A fun puzzle with a couple of quirky definitions, which I solved from the bottom up. No hidden word clue, and an anagram inside an anagram, which I haven’t seen for a while.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, DD = double definition, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Enchant? Church might (5) |
| CHARM – CH[urch], ARM = might, as in “strong arm” perhaps? | |
| 4 | Poor works in dodgy sci-fi causing one to crash (9) |
| SOPORIFIC – (POOR)* inside (SCI-FI)*. An anagram inside an anagram! | |
| 9 | Cover, scarlet, that is turned over blue (9) |
| EIDERDOWN – RED, i.e. reversed > EIDER, DOWN = blue. | |
| 10 | Lament opening of electricity network being put back (5) |
| DIRGE – E[lectricity], GRID, all reversed. | |
| 11 | Tongue, European tongue, coming about with formality (4,3,6) |
| SPIT AND POLISH – SPIT (as in a tongue of land sticking out, I think); POLISH, what they speak fluently in Poland, and Peterborough. | |
| 14 | Fool expected to seize power (4) |
| DUPE – DUE with P[ower] inserted. | |
| 15 | Those opposing going round hobbling birds (10) |
| FLAMINGOES – FOES are those opposing, insert LAMING a verb formed from lame, which I didn’t know could be a verb but Collins says it can. I would have spelt it flamingos but dictionaries say both are equally fine. | |
| 18 | Gorgeously-coloured insects surrounding a doctor heading for Oaxaca (10) |
| FLAMBOYANT – FLY, ANT around MB, O[axaca]. | |
| 19 | I have to follow source of Government grant (4) |
| GIVE – G[overnment], I’VE (I have). | |
| 21 | What indicates senior officer took off immediately with bombs? (9,4) |
| SCRAMBLED EGGS – SCRAMBLED = took off, as in a RAF alert; EGGS apparently WW1 slang for bombs. Referring to the copious gold or yellow braid on epaulettes of very senior officers, or probably most officers in those banana republic armies. | |
| 24 | Emergency committee’s support led by army chief (5) |
| COBRA – CO (commanding officer) BRA our usual support device. | |
| 25 | Entertainment venue near Bath opened by 10cc (9) |
| NIGHTCLUB – NIGH (near), TUB (bath), insert CL abbr. for centilitre or 10 millilitres / ccs. | |
| 27 | Dockworker set aside nets day by day (9) |
| STEVEDORE – STORE (set aside) has EVE, D inserted; both EVE and D meaning day. | |
| 28 | Respond, taking answer from second view (5) |
| REPLY – REPLAY loses A[nswer]. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Disgusted by repeated fine after Lancashire possibly cheat (7,3) |
| CHEESED OFF – Lancashire CHEESE, DO = cheat, FF repeated fine. | |
| 2 | Affirmed removing leader’s support (3) |
| AID – [s]AID | |
| 3 | Intend to capture marine creature not truly of the sea (6) |
| MERMAN – MEAN with RM (Royal Marine) inserted. This clue gave me some trouble as I was fixated on some word meaning “of the sea” or “not of the sea” and I was slow to lift and separate marine from creature. Elegant cluing. | |
| 4 | Guarantee bit of pork trimmed by butcher showing skill with blade (9) |
| SWORDPLAY – WORD (guarantee, as in “give you my word”, P[ork], inside SLAY = butcher. | |
| 5 | Theatrical work, elevated work about soldier (5) |
| PANTO – OP reversed with ANT inserted. | |
| 6 | Danger: IT could become a significant part of our universe (3,5) |
| RED GIANT – (DANGER IT)*. I would argue hardly a significant part, one large dying star among 200 billion trillion, but our setter is not bothered by facts. | |
| 7 | Imminent and taking shape, involving most of the firm (11) |
| FORTHCOMING – FORMING = taking shape, insert TH[e], CO. | |
| 8 | Pitch marker clubs abandoned abruptly (4) |
| CLEF – C (clubs in bridge), LEF[t]. Abruptly meaning chop off the end, in this case. | |
| 12 | Mischief over US city blues I played? Unlikely (11) |
| IMPLAUSIBLE – IMP (mischief), LA (US city), (BLUES I)*. | |
| 13 | Allegedly and conceivably dropping No 1, retaining rest of soccer team? (10) |
| OSTENSIBLY – POSSIBLY loses its first, P, and has TEN inserted, ten being the remaining team after one of the eleven is dropped. | |
| 16 | Lecture, perhaps, has Mike working with introduction, extracting press release (9) |
| MONOLOGUE -M[ike], ON (working), [pr]OLOGUE. | |
| 17 | A drinking challenge knocking out one European in Welsh town (8) |
| ABERDARE – A, BE[e]R, DARE = challenge. A place in Wales I may have visited but if so it didn’t make an impression. Well, it’s in Wales. | |
| 20 | Tried out adopting old computer program (6) |
| EDITOR – (TRIED O)*. | |
| 22 | Staff sell fruit (5) |
| MANGO – MAN = staff, GO = sell. I thought hard to find a sell = go synonym, but I have one; “did it sell? = did it go?” at an auction, for example. | |
| 23 | Pressure off agreements in items of legislation (4) |
| ACTS – [p]ACTS. | |
| 26 | Disrespect I found in recording (3) |
| LIP – I in LP. | |
RED GIANT: I suggest the point is that our own sun may become a red giant, in which case it would indeed be a significant part of our universe.
Having had a quick time for the QC I approached this with a little more optimism than usual perhaps. I wasn’t disappointed with a quickish time (for me) of 23.46. Again like the QC it was my LOI that held me up by approaching a minute before I managed to work out OSTENSIBLY. Having thought of the word first as fitting the crossers, I didn’t stop the clock before I had worked out the parsing. Once bitten, twice shy! Aberdare is about 20 miles away from where I live, so no problem there.
A pleasant crossword, all done in 28 minutes. No issues. I agree with Simon S and alto_ego above on the parsing of 11ac.
FOI – CHARM
LOI – FLAMINGOES
COD – CHEESED OFF
Thanks to piquet and other contributors.
Not too hard. No problem with SCRAMBLED EGGS for me since my Dad was a Captain in the Royal Navy who had the braid on his uniform cap (which he rarely wore since he worked in R&D where uniform was only required for the occasional ceremonial event). Like others, a MER at GO for “sell” but it didn’t hold me up. I think I understood everything else, which doesn’t always happen, so I wasn’t coming here to find an explanation for anything. I wasn’t entirely sure about ABERDARE (the DARE bit anyway, ABER was obvious); having just looked on a map I am sure I’ve never been there since I’ve only been in the North of Wales, Rhyl where I had an aunt, Snowdonia where there are mountains and ridges, and Dolgellau which used to have a great French restaurant.
My editor story. The first interactive computer I used was the Atlas outside Cambridge. Later I studied computer science and looked at some of the source code. Amazingly, the object code of the entire editor fitted into a single page (I think 512 words or some largish number of bits). I remember that errors were handled by jumping to negative addresses and then handling the exception to index an error message from a file.
47mins with ABERgAmE needing correction. Have heard of the -DARE place but couldn’t convince myself to alphatrawl for alternatives. Not particularly convinced by EDITOR and NHO SCRAMBLED-EGGS in this sense.
Thanks to setter and Piquet for explaining the unparsed SPIT-AND-POLISH, NIGHTCLUB and STEVEDORE (which I must have tried three different spellings for until MONOLOGUE set me straight).
33.54 Fairly average for me. SCRAMBLED EGGS confused me and I was vague on the parsing of OSTENSIBLY and NIGHTCLUB. Finished with the NHO ABERDARE. Thanks piquet.
COD NIGHTCLUB if only because I saw 10cc a couple of years ago play at the Hippodrome in Bristol (“Entertainment venue near Bath”). Graham Gouldman is the only member of the original group still involved.
FOI GIVE
LOI ABERDARE
All good fun.
Solved RED GIANT – felt FLAMBOYANT
Then solved FLAMINGOES – and immediately felt CHEESED-OFF
My mood monitor was doing a passable impression of the US Stock Exchange….
CL for 10cc was excellent. Who knew that 10cc are the only group apart from the Beatles to have had three number ones with three different lead singers? Don’t ask me the names of the singers but the songs (I think) were: Rubber Bullets; I’m Not In Love; and Dreadlock Holiday. As for the Beatles, the third singer was not George but Ringo. Did this in 24’57”, wasting far too many minutes on ABERDARE. Many thanks to all.