Very pleasant puzzle today, nothing contentious or too tricky, and some nice anagrams. Once completed in about 14 minutes, it prompted me to look up the origins and etymology of “Aunt Sally”,
q.v. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aunt_Sally
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, DD = double definition, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | Plant’s beginning to flop down in secluded spot (10) |
| CORNFLOWER – CORNER (secluded spot) with F[lop], LOW (down) inserted. | |
| 6 | About a thousand following live stream (4) |
| BECK – BE (live) C (about, circa) K (1000). | |
| 8 | Chaps screening short film about tropical islands (8) |
| MALDIVES – MALES = chaps, insert VID[eo] reversed. | |
| 9 | An agreeable sort, bellboy finally succeeded in turning handle (3-3) |
| YES-MAN – [bellbo]Y, NAME reversed with S (succeeded) inserted. | |
| 10 | Nerd wastes no liquor (4) |
| ARAK – ANORAK loses its NO. | |
| 11 | Simple versions of the ad, edited to a certain degree (4-6) |
| SOFT-HEADED – hidden words. | |
| 12 | A comrade comes across military groups — heartless, or fair target? (4,5) |
| AUNT SALLY – A, ALLY (comrade), insert UN[i]TS. I saw it played it once in France and where they call it jeu de massacre (game of carnage). | |
| 14 | Trade union engaged in head count (3,2) |
| TOT UP – TU inside TOP = head. | |
| 17 | Part of staircase requires fresh coat of enamel (5) |
| NEWEL – NEW = fresh, E[name]L. | |
| 19 | Mark? He’s excited about old English craftsman (9) |
| SHOEMAKER – (MARK HE’S)* with OE inserted. | |
| 22 | One removes stains from front of coat that’s covered in red and nearly ruined (3,7) |
| DRY CLEANER – (RED NEARLY)* with C[oat] inserted. | |
| 23 | Press retreating, some begrudgingly (4) |
| URGE – hidden reversed. | |
| 24 | Rock band, half-cut, opening in strange key (6) |
| BASALT – BA[nd], S[trange], ALT = key on keyboard. | |
| 25 | Unpolished, one small thing holds ring in place (8) |
| IMPOLITE – I (one) MITE (small thing) insert PL with O (ring) inside that. | |
| 26 | Fringe drops penultimate comedy routine (4) |
| SKIT – SKIRT drops its penultimate letter. | |
| 27 | Large gathering assembled in part of square (5,5) |
| RIGHT ANGLE – (L GATHERING)*. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Raging egomaniac or what? (4,5) |
| COME AGAIN – (EGOMANIAC)*. | |
| 2 | Master again back around the Spanish Main, at last (7) |
| RELEARN – EL (the Spanish) inside REAR (back), [mai]N. | |
| 3 | Sweethearts have tête-à-tête? (4,4) |
| LOVE SEAT – LOVES (sweethearts) EAT (have). Maybe the definition is the whole clue, maybe not. | |
| 4 | Whilst hiking, fun somehow turns into false optimism (7,8) |
| WISHFUL THINKING – (WHILST HIKING FUN)*. | |
| 5 | Accent in Kent town almost grasped by soldiers (6) |
| RHYTHM – RM (Royal Marines) with HYTH[e] inserted. I find accent = rhythm a stretch. | |
| 6 | Dance leader, first-class, picked up flower (5,4) |
| BOSSA NOVA – BOSS (leader) A (first-class), AVON reversed, flower as in river Avon. | |
| 7 | Informal exchange with Middle Eastern state set up in country house (7) |
| CHATEAU – CHAT = informal exchange, UAE reversed. | |
| 13 | Keen swimmer pulls in Resistance soldier (9) |
| TRENCHANT – TENCH (a fish so swimmer), insert R, add ANT = soldier. | |
| 15 | As such, always interrupting — go on? (9) |
| PERSEVERE – PER SE = Latin for as such, insert EVER = always. | |
| 16 | Shabby journalist turned up and moved quietly around island (8) |
| DECREPIT – ED reversed, CREPT = moved quietly, insert I[sland]. | |
| 18 | Reserve electronic weapon on ship (7) |
| EARMARK – E[lectronic], ARM (weapon), ARK (ship, of a sort). | |
| 20 | Man possessing skill in motorsport? (7) |
| KARTING – KING (man in chess), insert ART = skill. | |
| 21 | Safe to cuddle small hound (6) |
| PESTER – PETER (slang for a safe), insert S[mall]. | |
35:33. Tricky to get going but fair progress once a few checkers were there to prompt… LOI was RHYTHM which I should have seen much sooner. I’ve never been to Hythe though so maybe that’s an excuse. COD for me was the long hidden …
Mostly enjoyable, except for RHYTHM. Like others a MER at the definition, which even consulting Chambers seems a stretch. And HYTHE, seriously? Liked the long anagrams for right angle and come again.
Nice gentle puzzle, though I biffed LOI SOFT-HEADED, and came here for the parsing – and I now feel somewhat silly.
Much enjoyed – thanks both
30 minutes – started off well but slowed down in the top half of the grid.
Very nice puzzle – I liked the clever inclusion Soft Headed and my COD to Rhythm (for which I was glad to remember the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch railway).
32:18
I took a while to get RHYTHM, since I was stuck on thinking the Kent town was Rye; on checking it is actually in East Sussex, so I was doubly confused.
LOI was EARMARK; even after the K in SKIT steered me towards ARK I still needed an alphabet trawl to get ARM.
Thanks Piquet and setter
Great puzzle sadly spoilt by 5d. Can anyone give an example where rhythm might be synonymous with accent?
An enjoyable puzzle but…
My LOI was RHYTHM – this despite me living between Folkestone and Hythe. Once I had filled in everything else, RHYTHM was the only word that fitted and it very obviously parsed, so in it went – but rhythm = accent? Surely not, not even remotely.
Accented refers to rhythm in speech I believe.
It can do – but “accented” isn’t “accent”, and “accent” doesn’t come close in meaning to “rhythm”. Come to think of it, neither does “accented”, since “accented” is an adjective formed from a past participle and “rhythm” is a noun. It’s just a duff clue.
Gah! Nobody seems to have fallen into the trap we did by putting BEAM for 6a. Parsed it as “live” giving “BE”, “thousand” giving “M”, around “A” and BEAM = a stream of photons.
This left us with A_A_E_U for 7d and, despite seeing the EAU ending, just didn’t spot CHATEAU for “country house” 🤦🏻♀️
Other than that, we really enjoyed it (thanks, Setter) and definitely needed today’s blog, thanks piquet.
A DNF for me with ARAK unsolved. Anorak just never came to mind even though I’ve seen it used as a synonym for nerd more than once before. Other than that, about 38 minutes for the rest of it, but another 15 minutes on 10ac produced nothing sensible so I reluctantly drew stumps.
40 mins inc a snooze. ARAK NHO took an age.
I immediately had two words for write-in-skip-the-parsing: Aunt Sally was known from past puzzles while Rhotic was known from (a great many) past discussions amongst our linguist commentators vis-a-vis dodgy homophones. I was proud of my vocabulary for a bit.
Sad that Rhotic really is an accent, while Rythm fits the wordplay, and I had a longer visit to the NE than I had planned on.
Thx, pip
19.38 which, given distractions, felt reasonable. Add me to the number who didn’t spot SOFT HEADED was “just” a hidden: I assumed it was an anagram/variations of “the ad” plus a reference to some sort of degree, which can often supply an appropriate set of letters.
I got off to a good start with some of the four-letter words and the long anagram at 4dn, and should have taken less than the eventual 36 minutes to complete it. Agree with others’ MER at ACCENT=RHYTHM and had expected someone to have come up with some convincing dictionary authority for this. But it did not delay me for too long, unlike other clues in the NW corner. An enjoyable exercise nonetheless.
FOI – BECK
LOI – SOFT-HEADED
COD – RIGHT ANGLE
Thanks to piquet and other contributors.
46:06 with the stabilisers on (in the form of the “check” button) because I don’t attempt the grown-up puzzle very often. It amazes me how some of you can dash it off in less than half that time without assistance. NHO AUNT SALLY (in that context), NEWEL or ARAK, but only the first one was a major head-scratcher.
Thank you for the blog!
28 minutes, the last 5 being on RHYTHM. I forgot about RM for soldiers, NHO Hythe, and accent didn’t suggest rhythm to me. It’s the second time ive been slmost beaten by RHYTHM, but I think it’s finally burned into my brain this time.
24.20 with Maldives and relearn my last two. A bit tougher than the two previous but nicely put together puzzle.
21’13”. Help up at end with LOVE S-A-. Didn’t know that TETE-A-TETE could refer to the item of furniture. Nearly fell for BEAM at 6ac, and was briefly tempted by MALVINAS before remembering they are anything but tropical. Many thanks.
Quite swiftly executed, this one apart from the NHO ARAK ( just couldn’t remember that definition word for Nerd) , and I never did see the hidden in 11a. AUNT SALLY was hard to tease out, but other than that all parsed well, and finished with fewer ‘look-up’s’ than usual. Enjoyable puzzle, with COME AGAIN and WISHFUL THINKING my CODs.