I took an age to do and parse this beauty; perhaps it was me having a dim day, so I’ll be interested to see the SNITCH. My only MER was accepting recess for free time.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, DD = double definition, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Jar filled with a colourful liquid (5) |
| PAINT – PINT (of beer) with A inserted. | |
| 4 | Out, local female in hat (9) |
| PUBLISHED – PUB = local, SHE (female) inside LID (hat). | |
| 9 | Fold last of pages in dictionary inside comic (5,4) |
| CLOSE DOWN – comic = CLOWN, insert OED, insert [page]S into that. | |
| 10 | Monster secure, it’s reported (5) |
| TITAN – sounds like TIGHTEN, secure as a verb. | |
| 11 | That man behind alto, when sozzled, can’t stand (6) |
| LOATHE – (ALTO)*, HE = that man. | |
| 12 | Recess measures one metre exactly at the opening, caver finally going in (4,4) |
| FREE TIME – FEET (measures), I (one), M E (first letters of metre exactly), insert [cave]R. | |
| 14 | 25 across, or what — does that suggest? (5,1,6) |
| THROW A WOBBLY – throw A is an anagram (wobbly) of OR WHAT; and throw a wobbly is a synonym for go bananas as in 25a. | |
| 17 | Humiliate further and give it some welly? (3,3,4,2) |
| PUT THE BOOT IN – cryptic DD. | |
| 20 | Fast runners, crooks did you say? (8) |
| CHEETAHS – sounds like cheaters = crooks. Chestnut time. | |
| 21 | Weather in Chartres is terrible (6) |
| RESIST – hidden word, which took me far too long to see, as did this meaning of “weather”, as in weather an onslaught. | |
| 23 | Stand firmly against, do (5) |
| BEANO – if you want to stand firmly opposed to something, you can BE A NO, and beano is a beanfeast, a party. | |
| 24 | Unknown chest found in Rhodes, unexpectedly (4,5) |
| DARK HORSE – (RHODES)* with ARK (chest) inserted. | |
| 25 | Blow a gasket while parked alongside West Indian housing block (2,7) |
| GO BANANAS – the answer came easily from (2,7) and the checkers, but the parsing was cheeky; we have a GOAN (from the western part of India, not the West Indies!) with BAN (block) inserted, adding AS = while. | |
| 26 | Equestrian qualification (5) |
| RIDER – DD. Another chestnut which took me too long to remember. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Steal old currency tucked inside thin coat (8) |
| PECULATE – ECU being a precursor of Euros, insert into PLATE as in silver plate perhaps. I’ve never seen or heard “peculate” used apart from in crosswords. | |
| 2 | I hear about two notes in worship (8) |
| IDOLATRY – I, TRY (hear, in court), insert DO, LA (two notes). | |
| 3 | Queen hit, Don’t Stop Me Now (3,4,4,2,2) |
| THE SHOW MUST GO ON – DD. The Queen song by Brian May was recorded in 1990 and released in 1991 a few weeks before Freddie died. I’m a Queen fan, as you might guess. | |
| 4 | Lap up in game (4) |
| POOL – LOOP (lap, a circular run perhaps), reversed (up). | |
| 5 | Villain’s broken rank to stop one going up and down (4,6) |
| BANK ROBBER – a BOBBER goes up and down, insert (RANK)*. Again, the (4,6) helped see the answer. | |
| 6 | That legion slaughtered, number totally exposed (2,3,10) |
| IN THE ALTOGETHER – (THAT LEGION)* + ETHER (number, anaesthetic). | |
| 7 | Wind or gas in thermal? (3,3) |
| HOT AIR – I think this is a DD, meaning “spoken nonsense” and a thermal air current; but there may be other ways to explain it. | |
| 8 | One refusing a measure of hose (6) |
| DENIER – another DD, two pronunciations. | |
| 13 | Alert operative (8,2) |
| SWITCHED ON – another DD. | |
| 15 | Customs finally put foot down when character smuggled in object on domestic flight? (5,3) |
| STAIR ROD – this one foxed me for the longest. S (end of customs), TROD (put foot down), with AIR (character) inside. Seeing AIR for character and the kind of flight we were thinking about was tricky. | |
| 16 | King Charlie not prepared to carry key climbing gear (8) |
| KNITWEAR – K for king, NIT for charlie, RAW (not prepared) reversed, with A (a key) inserted. I was delayed by thinking it was beginning with CR and failing to lift and separate “climbing” and “gear”. | |
| 18 | Diamonds get cooler (3,3) |
| ICE BAG – ICE for diamonds, BAG for get. | |
| 19 | Area for planting a bulb regularly lacking soil (6) |
| BEDAUB – BED (garden area), A, [b]U[l]B. | |
| 22 | Olympian shows courage having lost lead (4) |
| ARES – DARES loses its D. Greek god of war, one of the twelve Olympians. | |
We’ve had a lot of Queen, but what about the King? Here’s Danny Kaye:
“The King is in the altogether
But altogether the altogether
He′s altogether as naked as the day that he was born
The King is in the altogether
But all together the altogether
It’s altogether the very least the King has ever worn.”
20’16” and no silly mistakes thank God! Many thanks.
That came to my mind too 🙂
I can assure you that no true Queen fan (I.e. those of us who gave up after “Hot Space”) had any idea that they had ever released a song called “The show must go on”. Generational.
Having failed to get Beano, I think it is COTD.
I found this fairly easy taking 22:15, only really slowed down by KNITWEAR (which took me an age to work out, even with K pencilled in at the start) and ARES (For ages I could only think of EROS, whom I knew wasn’t olympian, quite apart from not fitting the dares thing) at the end.
Thanks setter and blogger
DNF. Happily pressed submit at just under 40 minutes, only to find that EROS was wrong. I had forgotten about ARES, so biffed EROS as the only Greek God that I could remember who fitted.
Thanks Pip and setter