Just as some people don’t like Dickens, Shakespeare or the Bible, so is it with me and the Lord of the Rings, both the book and the interminable films. I tried to read the Hobbit once, and gave up when Bilbo left his house. I tried to watch the first episode thereof (oh come on, it’s only a short book – three episodes??! Really?) and fell asleep when they were about three centuries into discussing the lunch menu. So I approached my last in at 7d, and quickly became convinced that I had little hope of knowing the names of Hobbit lovers or why they might get twisted (though I could think of many possibilities of my own). Blinded to the real shape of the clue by sheer prejudice and fear, and thus transfixed, adding no less than 10 minutes to my 17 for all the rest.
The rest was not that difficult, though two words belong to that category of never before encountered, dodgy looking but still in the dictionary, apparently.
My workings, clue, definition, SOLUTION
Across
1 Just being next to fiendish leader is hideous (9)
FRIGHTFUL Not FAIR…, but RIGHTFUL for just placed next to (not in front of) F(iendish) “leader”
6 Round edge of rock, swimmer sunbathes (5)
BASKS The swimmer always had to be BASS, but it took me an unfeasible time to recognise there are two edges to rock, and K was the one we needed.
9 Wobbly, like a piece of furniture (7)
ASTABLE Well, it is a word as it turns out, and “not stable” is the definition we need though it has a more technical meaning as “capable of oscillating between two states” from the world of electronics, which is not really wobbly. I’ll give it a “just about OK” based on wordplay like: AS, piece of furniture TABLE.
10 Cash regularly received by lightweight English author (7)
GRAHAME cAsH (regularly) into lightweight GRAM plus E(nglish). Wind in the Willows, as if you needed to be told.
11 Fighter in Burma wanting tips for Asian language (5)
HINDI The visionary/gloriously insane Orde Wingate’s fighters in Burma (WWII) were known as CHINDITS after a mythical Burmese beast. Take off the front and rear (something which happened alarmingly often to Wingate’s columns) and you have the language you seek.
12 To succeed with modern technology, show some sense! (4,3,2)
COME OFF IT Succeed COME OFF, modern technology IT. Modern therefore means around (for me) 1968, when I had my first encounter with computers. Jim can, I believe push that date back.
14 Artillery sent back to Western Front in this? (3)
WAR Ah yes, my regiment (CCF). And Spike’s (and the late PC Keith Palmer) the Royal Artillery Take their initials, reverse them, attach them to the front of Western.
15 House seller, say, mostly keen, along with National Trust, to secure that (6,5)
ESTATE AGENT Mostly keen gives EAGE(r) which together with National Trust NT is intended to secure STATE for say.
17 Injured medallist’s back entering race, being keen (11)
LAMENTATION Injured gives LAME. Race gives NATION, shove in the T from the back end of medallist
19 Silky coat not quite all the rage (3)
FUR Fury without the last letter.
20 Old farm vehicle fan, sort of (9)
EXTRACTOR. This tractor is dead, it has ceased to be, it is an….
22 Made phone call after parking accident (5)
PRANG Usually wizard. RANG for made phone call after P(arking), which is the order you must do things in or risk £200 and 6 points.
24 3, maybe, is joining car race but failing to finish (7)
ISLEMAN Like 9, you can see what it is but faintly resent its existence. 3 (spoiler alert) is HEBRIDEAN, and the wordplay goes IS plus LE MAN(s), our unfinished car race.
26 Putting brakes on endless all night revelling (7)
HALTING An anagram (revelling) of AL(l) and NIGHT
27 Consumed portion of meat enthusiastically (5)
EATEN Hidden in mEAT ENthusiastically
28 Used properly, time moved on for Spooner (4-5)
WELL SPENT. For queue numbers, Rev Spooner swapped initial letters round either for humorous effect or as an eccentric speech impediment. His version of our answer would be SPELL WENT, which might mean “time moved”
Down
1 Second half’s disastrous (5)
FLASH Ah, ah. An anagram (disastrous) of HALF’S
2 I recite principal pieces from Threepenny Opera in private (7)
INTONER Take the principal T and O from Brecht/Weill’s opera and place them quietly into INNER for private
3 Fellow outlaw accepting lift from Scottish location (9)
HEBRIDEAN fellow HE, BAN outlaw (verb) and RIDE lift. To be assembled.
4 Part of breakfast perhaps spilt on chef’s tart (6,5)
FRENCH TOAST An anagram (spilt) of ON CHEF’S TART.
5 Drag bird up out of a lake (3)
LUG GULL, undoubtedly a bird, “up” without one of its L(ake)s
6 Great British PM in Australia promoting queen (5)
BRAVO Once you realise that British just provides the B, PM is afternoon (not Prime Minister) ARVO is Australian for afternoon, and that if you promote the Queen you push the R a little way up in the word, the answer’s easy. The trick is to do all those things in short order
7 Bit of a twist for Tolkien lovers? (7)
SNAFFLE At least some Tolkien lovers would be ELF FANS, and if you give them a twist you might end up with them upside down and giving you what counts as a particularly insistent horse’s bit. That added 10 minutes to my time, but I’ll only complain about the “of a” (surface reading only) and perhaps “twist” as an inversion indicator.
8 Tripe and mushrooms, after a time, served up weekly (9)
SPECTATOR Lay out ROT for tripe, CEPS for mushrooms, with A T(ime) before the latter, then invert the lot for Boris’s Organ.
13 Male expert in a case involving powerful women (11)
MATRIARCHAL M(ale), the expert: ARCH, buried in A TRIAL for a case.
14 Wine lover, terrible glutton (9)
WOLVERINE (L Gulo gulo) is a beast also known as the glutton. It’s also and anagram (terrible) of WINE LOVER
16 Bit of money for Indian and European, going short in US city (9)
ANNAPOLIS the ANNA was the 16th part of a rupee, and a short European is POLIS(h). Conflate
18 Sailor one’s left washing up with mum (7)
MATELOT Washing might be TOILET, leave I (one) out and invert, attach to an upright MA for mother.
19 Father nimble, but physically weak (7)
FRAGILE FR an abbreviation for Father, and AGILE stands in for nimble.
21 Bill has little time for paperwork (5)
ADMIN AD can mean BILL (as in, for example, handbill) and MIN is, in more ways than one, little time.
23 Soldier suffered a cut (5)
GIGOT A leg of mutton, created by GI soldier and GOT suffered, as in he got an attack of the flu.
25 Fresh set of directions (3)
NEW. Pick and arrange three of four.
Never heard of PRANG either, but the wordplay was clear. And ARVO? No chance. But with the B, the A and the O “great” could only give BRAVO.
Edited at 2017-03-30 06:30 pm (UTC)
A girl I was going out with, who was reading English at LMH, was scandalised that I hadn’t read Tolkien, so I felt obliged to and actually enjoyed both The Hobbit and LotR very much. Hated the films though (never got past the first of the Hobbit ones).
I’m with dorsetjimbo though in being saddened that the Chindits aren’t as well known as they ought to be. “Fighter in Burma …” would have made HINDI an easy win for my generation.