| 4 | Controlling figure succeeded; very English — The Greatest! (8) |
| SVENGALI – S [ucceeded], V[ery], ENG[lish], ALI as in Muhammad Ali. I knew the general meaning of Svengali, but had to look it up in Wiki to learn about the original novel from which it comes. Doesn’t sound like my kind of book. | |
| 9 | Large sighs heard following umpire’s decision (7) |
| OUTSIZE – OUT as the umpire raises his finger; SIZE sounds like SIGHS. | |
| 11 | One leaving Italian region, say, reflected resentment (7) |
| UMBRAGE – UMBRIA loses its I, then E.G. reversed. | |
| 12 | Return to manage hotel for a period (5) |
| EPOCH – COPE (manage) reversed, H[otel]. | |
| 13 | A vote introduced by British PM for disused weapon (6-3) |
| BATTLE-AXE – B[ritish], ATTLEE with A X inserted. | |
| 14 | A style of dress worn by geek back to front, hence the rush? (10) |
| ADRENALINE – A, NERD reversed, A-LINE a style of dress. | |
| 16 | Stop big name in NYC sport making a comeback (4) |
| STEM – the METS are a New York City team in one of those American sports, I think it’s probably baseball. Here they are reversed. | |
| 19 | My waterproof shoe? A pound wasted (4) |
| GOSH – GALOSH loses A L. | |
| 20 | With which to direct cast delivering line? (7,3) |
| FISHING ROD – vaguely cryptic definition, sort of misdirecting you to think about Thespian things. | |
| 22 | US newspaper owner, drug dealer, carrying about 454 grams? (9) |
| PUBLISHER – a drug dealer is a PUSHER, insert 1LB reversed meaning about a pound, or about 454 grams. | |
| 23 | Global outbreak has Democrat fleeing in terror (5) |
| PANIC – PANDEMIC loses DEM. | |
| 25 | Elevate university commendation (7) |
| UPRAISE – U (university), PRAISE = commendation. | |
| 26 | Troop formation has no shelter retreating, Switzerland admitted (7) |
| ECHELON – all reversed, NO LEE with CH then inserted. | |
| 27 | City of Olympus almost ruined prominent couple from Thebes (8) |
| PLYMOUTH – (OLYMPU)*, TH[ebes]. | |
| 28 | Uptight, nursing temperature, oxygen off the scale (6) |
| ATONAL – uptight = ANAL, insert T, O, for temperature, oxygen. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Postwar child peeled tropical fruit that’s seen in Australia (9) |
| BOOMERANG – a postwar child like me is a baby BOOMER, then [M]ANG[O]. | |
| 2 | Police on radio evacuated transit network (5) |
| METRO – MET (Greater London police force) R[adi]O. | |
| 3 | Sudden insight: northbound Tube convenient when dropping daughter (8) |
| EPIPHANY – PIPE reversed, then HAN[d]Y. | |
| 5 | Roughly 4 hour wait finally for buck (8,5) |
| VAULTING HORSE – (SVENGALI HOUR T)* where the T is “waiT finally”. Easy to write in the answer, but took me a minute or two to unravel the anagram fodder using the answer to 4a. | |
| 6 | Visiting Namibia on vacation, ordered blue Crab for one (6) |
| NEBULA – (BLUE)* inside N[amibi]A. | |
| 7 | Art Basel reeling after mag exposed material used in column (9) |
| ALABASTER – [m]A[g], (ART BASEL)*. | |
| 8 | Peace-loving inspiration finds herself in dire need (5) |
| IRENE – hidden lady as above, IRENE or EIRENE the Greek goddess of peace. | |
| 10 | Hemlines and belt tailored to capture masculine finishing touch (13) |
| EMBELLISHMENT – (HEMLINES BELT)* with M inserted. | |
| 15 | File blunder in Times article on Bush? (9) |
| RASPBERRY – RASP a bit like a file, BY = times, insert ERR for blunder. | |
| 17 | Curative network set up to support wealthy Florentines (9) |
| MEDICINAL – MEDICI the wealthy Florentines, LAN (local area network) reversed. | |
| 18 | Photo of biscuits fresh from the oven? (8) |
| SNAPSHOT – SNAPS (biscuits) HOT from the oven. | |
| 21 | Drive empty Bugatti into swimming pool (6) |
| LIBIDO – B[ugatt]I inside LIDO. | |
| 22 | Roly-poly pudding for starters topped with fruit (5) |
| PLUMP – PLUM a fruit, P[udding]. | |
| 24 | Breaking news: yellow regularly ignored in material (5) |
| NYLON – Y [e] L [l] O [w] inside N N = news. | |
Ha ha just scrolling down here I see that I’m not alone in imagining a Roseberry to be a kind of office filing system!!! So DNF in what would otherwise have been a good time (for me) of 14:34
Thanks setter and blogger
Do raspberries grow on bushes? I thought they grew on canes.
Best ever for me! Some of them entered correctly, but for the wrong reasons. – but I’ve learned to follow my initial reaction these days… For example SVENGALI entered because a) it had to end in ALI, and b) because I thought I remembered there was a ‘Ven diagram’ (figure) in mathematics, which is definitely not my strong suit. Oddly enough, although I have lived in Australia for nearly 60 years now, my last in was BOOMERANG, where I was looking for an exotic fruit for too long. Especially liked GOSH and PUBLISHER. Ditto Dear oh dear.