I made a bit of a Horlicks of this, my excuse being that I was solving with my fat fingers on my tiny iPhone. If anyone can think of any more plausible excuses, I’d be grateful to hear them.
19:29
| Across | |
| 1 | Deceive graduate (male) left to divide drink (9) |
| BAMBOOZLE – BA M L in BOOZE | |
| 6 | Search leader of Oxford jazz group (5) |
| COMBO -COMB O~ | |
| 9 | Essential article finally adorning wild horse (7) |
| MUSTANG – MUST AN ~G | |
| 10 | Bone takeaways originally included in Spanish dish (7) |
| PATELLA – T~ in PAELLA | |
| 11 | The old answer? Yes, long ago! (3) |
| YEA – YE (as in pseudo Middle-English ‘Ye Olde Worlde Cafe’) A | |
| 12 | Endless translation of Latin verse by head of Greek (11) |
| EVERLASTING – anagram* of LATIN VERSE + G~ | |
| 14 | Find fault with a course for listeners (6) |
| ATTACK – A + sounds like TACK (course for a yacht) | |
| 15 | Partner of this man destroyed temple (8) |
| HELPMEET – HE TEMPLE*; I had ‘helpmate’ initially, like almost everyone, I guess | |
| 17 | Figure from Rhode Island in complicated situation (8) |
| TRIANGLE – RI in TANGLE | |
| 19 | French native in British college (6) |
| BRETON – BR ETON | |
| 22 | Character that’s equal to the piano tuner? (11) |
| TEMPERAMENT – Pianos are usually tuned to a modified version of the system called equal temperament. Think Bach’s collection of preludes and fugues ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier.’ | |
| 23 | Cut duties, withdrawing the first and last (3) |
| AXE – |
|
| 25 | Set aside a sparkler ultimately like a ring (7) |
| ANNULAR – ANNUL A ~R | |
| 27 | Blooming American interrupting Highland dance! (7) |
| FLAMING – AM in FLING; both words are intensifiers, which had their heyday in the 60s and 70s. Too blooming right! | |
| 28 | Part of novel Egyptians lament (5) |
| ELEGY -hidden | |
| 29 | Persian prophet from wizard place brought back chicken for cooking (9) |
| ZOROASTER – OZ reversed ROASTER | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Uneven politician blocking purchase (5) |
| BUMPY – MP in BUY | |
| 2 | Accountants in thin fog given unsuitable roles (7) |
| MISCAST – CAS in MIST | |
| 3 | State of being shot: awful lapse once involving church (11) |
| OPALESCENCE – CE in LAPSE ONCE*; shot here means streaked with colour | |
| 4 | Chime cut short in unknown bishop’s capital (6) |
| ZAGREB – AGRE |
|
| 5 | English story plugging box, an ornamental shrub (7) (8) |
| ESPALIER – E LIE in SPAR | |
| 6 | Reduced share of profit (3) |
| CUT – double definition | |
| 7 | Beginning of aggression is feeding man’s anguish (7) |
| MALAISE – A~ IS in MALE | |
| 8 | Primate of old contacted sick aunt (5-4) |
| ORANG-UTAN – O RANG AUNT* | |
| 13 | Marvellous rise of a pastry dish’s overlying layers (11) |
| SUPERSTRATA – SUPER + A TART’S reversed | |
| 14 | High-level current worker? One introducing business (9) |
| ANTITRADE – ANT I TRADE; if there are trade [winds], there must be ANTITRADES | |
| 16 | Present-day tennis star securing entrance to this old US prison (8) |
| ALCATRAZ – T~ in ALCARAZ, the heir to Nadal, who just won the French Open | |
| 18 | The writer’s workforce, at first so exceptionally huge (7) |
| IMMENSE – I’M MEN S~ E~ | |
| 20 | Asian garments taken in by abstemious imperial supporter (7) |
| TSARIST – SARIS in TT | |
| 21 | One who succeeds, keeping extremely fine young beast (6) |
| HEIFER -F |
|
| 24 | Keen always for poets to collect silver (5) |
| EAGER – AG in E’ER | |
| 26 | Nonprofessional drama lacking introduction (3) |
| LAY – |
|
V. interesting about HELPMEET – and Mondegreen! Rattled this off in 10’28”. Would have been under ten but for faltering over ANTITRADE at the end, not being able to see the connection with high-level currents.
20.52 Pretty quick for me but a lot of it was spent on TSARIST (for no reason), the unknowns ESPALIER and ANTITRADE, and LOI TEMPERAMENTAL. My paella for dinner was simmering while I solved this, which helped. Thanks ulaca.
32 minutes, held up by ANTITRADE. No problems with any of the other clues. (I knew about “help meet”!)
16:30
LOI was the NHO ANTITRADES, constructed from the wordplay, followed by wondering if it was a real word.
Luckily I remembered Bach and his clavier, so OK with TEMPERAMENT.
Thanks Ulaca and setter
Spent only just over 20:00 on all but a small few clues, which together unfortunately took me up another 15 minutes – a lot of words I didn’t know and couldn’t parse but learning new vocab is always fun
I parsed antitrade but couldn’t work out if it was a real word and if so what it meant ! Otherwise OK
Times 29,251
Could I be so bold as to suggest an alternative explanation for 14 ac?
A + TT (motorcycle course) + ACK (An ACK listener, often referred to as a confirmation listener or acknowledgement listener, is a mechanism that confirms the successful receipt and processing of data or messages in a communication system).
Does this sound plausible?
As suggested, this was reasonably easy going, and I enjoyed it. Had to trust that ANTITRADES were a thing, and that ANNULAR was right, but the rest fell into place quite nearly. CODs HELPMEET and ZOROASTER.